Can Words Hurt Us?

The Question Is: Can the Nuremburg Tribunal’s willingness to execute the notorious Nazi antisemite, Julius Streicher, for publishing hate speech serve as a moral rationale for giving the claim that “words breed deeds” the strongest possible legal expression in New Zealand?

JULIUS STREICHER was convicted and executed at Nuremburg in 1946 for what would today be called “hate speech”. For many years Streicher had been the editor of Der Stürmer, the virulently antisemitic newspaper notorious for whipping-up hatred against Germany’s – and Europe’s – Jewish population. The judges at Nuremburg had drawn a direct causal link between the words and images printed in Der Stürmer and what we now call “The Holocaust” – the state-sanctioned and organised genocide of European Jewry. Words breed deeds, the judges said, and Streicher’s hateful words had contributed to the death of millions.

Such reasoning is, of course, made much easier when it is the deeds of the Nazis caught in the moral spotlight. When the effects of extremism are so unequivocally horrendous, a degree of carelessness in identifying its causes is all-too-easily overlooked and/or excused. With the images of the Nazi death camps seared into the consciousness of the Nuremburg judges, Streicher’s squalid provocations encountered a pronounced deficit of historical understanding. Between 1933 and 1945, the editor of Der Stürmer had indisputably got what he wanted. Surely, on the scaffold at Nuremburg, he got what he deserved?

Just Deserts? The body of Julius Streicher, notorious Nazi editor of the antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer, hanged at Nuremburg for his unremitting media hate campaign against the Jews.

The Nuremburg Trials have presented the world with such a clear moral template that they have become the go-to source for generations in search of a clear ethical steer on the conduct of those wielding state power. In the 1960s and 70s, opponents of the Vietnam War warned the conscript soldiers of the United States that when it came to war crimes and crimes against humanity the judgement of Nuremburg was very clear. The excuse, “I was just following orders” is unacceptable. There are some orders that no human-being worthy of the name should follow. Military discipline does not trump the fundamental moral precepts of a civilised society.

That the anti-vaccination occupiers of Parliament Grounds in February-March 2022 also reached for the moral absolutism of Nuremburg – not least its willingness to execute the guilty – should give us all pause. Certainly it should remind us that all human judgement is bounded by the historical events and prejudices within which it is exercised. Even the high-minded pronouncements of the Nuremburg Tribunal are capable of being twisted to ignoble – even evil – ends.

The question, therefore, becomes: Can the Nuremburg Tribunal’s willingness to execute Streicher for publishing hate speech serve as a moral rationale for giving the claim that “words breed deeds” the strongest possible legal expression in New Zealand? Perhaps fortunately, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has handed over this complex legal and ethical argument to the Law Commission. Even so, the consequences of a wrong call on the strength of the causal links between words and deeds is fraught with political risk.

Where should one start? In Streicher’s case, the antisemitic prejudices which fuelled his newspaper sales predated Der Stürmer by several centuries. Crediting Streicher alone with whipping-up hatred of the Jews in Germany is an historical absurdity. One might as readily put the Catholic Church in the dock for instigating the medieval “blood libel” against the Jews. The Nazis did not invent German antisemitism: but, by giving anti-Jewish prejudice the force of law, they made it compulsory. Without Adolf Hitler’s genocidal hatred of the Jews, Der Stürmer would never have amounted to anything more than a loathsome antisemitic rag. One among many.

Those seeking to make hate speech illegal are relying, increasingly, on the concept of “stochastic terrorism” to justify their plans for extensive political censorship. Stochastic, in this context, is best explained as the problem of identifying precisely which one of the ten thousand antisemitic readers of an incendiary online posting is going to borrow his brother’s rifle and walk into the nearest synagogue.

The promoters of hate speech laws argue that it is enough to know that those contributing to the creation of a climate of hatred and prejudice will, eventually, succeed in provoking a deadly political reaction. Although it is virtually impossible for the authorities to identify exactly which one of these ten thousand potential terrorists will pick up a gun, the statistical certainly remains that someday, someone will.

