The Greens’ Politics Of Fear.

Safe Space: What sort of mentality is required to draw up a list of rules that will not only make vigorous debate impossible, but which is also an unabashed attempt to curb the freedom of expression of politicians, activists, and their fellow students, along with any other group or individual in possession of strong opinions? What is it that drives groups like Auckland University Greens to engage in such extraordinary behaviour?

THE AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY GREENS (AUG) have scaled new heights of political absurdity. In an act of what can only be described as unconscious self-parody, they have decided to boycott the “Baby Back Benches Debate 2022” until such time as “further equity provisions have been enacted”. These provisions, helpfully listed in the AUG’s Facebook post, are of such an onerous nature that political debate, as generally understood, would no longer be possible on the Auckland campus.

Taking one’s party out of a debate in which its rivals: Labour, National, Act, Te Pāti Māori; will all be energetically represented, is unlikely to strike many people as the most intelligent of electoral strategies. Undaunted, the AUG go on to recommend that the University of Auckland enjoin all organisations planning to hold debates on its campus during 2023 – Election Year – to conform to the AUG’s provisions.

Were the University authorities persuaded to follow the AUG’s recommendation, it is most unlikely that any of New Zealand’s leading political parties would bother showing-up. NGOs such as Greenpeace, The Council of Trade Unions and the Free Speech Union would, almost certainly, follow suit. Auckland’s students would, thus, be prevented from engaging in the activity for which were once so notorious: loud, rancorous, scandalous – but hugely entertaining and enjoyable – political debate.

How, then, is the AUG’s conduct to be explained? What sort of mentality is required to draw up a list of rules that will not only make vigorous debate impossible, but which are also an unabashed attempt to curb the freedom of expression of politicians, activists, and their fellow students, along with any other group or individual in possession of strong opinions? What is it that drives groups like AUG to engage in such extraordinary behaviour?

This is how the AUG begin their explanation:

A structural shift from our current system is necessary, as marginalised minorities are actively undermined by the political status quo. University of Auckland Greens is an organisation that offers an alternative. To practice what we preach, our executive committee has decided to abstain from attending Baby Back Benches 2022. Our vision is establishing safe spaces on campus that encourages positive policy-based kōrero, instead of entertaining drunken debates that are not conducive to constructive conversations.

It is difficult to imagine a more embarrassing and self-revelatory political beginning.

Structural shifts in entrenched economic and political systems are not usually achieved by engaging in “policy-based kōrero” in “safe spaces”. It is difficult to imagine Maximilien Robespierre and his fellow French revolutionaries limiting themselves to earnest policy discussions in rooms from which all strong and/or disturbing opinions had been banished. Even harder to see Lenin and Trotsky insisting that their Bolshevik comrades engage only in “constructive conversations”. Would the platform of the Finland Station, crowded with workers’ and soldiers’ deputies from the Petrograd Soviet – most of them carrying banners and brandishing rifles – pass muster as a “safe space”? Would the noisy late-night discussions of Mao Zedong, a man not averse to a few drinks, and his boozy Communist Party comrades, qualify as “drunken debates”?

As Mao famously opined: “A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.”

But this is precisely what the AUG want their “structural shift” (why not call it by its proper name “Revolution”?) to be. They cannot seem to conceive of a politics that is anything but leisurely, gentle, temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. The last thing they want to encourage by their actions is an act of violence:

Instead of sowing the seeds of conflict, we should be creating community with each other. This vision is only possible if we focus on redress over reactions, policy over personality, and whanaungatanga over fighting.

Such a pretty picture – until one thinks about their proposed provisions – especially the one that reads: “Anyone in breach of the rules should be immediately removed.”

Removed by whom?

Since it is difficult to imagine members of the AUG removing rule-breakers themselves, it must be supposed that the job of enforcing the AUG’s provisions would fall to University of Auckland security guards. Or, if the rule-breakers refused to go quietly, the Police.

Is this a structural shift? Or is this simply a group of highly-privileged young people using the enforcers of the university and/or the state to impose their notion of political debate on everybody else? And if that is the nature of AUG, then in what way is it distinguishable from the “current system” – in which a tiny minority of privileged and powerful individuals use their control of the forces of organised violence to impose their notion of economic and political order on everybody else?

AUG does not truly seek a structural shift – let alone a revolution. What it is attempting to promote, with its safe spaces and constructive conversations, is a political style that, should it ever be adopted by those with the power to enforce it, would render “one class overthrow[ing] another” impossible.

For what is it that the AUG’s provisions actually promote? The answer, surely, is fear. The fear of the victim. The fear that grows in victims encouraged to embrace not their power – but their powerlessness. The fear that renders victims permanently incapable of confronting the emotional and physical violence out of which their victimhood is fashioned and constantly refreshed. The fear that turns them into the pliable playthings of those with power – the people who actually make the policies they are urged to discuss so constructively. Fear is the AUG’s currency. Fear of those with differing views. Fear of political passion. Fear of debate.

The same fear that, tragically, is fast becoming the currency of the entire Green Party.

To parody George Orwell’s desperately demoralising prediction from Nineteen Eighty-Four:

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a Green Party equity officer’s boot stamping out rowdy political debate – for ever.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 14 October 2022.