Plastic wakas. This has gotta be a "nice to have". Shame on you National!
This totally lessens Maori culture. So tourists come over here and think that, a freakin plastic waka is Maori culture. People think less of us already with the dumbing down of the haka, and the crap that goes on in Rotorua.
Shane Jones, rightly is making hay of this. I see his speech in the house today was soley based on it. And now thanks to the brilliant Maui Street blog, chur bro, it looks like Shane is only a few thousand votes behind good ole huggy bear Pita.
This has surely gotta boost Shane Jone's chances, after Sharples has already been tarnished by the F and S debacle this year. tut and tut.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4852407/Govt-funding-of-giant-plastic-waka-slammed
"This totally lessens Maori culture"
ReplyDeleteI hear this alot. Many people seem to be quick to echo what you said, but rather slow to explain why or how.
What is the fundamental reason? Is it because it isn't hand carved from 100% indigenous materials by trained Maori carvers?
The enthnocentric implication here, is that Maori will always be subject to criticism whenever and wherever modern materials are used for various cultural objects.
I remember similar criticism being leveled at ta moko artists for using ink guns or wood carvers for using chainsaws at various times.
It would be a bit silly if we applied the same standard to Pakeha, wouldn't it? Actually, the first hurdle is the fact that you'd almost expect Pakeha to use modern synthetic materials in design - but not Maori.
When was the last time you were in a Pakeha construction of similar size that didn't have some synthetic material somewhere? It's a typical Pakeha double standard.
Can we say that Party Central "lessens" Pakeha culture for similar reasons?
If you stop to think about it from a design perspective, the construction materials make sense based on a number of requirements such as: quick assembly and disassembly; packing into the smallest number of standard shipping containers; weather.
Get over it bro...