Better, therefore, to legally prohibit extremists from building-up the sort of highly-charged political atmosphere that can only be earthed by a bolt of terrorist lightning. No antisemitic literature, no antisemitic movies, no antisemitic blogs and – Hey Presto! – no antisemitism!

Quite apart from the immense cultural wounds such an approach would inflict – no Merchant of Venice – it is far from certain that such extensive censorship would be effective. The perpetrator of the Christchurch Mosque Massacre, for example, was inspired, in part, by the deeds of the Norwegian terrorist, Anders Breivik. Does this mean that all news of such deadly attacks should be suppressed? Brenton Tarrant was also inspired by the medieval military struggle between Christendom and Islam in the Holy Land and Eastern Europe. Do those promoting hate speech laws also propose placing a ban on the reading of history?

The hate speech legislation packed off to the Law Commission by Prime Minister Hipkins proposed to limit the extended protection of our human rights legislation to religious communities alone. This offered considerably less protection for “vulnerable groups” than had been promised in earlier recommendations, and yet, even when limited to religious belief, the potential for conflict remains high. The Bible and the Koran both contain passages that are, at least on their face, antisemitic. Should both holy books join Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice in the sin-bin?

The moral certainties reflected in the judgements of Nuremburg can still evoke a nostalgic response from those old enough to have grown up in their shadow. The Second World War was perceived (at least by its victors) as a Manichean struggle in which the Forces of Light had not only defeated the Forces of Darkness, but also, in the course of prosecuting those minions of evil who’d survived the War, spelled out with crystalline clarity the moral limits of political and military power. After the global exertions of the most destructive war in human history, the installation of a new moral order – the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the judgements of Nuremburg themselves – did not strike them as hubris, but as the very least that should be done to honour the millions who had fallen.

And yet, even as Julius Streicher was twisting at the end of a rope, his fellow defendant, Albert Speer, was being escorted to a comfortable prison cell, from which he would emerge 20 years later to burnish his growing reputation as the only “Good Nazi”. In the end, the thousands of Jewish and Russian slave labourers who died manufacturing the weapons which, as Hitler’s Armaments Minister, Speer had promised his Fuhrer, caused the Nuremburg judges less grief than Streicher’s hate-filled prose.

Truth is a hard goddess to like – and even more difficult to serve – but among all the other gods she stands alone for keeping her promise to humanity. “I cannot shield you from the pain that comes with me,” she told us, “but I am your only sure protection against those who would have you believe that happiness is ignorant, and that lies can set you free.”

This essay was originally posted on Interest.co.nz of Monday, 13 February 2023.

The Most Pertinent Question.

Why Now? As Rebecca Wright pointed out to Justice Minister, Kiritapu Allan, on Newshub Nation, a great deal of political travail could have been avoided by the Labour Government if they’d simply accepted the Royal Commission’s recommendation to extend the already existing legal protections against the incitement of racial hatred to include religious communities. In the evil shadow of the Christchurch Mosque Attacks, most New Zealanders would not have objected.

THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT’S wholesale retreat from its dangerously exposed positions on “Hate Speech” should be applauded. Had it remained committed to the hardline definitions it trailed before the public a year or so ago, Jacinda Ardern’s ministry would have been condemning itself to a battle it did not need to fight – and could not win. The truth of the matter is that Labour’s dangerous dalliance with the Woke variant of Hate Speech has served no one but the Act Party, whose staunch defence of Freedom of Expression accounts for much of its impressive increase in electoral support.

One of the most pertinent questions put to Kiritapu Allan, the Cabinet Minister in whose name the watered-down legislation will be introduced, came from Newshub Nation’s Rebecca Wright. What was it, she wanted to know, that prevented the Labour Government from implementing these measures when they were originally recommended by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch Mosque Shootings almost exactly two years ago?

