Sound the civil defence sirens – we’ve had another insult aimed at the haka!!

For those who didn’t see it, some Aussie ad-men used the infamous ‘handbag incident’ (where Tana Umaga belted a tired and emotional Chris Masoe with a handbag in a bar to discipline him) to take the piss out of the All Blacks.

The ad begins with a sinister-sounding voice: “Australia is about to play the toughest team on the planet. The fearsome All Blacks”. The scene then cuts to the guys doing Ka Mate, with the CGI addition of colourful ladies handbags swinging from their arms.

I have to admit it – I was laughing pretty hard. It was bloody funny.

It should have ended there. After all, it’s all good fodder to help focus All Black minds if anything. But no, we had to have the “insult to Maori” card played.

Interviewed at a press conference, Wayne Smith sounded like a whining PC tosspot as he said “I know it’s a piss-take… but it’s disrespectful and insensitive to Maori culture”.

Give us all a break Wayne. Maori and All Black culture is not so brittle that it has to be wrapped in this kind of PC cotton wool. That “precious” stance invites real disrespect, as opposed to the perceived disrespect the ad represents.

The haka stands on its own, and can never be affected by this kind of thing. Let people do and say what they like about it, or to the performers of it. That’s the essence of haka – to lay down an in-your-face challenge, and to stand there with it no matter what gets thrown back.

Querulous demands for respect simply provide a nice solid platform for derision and disrespect.

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