Aussie: I choose Waitangi Day
OPINION: I had not long been living in New Zealand when I was sent to cover the All Blacks’ visit to the Turangawaewae Marae in Ngaruawahia ahead of the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
As an Aussie fresh off the boat, I’d no real idea what a Marae was, let alone a powhiri, but went determined to muddle through as best I could.
When I arrived all my fears and nerves fizzled away: here was a place, so steeped in history and mana, that welcomed me like a warm hug from a favourite aunty at a barbecue.
The women, sensing my greeness, told me where to stand and encouraged me to sing a waiata as the All Blacks arrived, and I was never without company, a kind word, or a hot drink on that cold, rainy day.
Children darted around the legs of Richie McCaw and Dan Carter as though they were older brothers, Sonny Bill Williams was mobbed by the nannies, and at that moment I don’t think I could have been prouder of my newly adopted country.
As the years have gone by New Zealand has never stopped amazing me, never stopped giving me reasons to be proud.
It’s there when I hear the national anthem sung in Te Reo Maori, when I see Muslim refugees from Afghanistan selling Christmas decorations at the local markets, when my sons eat their vegetables because they want to grow big and strong and be All Blacks.
It means that February 6 my little family, where mum is an Aussie and dad was raised in Northern Ireland, will pause and mark Waitangi Day in our own way. We will probably go to a local park for a picnic lunch surrounded by other families who all love this country too.
And at some point my thoughts will most likely turn to the last time I was in Australia for its national day – Australia Day.
I spent the morning in my hometown of Camden in Sydney’s south west.
Camden is famous for two things – being the spot where merino sheep were first farmed and for sticking pigs heads on stakes to stop a proposed Islamic school.
But still I was shocked to find a local shop selling Aussie flag t-shirts with the words ‘You Flew Here, I Grew Here’ .
More heartbreaking was they were flying off the shelves, a lovely Vietnamese-Australian working having to ring up the purchases.
So when Prime Minister Bill English says many Kiwis ‘‘cringe’’ at Waitangi Day protests, I think back to my last years in Australia.
I cringe when I remember that t-shirt, the pigs’ heads, the Cronulla race riots.
But I don’t cringe at Waitangi Day protests. I suspect they are only a small part of the days of festivity at the site, and I believe it is a healthy part of any culture and society to be understanding and tolerant of people who protest.
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