Te reo has made me whole for the first time

failure or other, not engineering some petty work success to brighten up life.

Not angry any more, mostly.

I used to be just another Ma¯ ori who did not speak te reo. Now, to be fair, I still don’t speak te reo Ma¯ ori very well, but I am a whole person for the first time in my life. Before, one half of me used to be wordless, while the other was coldly getting on with the business of getting on.

I don’t blame my pa¯ keha¯ half for being all business. That’s what pa¯ keha¯ do, I guess. (Don’t worry, some of my best friends are pa¯ keha¯ . My dad’s one too.)

My plea here is for all Ma¯ ori (and any willing pa¯ keha¯ ) – regardless of age – to learn te reo. Do it any way you can. Do it as soon as you can. Make it your priority. By all means take that beginners’ course, but only as a taster for the real thing: full immersion, fulltime.

You might ask how I can say this, based on only seven weeks. That’s the most extraordinary part. It only took one bloody day to learn who I was again. The rest of that time has been a dazed, blinking, happy walk forward.

So please take up the fight for this beautiful language, this culture, this history, which woven together make the only truly singular cloth left in this hand-me-down joint.

Anyway, this is a column by a Ma¯ ori. I don’t speak for other Ma¯ ori, but it’s still a good thing to have a voice here. After all, it is the voice of someone going through a transformation that can’t be bought for any money. (Except a student loan: and if that triggers you – another Ma¯ ori wasting taxpayers’ money on a primitive, dying, separatist culture – then don’t worry. I’m also earning money from this column you’re reading. Thanks.)

There are few decisions we make in life that we know, without doubt, were on the right side of our inner history.

Life is messy. This reo journey is a revelation for me because, in my messy life, it is a decision that is beautifully correct. That is the simplicity of childhood.

There are plenty of voices out there, of the squeegee-on-dry-glass variety, who would like to see the end of what they say is special treatment for Ma¯ ori. I think they would just like to see an end to Ma¯ ori language and culture in our country.

They say it is best for us and them. I say it’s like starving someone, then mugging the ghost.

This year in this column we will explore what it means to be living this messy life together.

If my own experience is anything to go by, then there are ways to cut through the mess and unite the split.

At the moment, one half of us wants to roar and the other only hears echoes and whispers.