Word: maori
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When a new road is abandoned because some Maori say it will disturb a spirit monster, New Zealanders may fume, but they also laugh. When tribes use their influence to bog down development projects for years, public ire eventually fades. Maori claims to the nation's oil and mineral reserves stirred anger, but the Labour government's firm "no" ensured it was short-lived. Last year's claim to the seabed and foreshores was different. Instead of scotching it, the government offered a compromise, which Maori are still considering. Beach-loving New Zealanders were outraged - and they've stayed that...
...Zealanders equal - or do Maori deserve special status? The question nags at the nation like a toothache. But in militantly harmonious New Zealand, probing it can be painful. Most non-Maori would rather have root-canal work than be called a racist. But when Don Brash became leader of the conservative National Party in October, he thought the country "desperately needed to have an adult discussion" about race. So the former Reserve Bank governor, whose wife is a Chinese New Zealander, gave it one. In a speech on Jan. 27, he said the government's obsession with the 1840 Treaty...
...Maori activists called Brash a "dirty racist" and mocked his "Ku Klux Klan speech." He'd "set out to be divisive," said Prime Minister Helen Clark. And succeeded: "For quite a long time there has been a consensus about how issues affecting Maoridom are dealt with," Clark said. "That consensus appears to be shattered." So does the one about next year's elections. Before Brash became leader, polls put National's support at just 27%, far behind Labour's 45%. Last week National had shot to 45% while Labour was behind for the first time in four years...
...epicenter is the Treaty of Waitangi, a 150-word document as obscure as it is brief. Since the 1980s, when a tribunal was set up to hear Maori claims for redress, successive governments have invested the treaty with near-constitutional mystique. So far, of a thousand claims registered, only a quarter have been heard. The claims process has given rise to a wealthy Maori elite of lawyers, politicians and cultural consultants. Some have grown adept, Brash says, at interpreting the document to suit their own purposes. "This generation of New Zealanders recognized that there were wrongs in the past," says...
...must-see hit for five-year-olds, college students and retirees. Castle-Hughes’ role in Whale Rider is far more understated, yet the youngest ever Best Actress nominee also deserves recognition for displaying an inner strength and patience that hold together what might have been the Maori version of Yentl...