As Wright pointed out, a great deal of political travail could have been avoided by the Labour Government if they’d simply accepted the Royal Commission’s recommendation to extend the already existing legal protections against the incitement of racial hatred to include religious communities. In the evil shadow of the Mosque Attacks, most New Zealanders would not have objected to proscribing the sort of language contained in the writings of the Norwegian mass killer, Anders Breivik, and his Australian disciple, Brenton Tarrant.

Like the legislation outlawing semi-automatic weapons, the protection of religious communities from verbal incitement to inflict serious bodily harm would likely have passed through Parliament swiftly and with a minimum of debate. An issue fraught with all manner of risky political and cultural side-bars could thus have been resolved: the legislated solution being generally perceived by New Zealanders as morally congruent to the problem which called it forth.

The Royal Commission’s recommendations regarding the current hate speech laws were as follows:

1. sharpening the focus of the statutory language;

2. adding religion to the list of protected characteristics;

3. including electronic communications in the types of publication covered;

4. including the offence in the Crimes Act rather than the Human Rights Act;

5. increasing the maximum penalty from three months’ imprisonment to up to three years’ imprisonment; and

6. adding “racial superiority, racial hatred and racial discrimination” to the list of grounds for classifying a publication as objectionable under the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993.

With the obvious exceptions of recommendations 5 and 6, the Royal Commission’s suggestions were admirably moderate. After so many false starts, inept attempts at explaining the Labour Government’s thinking, and frightening proposals advanced by some of the more extreme actors in this drama, Minister Allan’s response is no less measured:

Currently, under the Human Rights Act 1993, it is illegal to publish or distribute threatening, abusive, or insulting words likely to ‘excite hostility against’ or ‘bring into contempt’ any group on the grounds of colour, race, ethnic or national origins. Those grounds will now be extended, in both the civil (section 61) and criminal (section 131) provisions, to cover religious belief.

Unfortunately, Ms Allan’s Royal Commission-inspired “solution” is unlikely to be as well-received in 2022/23 as it would have been in 2020. Closer to the tragedy, the manifold problems associated with exciting “hostility or ill-will against”, or, “bringing into contempt or ridicule” any group of persons living in New Zealand on account of their religious beliefs, would undoubtedly have been easier to overlook. Two years on, however, it will not be so easy.

While the average New Zealander might accept the criminalisation of language or behaviour which is intended to – and does – “threaten” faith communities, it is much less likely that they would accept people being criminally sanctioned for “abusing” and/or “insulting” people for their religious beliefs.

It is important to bear in mind as the debate rages over the Government’s proposed changes to the Human Rights Act, that the historical context out of which the demand for individual freedom of expression arose was first and foremost a religious one. It is one of the most problematic aspects of religious belief that it not only lays down strict rules for one’s own conduct, but also, almost invariably, the conduct of others. When the prize at stake is one’s immortal soul, being required to conform to some other person’s religious beliefs quickly assumes the character of an existential threat. People will kill their fellow human-beings for a whole lot less than their billet in eternity.

How would New Zealanders respond to the news that the state legislatures in the USA had passed laws making it illegal to excite hostility against or ridicule of the Christian religion? Would they consider that a necessary legal protection? Or would they condemn such a law as an outrageous curtailment of Americans’ freedom of expression? Unhappy with hypotheticals? Well then, what is the response of most New Zealanders to the sentences of death imposed upon those who insult the Prophet Mohammed in Muslim countries? (Or, in the case of Salman Rushdie, from well outside Muslim countries?)

On the questions of how best to save one’s soul, the liberal-democratic state has learned, usually by the hardest of ways, to take itself out of the conversation. It willingly grants its citizens the right to believe in all manner of deities, with all manner of strict rules and regulations concerning their worship, but it does not attempt to enforce the exemption of those same citizens from all manner of criticism, insult, and ridicule. Although the New Zealand state had not prosecuted anybody for a very long time for the crime of blasphemous libel, it nevertheless thought it appropriate to remove the offence entirely from its statutes. By what curious logic, therefore, does it now propose to reintroduce it under the cover of the Human Rights Act?

