This is NOT about Donald Trump . . .
This week, we were told, we should all condemn Donald Trump’s ban on citizens of seven predominantly Muslim nations. Our politicians should condemn him. Our journalists should condemn him. Everyone with a Twitter account should condemn him.
‘‘It can’t be said often enough or loud enough,’’ Dunedin’s Paul le Comte tweeted me.
Well . . . this is me not condemning him. This is me not using the Trump ban as a club with which to batter our own politicians on social media. This is me observing that trite old adage: If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
This is me talking about the weather on Waitangi Weekend.
The weather this summer has been, at best, mixed. I’m in Wellington this weekend, where yesterday’s Dominion Post front page was headlined ‘‘Our bummer summer’’. Our nation’s capital had enjoyed only eight ‘‘beach days’’ this summer, the paper bemoaned.
A beach day, according to the MetService, is a day with more than eight hours of cloudless sunshine and 17C. By contrast, almost every day of January was a beach day in Northland (and in the US, since last month’s inauguration, Trump says there have been 1.5 million beach days).
Just in time for the long weekend, the weather improved nationwide. But you’d still wager that Northland will alwaysw offer the best weather for Waitangi Day.
That’s why Prime Minister Bill English has got it so badly wrong in choosing to not attend the commemorations of the signing of the Treaty at its home in Waitangi.
Never mind the protests, forget about whether he’s allowed to speak, at least it will be sunny in the Bay of Islands. Taking the Treaty on the road like the Rugby World Cup is all very well, but you can’t guarantee the sun will also show up for the Waitangi Day dawn karakia in Wellington or the West Coast.
If English wants to show off his fluency in te reo – by all accounts, he spoke very well at Ratana – then Waitangi is the place to do it (that, or on his scheduled phone call with the Donald You thought the Australian Prime Minister was ‘‘the worst call ever’’, Mr President? Try finding an interpreter in the West Wing to translate a few well-placed insults delivered in Maori).
This week, the Green-Labour opposition tentatively proposed making the Maori language a compulsory part of the school curriculum for Years 1 to 10. That’s sadly defeatist. Far better that we persuade New Zealanders, young and old, that Maori culture is an integral part of what it means to be a Kiwi. Far better that parents want their kids to learn Maori.
Now, that’s a message that would guarantee the prime minister a place on the sundrenched paepae at Te Tii Marae in Waitangi.
One further note: You can tweet your condemnation of Trump, if that makes you feel you’re making a blind bit of difference. But if you are really concerned about the plight of refugees, check out some ideas from Murdoch Stevens of Doing Our Bit NZ: Forget the slacktivism, p7