With the recent news on the newly proposed government’s plans to remove the usage of reo Māori in public sectors, it feels like we're returning to where we started.
When talking about it, the Mai Morning Crew received a text saying,“ You Māoris need to get over it. Ain't you all islanders anyway? Why do you give a f***?”
“The reason why it is disheartening when people have the balls to text something like that,” Tegan said.
“The reason why it sucks to hear that reo Māori is being stripped from public sectors is because there are so many people that have worked so damn hard to drive revitalise this landmark expert. For those generations that were told, they weren't allowed to speak it. Finally, they are getting their moment to be able to learn their language and everything like that as well."
“There’s a whole generation that have had the power to try and revitalise this language so it becomes more and more normal. We’re hearing like Māori greetings and address on the news at 6pm every night which honestly seems so minor. But you know if you think about how our parents grew up compared to us now, it’s so cool. It’s actually cool to learn Māori.
It hurts because finally we got our language back, but it feels like we’re taking ten step backward.
Tegan also has a message to anyone who has been feeling ‘disheartened by the social and political climate at the moment’.
“Just the fact that we are proud to be Māori like keep that, keep that wear with your chest and keep doing that."
“I just want to echo that anyone who is feeling a little bit pouri at the moment, because of all that kind of stuff, don't let it dim your light or anything like that."
We're Māori, we're here. We're not going anywhere. Let's just work even harder because we're going to have to work even harder to keep pushing to just bring back our culture.
“And we ain't changing it either. We're going to keep using that on our show within the station," Stormed added.
Watch the full vid above.
