New Zealand may soon be renamed Aotearoa.
As the
Quartz
site indicates , a petition has been launched by the political party Te Pāti Māori to restore the country's old Maori name.
An increasingly large part of the population would consider it important for the nation to rediscover its Maori roots, thus extracting itself from the culture imposed by the English colonizers.
By Friday, the petition had already garnered 70,000 signatures, implying that it can legally be considered by the House of Representatives.
The Te Pāti Māori party also wants to change the names of towns and monuments in New Zealand, opting of course for Maori words.
A strong message for the identity of the island
Aotearoa has a strong historical and cultural significance: this word refers to the first clouds that Polynesian navigators saw while sailing offshore, which would have guided them to their future island.
The country was first spotted by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1642, before being claimed by the British Crown and taking the name "New Zealand" in 1840.
Today, the appellation Aotearoa would be used more and more by the inhabitants of the country in everyday life and in the administration.
A change that would therefore make sense, according to Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, co-leader of Te Pati Māori, who said in an interview with NPR: “It is really important that we dismantle some of the springs of colonization that have hindered our ability to reach our true potential.
She hopes the change “will have a massive positive impact on our ability, not only to reclaim our language, but also to lift the trauma of colonization.”
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