By Rupert Pye
Let them all dance something traditional
The enraged outbursts at Spain and Holland team members spontaneously and in high spirited fashion trying to perform the Haka ahead of the Women’s World Cup being co-hosted in New Zealand, has left me bemused.
It’s also left me wondering where New Zealand’s sense of humour has gone. In the past, I have suggested if the Haka is allowed, then to be fair and not discriminate, that at World Cup tournaments or test matches, why not invite and allow
- Scotland to do the Highland Fling
- England the Morris Dance
- France the Can-can
- Wales the Folk Dance
- Ireland the Step dance
- Australia the Bush Dance
Newcomers to test match rugby Argentina could do the Tango. Another rugby test newcomer Japan could do their traditional dance-drama, the Kabuki.
It would be a great spectacle. It would also compensate for the frustrations of spectators at the illogical rugby rules foisted on the game by the “wise” rugby heads, such as blatant obstruction by brutish forwards driving ahead of their teammate holding the ball or the dangerous, ludicrous allowing of players around mauls to tackle the man without the ball?
Having a bit of fun
But I digress. So why have some Māori become so upset and precious about the Spanish women’s football team accused of doing a mock haka? Were the Spanish mocking? I doubt it.More probably they were just having fun.
The often quoted figure Oscar Wilde once said “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” More likely, the Spaniards and Dutch were just having a bit of fun. Really that’s all it was. It should have been seen as just that and greeted with a smile or laughter.
Instead the fuming reactionary outbursts at Spain’s and Holland’s sense of humour with their parodies of the Haka, has exposed New Zealand’s lack of humour. More concerning is that New Zealanders are in danger of becoming too precious and pretentious.
Needed – a Billy T James style parody
I suspect master comedian the late Billy T. James would have had a field day over the angry antics and more particularly the reaction. Yesteryear the Howard Morrison quartet might have turned the dances by the Dutch and Spanish footballers into a song. Remember the Howard Morrison Quartet and their hit song “My Old Man’s an All Black”? Lyric lines like “There’s no Horis in that scrum”?
Parodies are invariably funny. If the All Blacks in a tour of Scotland did a parody on the Highland Fling or in England, on the Morris Dance, would the Scots and English respectively have taken deep seated serious offence and angrily demanded an apology? I doubt it — instead I’m sure they would have chortled.
Chucking off at the Irish
Look at the jokes and wisecracks by comedians about the Irish? The Irish, bless their souls, just laugh. They can laugh at themselves. They’re not hypersensitive or so terribly touchy. Sometimes they have the last laugh such as on 9 July, 2022 when the Irish rugby team scored their first victory against the All Blacks on New Zealand soil – their fourth win over New Zealand.
That win on New Zealand soil was despite the haka performed before the game by the All Blacks. But what if the Irish had insisted they be allowed to perform their country’s Step dance?
Iwi fury about the Spanish women’s haka
But here in New Zealand, the Rangitane iwi were furious at the Spanish women’s football team. A Rangitane spokesperson was quoted as saying FIFA as an organisation needed to step up when it came to the recognition of indigenous peoples.
But what if the Spanish wanted to perform the Flamenco before their games. What if New Zealand had performed a parody on the Flamenco?
I suspect the Spaniards would have laughed and taken it in good humour. As it was the Spanish team opted — or were coerced — to apologise.
“We have only been in Aotearoa, New Zealand for a few days and we still have a lot to learn about your culture,” Captain Ivana Andres told elders and members of the local Rangitane O Manawatu iwi tribe. She asked for forgiveness and gave the tribal elders a Spanish shirt that said Papaioea, the Maori name for Palmerston North.
Get a life
Underlying all of the fuss and “much ado about nothing” was the question, has New Zealand as a nation, lost it sense of humour? Billy T James and Howard Morrison looking down would probably with furrowed brows be saying “Yes, c’mon Kiwis, get a life.”
It is not NEW ZEALANDERS that have lost their sense of humour – it is futching-maori-elites who have their nickers in a twist; and are influencing the way real NEW ZEALANDERS think.
Just think for a moment how Billy T James would be treated today by the media? It’s time we all woke up. The Kiwi has been almost driven to extinction by the Wellington fish bowl.
He got some stick from Maori radicals while he was alive, it would be much worse now.
Perhaps there should be no incantations or dances of any kind by any teams permitted. After all the haka is a war dance. Not having the haka also removes any possibility of any accusations of cultural appropriation.
Teams could just line up and sing the national anthem and then it’s kick off. I often wonder if teams who are set to play against NZ inwardly roll their eyes thinking ‘not this again, why don’t they just get over themselves’.
Folks,don’t forget the recieving end of this Kapa hate ya kill & spit roast ya ritual!.My parents made a visit in 1976 from Denver Colorado USA, to view & goo goo my infant daughter.
On the trip down I side stepped into Roota Rower,cause I thought I’d give them a bit of kiwi culture,by taking them to one of those moedi shows put on for tourists when they’re not bending over bubbling pits of mud..We got a seat right up close front row so that they could be right in the action, well the sceeching hate fist shaking spear pounding half naked bags of blubber,eyepopping tongue wagging hate & kill went on for 15 minutes.My mother said,” I got to get out of here,I can’t take another minute of this belligerent aggression,my folks were thoroughly apalled.No doubt they were not the only people wishing to max distance themselves from this hatred. Later my mother said she was most offended by the female involvement, as many primitive tribes have war dances.But all up a very sour experience that the sub message was that bit was probably directed towards white people.
It’s quite easy to understand where the Kiwis’ sense of humor went after all they have been put through these past few years. They are still traumatized by what Jacinda (the witch) put them through. They now have a country that use to be regarded as “clean, green, pristine”…a country that was a trout fishing mecca..a country that wasn’t poisoned by 1080, not mandated to put bio-weapon shots in your arm…to well….a province of China (how much land, factories, businesses now owned by China??), polluted rivers and run by a police state….that’s where, in my humble opinion, their sense of humor went. Yes, “get a life” is easy to say…but how does one recover from the above mentioned? My sincere condolences to the people of NZ who have been forever harmed by their own government. I am not afraid to use my own name….as I never want to travel to NZ ever again.