“Every two weeks a language dies with the last speaker…. when our children and their children slowly start to swap their mother tongue for the new country’s language. And it is when they come home and start telling us about their day in English, rather than [in] our mother tongue, that you realise that we are struggling to maintain our culture , our language and our way of life,” Melissa Lee, National Party spokesperson for ethnic communities, said .
She was addressing the Tamil Conference 2022, organised by the Aotearoa New Zealand Federation of Tamil Sanghams, held in Lower Hutt on November 11.
Other dignitaries present on the occasion included Lower Hutt Deputy Mayor Tui Lewis and members of Parliament Ginny Andersen and Chris Bishop, as well as Indian High Commission Second Secretary Durga Dass.
Melissa Lee noted that both Tamil and Korean (her native language) were “ rooted in the importance and value of family, in respecting and learning from the wisdom of our elders and passing these values down to our youth.” She strongly advocated the introduction of choice to learn the mother tongue in New Zealand schools.
Declaring the conference open, Deputy Mayor Lewis, who was standing in for Mayor Barry Campbell, referenced the billion-dollar infrastructure investment under way in Hutt city, which made it a destination for “people from all over the world.”
Ginny Anderson (Labour) commended the Tamil community for translating the Treaty of Waitangi into Tamil and “forging a strong relationship between Tangata whenua and Tangata Tiriti.”
Chris Bishop (National) said he had great pride in being a part of efforts at “fostering multiculturalism and diversity and making [Hutt city] a welcoming community for everyone, no matter their ethnic background , their religion, their creed, their race.”
Minister for Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities Priyanca Radhakrishnan, felicitating the gathering via video, said “the past few years have highlighted the need to come together to celebrate and promote our shared identities as New Zealanders, but also the traditions and cultures that make us who we are, and unique as New Zealanders.” Informing the audience that she was born in [the Indian state of] Tamil Nadu and raised in Singapore, the minister recalled growing up with “Tamil being spoken around me.” She said “language connects us to our histories, our heritage, our culture, and is therefore a significant part of our identities.”
Minister for Immigration Michael Wood, also speaking via video, acknowledged the contribution of the Tamil community in Aotearoa. He made special mention of the efforts by the Tamil community to reach out to the indigenous Maori people and to establish a connection lasting into the future.
Federation president Raveen Annamalai described the conference as an “epic moment” in the lives of the roughly 20,000-strong Tamil ethnic community in New Zealand. He said Tamil was the oldest language in the world and acknowledged the presence of speakers drawn from the Tamil diaspora spread across Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and India.
The conference witnessed the launch of the Tamil translation of the Treaty of Waitangi, along with the translation of 101 Maori proverbs as well as a gold coin to commemorate the Tamil-Maori partnership.
The audience was treated to a dance performance by students of the Shivam dance academy.
The conference segment was kicked off by Prabha Ravi, director of the Natraj School of Dance, who spoke on female empowerment. The other segments dealt with topics such as ethno-linguistic identity and Tamil youth identity and social norms.
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