Something's Gone Wrong: The thing that’s gone wrong with the progressive movement's bloody ships is that we’ve allowed ourselves to be persuaded that protest’s only value is as a means of expressing our purely personal discontent with the status quo. This is, of course, bullshit. The purpose of protest is to apply pressure in order to achieve change. To force the wielders of effective political power into making a favourable response.
ABOUT THE TIME the second of Britain’s battle cruisers
exploded, Vice-Admiral Beatty famously remarked: “There seems to be something
wrong with our bloody ships today.” Trying to make sense of the political
passivity of New Zealanders in the twenty-first century, I am often minded of
Beatty’s words at the Battle of Jutland. Throughout the vicious class warfare
of the past 35 years there does, indeed, seem to be something “wrong” with the
progressive movement’s bloody ships!
God knows, it’s not as if there’s been a shortage of issues
for people to mobilise against! Low wages; unaffordable housing; the appalling
treatment of beneficiaries and state house tenants; the collapse of our mental
health service; neoliberalism’s subjugation of the universities: the list is a
long one.
The roll-call of resistance is, however, depressingly short.
After 1991, protest activity on the streets fell away quite sharply.
Campus-based protests against rising tuition fees flared in the early 1990s
only to fade away almost completely by the turn of the century.
Environmental causes could still draw middle-class New
Zealanders onto the streets in large numbers, however. The biggest of these
protests: the anti-GE marches and the 50,000-strong Auckland protest against
mining in national parks; were even able to persuade the government of the day
to take action.
The most calamitous decline in popular resistance, however,
occurred in the New Zealand working-class. Strike action, the most reliable
measure of the willingness of working people to stand up and defend their
interests, fell away almost completely. Prior to the passage of the Employment
Contracts Act in 1991, the number of strikes recorded in a single year plummeted
from dozens to single figures. So punitive was the new industrial relations law
that neither the unions’ paid officials, nor their members, were willing to
test it.
That had not been the case in the period between the
introduction of the Employment Contracts Bill in 1990 and the legislation being
signed into law in May 1991. In April 1991 an estimated 100,000 workers marched
against the Bill and mass rallies attended by thousands of rank-and-file
unionists voted in favour of a general strike to “Kill the Bill”.
The blank refusal of the leaders of the largest unions to
countenance a general strike struck the labour movement a mortal blow from
which it has never recovered. Since 1991 the Council of Trade Unions and its
affiliates have never been able to muster more than 5,000 unionists in one
place. Workers had been ready to fight in 1991 but their so-called “leaders”
had not.
The 2012 Ports of Auckland dispute, led by the late Helen
Kelly, offered a glimpse of what working people might achieve if given half a
chance – and courageous leadership. So, too, did Matt McCarten’s “Unite” union
of low-paid security guards and fast-food workers. Sadly, these proved to be
the exceptions – not the rule.
Then there were the great “one-offs”: protests that surged
and exploded into genuine demonstrations of “people power” only to be sucked
into the swamp of parliamentary politics and drowned.
The first of these was the hugely impressive 2004 hikoi
against the controversial Foreshore and Seabed legislation. After setting forth
from the Far North, the hikoi grew in strength until it arrived in the capital
numbering somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000 protesters. The Maori Party was born
out of this impressive mobilisation of New Zealand’s indigenous people. Sadly,
the huge hopes invested in the party ended up producing only the most meagre of
political dividends.
The second big one-off protest was the February 2016
demonstration against the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. It wasn’t just
the number of protesters (somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000) but their palpable
anger and energy that startled the political class. Alas, as happened with the
hikoi, the anti-TPPA movement allowed itself to be skilfully finessed by the
parliamentary opposition. The Labour Party, in particular, encouraged the
protesters to believe that, once elected, it would keep New Zealand out of the
TPPA’s trans-national corporate clutches.
The energy and anger of February 2016 soon dissipated and
could not be reactivated when, 20 months later, the new Labour-NZF-Government
proudly attached its signature to something called the “Comprehensive and
Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership”.
At the Battle of Jutland, the thing that was wrong with
Beatty’s “bloody ships” was that the necessary precautions against enemy shells
penetrating the battle cruisers’ magazines had not been taken. In effect, it
was Beatty’s negligent approach to safety that sank his ships.
What, then, has gone wrong with New Zealand’s progressive
ships?
In the simplest possible terms, the link between protest and
political action has been broken.
For most of the post-war period, widespread protest activity
almost always brought forth an answering political response. People marched and
petitioned to “Save Manapouri!” – and Manapouri was saved. Thousands protested
New Zealand’s involvement in the Vietnam War – and NZ troops were withdrawn.
For 56 days in 1981 the country was convulsed by the Springbok Tour – NZ’s
sporting contact with Apartheid South Africa ceased. Most importantly, workers
went on strike to improve their pay and conditions – and their pay and
conditions were improved. Direct action worked.
It was one of the core objectives of the neoliberal
counter-revolution that this relationship between popular agitation and the
democratic political process be destroyed. Most especially in matters relating
to the economy. The idea that ordinary people might influence the way in which
wealth was created and distributed had to be discouraged.
The thing that’s gone wrong with our bloody ships is that
we’ve allowed ourselves to be persuaded that protest’s only value is as a means
of expressing our purely personal discontent with the status quo. This is, of
course, bullshit. The purpose of protest is to apply pressure in order to
achieve change. To force the wielders of effective political power into making
a favourable response.
If those with the power refuse to respond to our protests,
then the correct reaction is not to give up and go quiet. It is to protest
louder and harder and longer until the powers-that-be give up – and give in.
This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Thursday, 14 June 2018.
