What is this? Are we living in the 6th century with the height of Christianity? This is very unmodern.
Now, the reason we know about this is because the ACT Party's been leaked an email that was sent to staff that says:
"We encourage everyone to incorporate Karakia daily. To help support you with this, we have created some pre-recorded videos to learn Karakia."
Now, we don't know which staff are being encouraged, but let’s assume it's for everyone, because that's generally how organisations work when they roll something like this out - they roll it out to absolutely everyone.
So let’s assume that this also involves doctors and nurses and surgeons and anaesthetists and so on.
You been a hospital lately?
Those people are run off their feet, they are so busy patients often have to wait half an hour - sometimes an hour - for a nurse to respond to something that they need.
You want a doctor to answer basic questions? You have to get them on their 8am round and if you don't - good luck to you.
Do we really think that people who are madly understaffed, who are run off their feet, who are having such a difficult time at work also have time to stop and say a prayer?
Come on, Health NZ, have some priorities.
What's more is that this is completely inappropriate in the modern world to force religion on anyone in a workplace. And that is what this is.
You can call it a Karakia to make it sound cool and fashionable and culturally aware, but it’s a prayer. And a prayer is a religious act. And I say that as someone who identifies broadly as Christian, not cool.
This is fundamentally one of the biggest problems with the public service. Across many departments, they have allowed themselves to get distracted by stuff like this, which is not their core job.
They need to act more like the private sector and just do the work - and forget everything else
And then, maybe they’ll actually be good at their job. You never know.
Now, it is worth saying - if you object to this, you have to be logically consistent and also object to the prayer at the start of Parliament. Because that is, frankly, forcing religion on people and wasting time.
I object to that as well, scrap them both.
But scrap the Health NZ prayer first, because that is wasting the time of people whose jobs are literally to save lives.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.
10 comments:
Absolutely spot on Heather and well said, I work for the Crown and this kind of cultural indoctrination is rife. If anything is your belief then that's fine but dont force it on everyone else who does not believe!!, show some respect for others. Especial at the taxpayers cost, no wonder this country is in the state we are in. What happened to the days when we all came to work and did our jobs regardless of your race, culture, religion, gender or beliefs.
So much for NZ being a secular society and freedom of choice on matters religion.
Does it count as a prayer to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?
I sing like a seal.
I was the child who got tapped on the head during school singing and asked to leave the class practice and sit outside and read (subtext obvious even to this 9 year old - your singing is so bad you are beyond hope).
And this wasn’t the first time, or the first school. (To heap indignity upon indignity, although i was born with highly strung vocal cords, i was also cursed with acute hearing - ie i was NOT tone deaf so I too heard just how “different” my singing was.)
Acknowledging the grim reality that i was never going to be a Cher ( or even a Bonnie Tyler) I shut my mouth and went instead into medicine, where I’ve had a career that I just love, and I’m good at.
I can’t believe (well I can actually - after all, this is Aotearoa) that now, in order to be a culturally safe “competent” doctor I have to learn songs and sing them out loud while I work and that if I refuse, the only allowable explanation will be that I am racist.
I sometimes think the quickest way to stop this nonsense would be for people like me to just sing at the top of our voices and to our hearts’ content - I have a feeling were I to do that group singing sessions would be smartly relegated to the rubbish bin.
And as a by the bye, my keen and enthusiastic youngest has just abandoned a budding medical career in NZ for Australia. This was the child who told me recently - “Mum i just love medicine. I can’t believe I am paid to come to work when i get to learn so much myself.”
Suffuce to say, this child did not leave the NZ medical system because s/he wasn’t being paid enough…
Thank you for bringing this up Heather.
WHAT on earth are we doing???
This has been commented about this on other Breaking View sites eg Jerry Coyne 20 July. (18 comments). Apparently a southern hospiice worker felt compelled to participate in Karakia against their wishes. Religious practices should always be voluntary.
Karakia are not non-religious. They include invoking all sorts of 'spirits' of ancestors , and other entities. As a Christian I would refuse to participate since I don't understand well what is being said and do not want to be in the presence of influences of unknown origin.
I am very disturbed about Karakia even being chanted in Christian Churches. This seemingly DEI Marxist stuff has been sneaked in.
Thank you and your child for your service to our community, I only wish some elements were more grateful. If someone wants to chant something at me while in hospital I will tell them to damned well shut up. I have also resolved that the A word will be severely punished if used in my presence and if anyone says "Kia-Ora" to me I shall be saying, Thanks, I love orange drinks, can I have two?
Hi Heather, what a great article.
I am not Maori - but I studied at Te Wananga o Aotearoa.
It is a mistake to translate karakia with prayer. A karakia is an incantation. There are "Christian" karakia, however often they are not Christian in theology (belief system).
For example, if a karakia starts with "e te atua" it is important to understand that an atua is a god. Maori spirituality has multiple gods (e.g. god of the forest, god of the wind etc).
A Christian prayer may be addressed to Ihoa (translation of Jehovah) or Ihu Karaiti (Jesus Christ).
A large number of New Zealand classrooms do Maori incantations (Karakia) at the beginning and end of the school day, at the beginning and end of a school assembly, and at the beginning and end of a staff and syndicate meeting and usually for every meal (morning tea and lunch). In order to follow tikanga, the karakia are always followed by a waiata. Few of the children, parents, teachers or leaders would be able to translate the Maori of the karakia or waiata into English. This is a lot of karakia in every school day. Arguably more than a typical church service on a Sunday.
Heather, I would be keen to read an article on this popular trend.
Nga mihi, kind regards.
Who sent the email and why is s/he still employed by Health NZ?
The argument that parliamentarians who object to state service workplace Maori prayers are hypocrites because they tolerate prayers each day in Parliament, is spurious. It's like claiming that because someone tolerates alcohol and tobacco they would be hypocrites to object to the legalization of other drugs.
Firstly, prayers in Parliament are not equivalent to Maori prayers in workplaces. For example, the Parliamentary prayer is short, happens only once per day that Parliament sits, and the wording is set and predictable. Maori prayers in workplaces can be and are being done for multiple meetings throughout any day, they can be as long as the speaker wants to make them, they can include whatever content the speaker chooses and in te reo most of those present won't know what's being said. Even if the content is totally against a worker's own religious or ethical beliefs, (s)he is expected to support this at least through passive respect in naive ignorance. Knowing what the routine prayer says enables MPs to challenge the content, and accordingly changes have been made over time such as removal of a reference to Jesus and its status as a specifically Christian prayer in 2017. State service employees have no such right even if they could predict the wording of any workplace karakia. Also, parliamentarians don't have to turn up for the daily prayer and they won't lose their job for avoiding it whereas workers are required to be at work from the starting time they are paid for and are a captive audience.
Secondly, long-established customs from past era can be difficult to change but that doesn't mean we should accept their spread. Most MPs who oppose workplace karakia probably also object to the Parliamentary prayer but, while they can lobby for changes, getting rid of that superstitious practice is currently an impossible quest given the number of other MPs who support the ritual. Further, MPs who oppose workplace karakia might even support the Parliamentary prayer simply because it's tradition and/or perhaps because of the other differences discussed above. The recreational drug analogy pertains: People might accept legal alcohol and tobacco and even imbibe but not want the range of drugs or the lawful age of users to be expanded. That doesn't make them hypocrites.
Ken S: Actually, Health NZ publishes these things on a web page that is accessible by anyone.
While I agree that prescribed prayers are often insincere and ineffectual, the power of sincere prayer, especially one involving gratitude, can be immensely powerful. I suspect those criticising karakia have never tried it.
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