Hone Harawira and the Maori Party have gone into 1984 mode after what is being described as “considerable response” to his verbal attack on Jews in the house last week.
His comments made in Maori then translated by him were repreated on the Maori Party website which as now been retro fitted without any applogy or refernce to the change.
Meanwhile in his “appology” he is claiming the dog ate his homework he “forgot” the Maori word for Israel and just used “Jew” instead.
“I spoke in Maori and in doing so I forgot the proper translation for Israel, Iharaira, and used the term Hurae, or Jews, when condemning the Israeli attacks.
Well thats fine then you only meant to attack Israel, not just the Jews. Excellent.
“It was not my intention to attack Jews and I regret using the term.”
Really? Well it was certainly your intention to attack someone, you’re now claiming it was Israel are you?
Aside from the small issue that he himself translated one key word as “murder”. It is to be assumed that he knew he what his intent was and he understands the difference between murder and killing in English ensuring his biased attack was as emotive and judgemental as possible because only Israel is “murdering” people.
But we busted you on that one too.
Mr Harawira also today said he accepted that unnecessary deaths had occurred on both sides “in this long-running conflict” and that his speech should have reflected that as well.
So much the better to stir up anti-Jewish fervor in these troubles times eh Hone?
But come on lets be reasonable, this is New Zealand. The peace loving caring and sharing shiny happy population wouldn’t go out and do anything like attack a Synagogue just because a politican had launched into an anti-Israel tirade for the sake of a photo op now is it? I mean aside from the multiple grave attacks after Helen Clarks ex judica outburst over what she claims was spying.
Oh bugger, look it’s happened again.
I sugest in future in the Member for Terahn doesn’t have full command of Maori he might stick to English or get it writen down for him before hand… speaking of which these statements in the house are frequently prewriten. Anyone got footage of him reading off this little gem by any chance?
Hey what have Mel Gibson and Hone Harawira got in common? they’ve both said sorry for an anti-Semitic outburst. At least Mel was hammered at the time.
Some notes on Maori language.
I resisted all my mothers attempts to teach me Maori on the grounds that I was learning useful things at the time like rabbit hunting and talking to girls on the phone, but I aquired some by osmosis against my best efforts. Being part Maori she thought it her duty to force it on me. I’m also part Irish but you don’t see me blowing up English soldiers do you?
I digress…
Being isolated from the rest of the world untill the late 1700’s Maori language while rich and versatile was lacking in many areas and the culture wasn’t technlogically advanced. Consequently there are no actual Maori words as such for many common objects. The solution was that these objects have been more or less assigned a “Maori” equivilent which is pretty much the same word with a Maori inflection.
For example:
book = pukapuka
ship = hipi
Queen Victoria became wikitoria which apparently tickled her a lot. She had a great love of language and tried to learn enough to great everyone in their own. So shes one up on me.. well that and the whole worlds biggest empire thing.
More complex concepts had to be cobbled together, for example “house” is “whare” in Maori so a library became “whare pukapuka”. Pretty much a house with books in it.
During the late 80’s there was some kind of demented scramble to give every Government Department it’s own Maori name which many who were in the public service will remember was highly amusing as some of the more esoteric concepts led to some very dodgey translations. Especially when translated back into English they were so… um “amusing” that some departments had to shell out great wads of cash to get their flash new brass lettering taken down and replaced with something a little less mirth inducing. Yeah looking at you MERT.
So how does this relate to our little “oops I forgot the right word” incident above?
Well given that New Zealand wasn’t exactly over run with Sons of Abraham in the 1500’s and Israel is a fairly recent addition to the map (just like Lebanon, Syria, Iran & Iraq but no one ever questions their right to exist for some reason) the “sounds like but with Maori inflection” method was used to create the words for Jew and Israel.
Jew = Hurae
Israel = Iharaira
Which given Maori doesn’t contain S’s & J’s you can see is pretty much a simple phonetic overlay and inflection. I was able to pick out that he did in fact say “Jew” from the Maori transcript by looking for a word that sounded like Jew, PING there it is, pile on. There was some discussion that there may have been a lingual missunderstanding which is why some bloggers held off. However this was not the case.
Now given that Home Harawira knows the words “Jew” & “Israel” perfectly well in English and he has learned - as he admits - those words in Maori exactly how credible is it that he “forgot” a phoneticly similar word with an inflection added?
You decide.
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