Happy Waitangi Day

I am sick of people telling me that Waitagi Day is not our national day, that it's a day for protest, that it's a day for Maori, that it's THEIR day.

What a load of crap!

As john Key said yesterday, "It's time to get with the programme."

Waitangi Day is our national day, whether you are Maori, Pakeha, Asian, Samoan or anything, this is our only day to celebrate our country and I'll be dammed if anyone will take my day of celebrating New Zealand away from me.

I spoke to 'Val' between 5.30am and 6.ooam this morning, she said she has 'no time' for Waitangi Day, because there's has 'always been trouble'. I told her I felt sad for her and this is why.

Waitangi Day has been a place of protest in the past, and will be in the future for a few people, just like in Australia some Aborigines celebrate 'Invasion Day' on Australia Day. If you got all the people who protested in New Zealand for the past 20 years, and put them in one pile, the number would be so insignificant that why would anyone allow such a minority to take our national day of us? It's ridiculous...why would I let that minority win! They want it to be their day of protest, why would we bow to them?

There is truth in the idea that Waitangi day leads to treaty issues leads to controversy on onwards...fair enough, but here's what I'm going to start doing. I am choosing to own Waitangi Day as my national day, even if it means putting all those connected issues aside for one day, and pick them up again tomorrow

The other thing that I am interested in is seeing what the major networks lead with tonight...if its scuffles and protests I will be saddened as it won't be a fair representation of the day. The media has a huge part to play in how we interpret how the day is received.

Subsequent to the show here's an email I got...

From: Graeme & Yoli [mailto:yoliandgraeme@xtra.co.nz]
Sent: Friday, 6 February 2009 9:49 a.m.To:
Pat Brittenden
Subject: waitangi day
Hello

Your expletives regarding the above mentioned day and your enquiry as to why so many New Zealander's didn't embrace this maori crap as a day of celebration had us enfuriated. We cannot understand how someone so naive could end up on talkback radio, you're an idiot.

Our country (or is that cuntry) is top heavy with a politically correct bias toward a bunch of illiterate cannibals that used to eat each other 200 tears ago. We, NZ born Europeans have had a gut full of pandering toward maori needs.

Our country is multicultural now with Chinese, Korean, Philippine (to mention a few) that have instilled far more civilized culture into New Zealand than maori could ever dream of.

Oh! for a true New Zealand Day! When will it ever happen?

People like this always spout off about Maori being 'victims', I think is is a clinical example of being a victim and as I said to 'Val', I am sad for them.

For this to be our national day, and it's the only option right now, then we need to choose to own it, to celebrate it and get over our victim mentalities and over sensitivities and have fun....doesn't sound that difficult does it....let's choose to have a fun national holiday.

Or we could continue to instil into the next generation hatred and resentment towards the day our nation should be celebrating its birth.