A word speaks a thousand sentiments

Maori MP Hone Harawira certainly has a way with words! Not that he’ll ever be nominated for a Nobel prize for literature.

Skiving off from a taxpayer-funded official event in Europe to take his wife to Paris certainly caused a few raised eyebrows. But his expletive-ridden response to criticism about this could terminally damage the Maori Party and have a lasting, possibly adverse, affect on New Zealand politics.

Harawira makes no apology for his actions or the sentiments behind his words. No doubt in his opinion he is acting with integrity.

However, the avalanche of complaints to the Race Relations Commissioner, and comments across almost all news media and the blogosphere, indicates a significant proportion of New Zealand’s population – including the Maori Party co-leaders and more centrist party supporters – are disturbed and offended by his behaviour.

Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. Harawira describes himself as a ‘firebrand’ and ‘edgy’. It seems others may see him as arrogant, insolent and racist.

Could he have handled the situation differently and still maintained his integrity, and mana? In my opinion, yes.

Dover Samuels, a former Te Tai Tokerau MP himself, is noted in a New Zealand Herald article as saying

“Any apology from Hone would be absolute hypocrisy, he’s advocating what he really believes in, he’s done that for many, many years before going into Parliament. Any apology that he would make would be artificial, superficial and he actually doesn’t believe it.”

However, there are ways to saying things that don’t provoke such widespread condemnation without compromising one’s beliefs and maintaining integrity. Interestingly enough, many people that are skilled at doing exactly this are often career politicians and diplomats.

One can still be honest without irritating or offending others. Whether it’s in business or politics, disagreeing with others in a way that respects differences of opinion is a skill worth developing.

And developing a habit of never pressing ‘send’ on emails you have any doubts about whatsoever could save not only your reputation, but also your career or business.

As an aside, an anagram of ‘Hone Harawira MP’ is ‘Pariah Roam When’.