Significantly, the National Party has signalled its unwillingness to accept the extension of the Human Rights Act’s protections to include religious belief. Their argument, like Act’s, is that such an extension would constitute an unwarranted curtailment of New Zealanders’ freedom of expression. Labour faces a united Right on this issue, and with it the guarantee that the Free Speech versus Hate Speech debate will feature prominently in the run-up to the 2023 General Election.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Labour also faces a year of angry protest from its left. Woke New Zealand (among whom we must now include the leading lights of the Human Rights Commission) is outraged that Minister Allan and her colleagues have not extended the protection of the Human Rights Act to women, the LGBTQI community, and the disabled.

Contemplating the coming months of rancour and rebuke, Rebecca Wright’s question about why the Prime Minister and her government didn’t strike this particular wedge of iron when it was still red hot, only grows more pertinent – and the Government’s answer, all the more puzzling.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 21 November 2022.

Mistrusting Democracy.

Trust Us – We Know What We’re Doing: Why is this government so determined to shut-up, shut-down and shut-out the Right?

JAN TINETTI, Associate Minister of Education, is firmly of the view that those who subscribe to “an ideology of hate” have no place on a school board of trustees. So convinced is the Minister, that she is actively seeking administrative and/or legislative changes to prevent such persons from being nominated. Though doubtless undertaken with the best of intentions, Tinetti’s initiative is deeply troubling. In a democracy, the idea that the state is qualified to decide which ideologies are acceptable for candidates for public office to hold, and which are not, should be laughed off the political stage.

Prompting the Associate-Minister’s authoritarian musings, is the revelation that the convicted white supremacist, Philip Arp, the man sentenced to 21 months imprisonment for distributing terrorist Brenton Tarrant’s recording of the Christchurch Mosque Massacre, had been nominated for a seat on the Board of Trustees of Te Aratai College. Christchurch city councillor, Sarah Templeton, who has children at the school, angrily voiced her frustration that such individuals cannot be legally prevented from becoming trustees. Clearly, her objections have not fallen on deaf ears.

The problem with characters like Arp is that their behaviour is so prone to causing public outrage that  citizens find it all-too-easy for to switch-off their critical political faculties and remain silent when politicians call for Nazis to be declared ineligible for public office. After all, who wants to be seen sticking up for antisemitic fascists?

The answer, of course, is: we should all want to be seen resisting any attempt by the state to weed-out “undesirable” ideas, and the dubious individuals who hold them, before they get anywhere near a nomination form. As democrats, our firm position must always be that the only body qualified to decide who should, and should not, be elected to public office is the electorate itself. That is to say, You and I – the voters.

Do Tinetti and Templeton seriously believe that the parents of Te Aratai College’s ethnically and religiously diverse student body are in the slightest danger of electing Arp to the school’s Board of Trustees? If they do, then they are guilty of offering them the most outrageous insult. If they don’t, then what they are proposing will rob those same parent electors of the opportunity to condemn in the most emphatic fashion Arp’s vile beliefs and actions.

That Tinetti, a Cabinet Minister, seems unwilling to affirm that, in a working democracy, it is the citizen who possesses the power of decisive political agency, is worrying. It is not, however, an deficiency peculiar to herself. For some time now, both the Labour and Green parties have struggled to acknowledge in the electorate a collective wisdom more than equal to the task of distinguishing good from evil, right from wrong, democrats from fascists. Indeed, both parties show signs of believing the opposite to be true: that the electorate is neither wise enough, nor resilient enough, to recognise Nazi bullshit when they hear it.

Nowhere was this fundamental lack of faith in the fundamental decency and wisdom of the ordinary citizen more distressingly on display than in the days immediately following the Christchurch Mosque Shootings of March 2019. Completely ignoring the evidence of their own eyes, the Greens’ Marama Davidson and Golriz Ghahraman not-so-subtly insinuated that the entire “white” population of New Zealand was in some way complicit in Tarrant’s “lone wolf” terrorist outrage. That tens-of-thousands of New Zealanders – of all colours and creeds – were filling parks and stadiums to express their solidarity with New Zealand’s Muslim community failed to impress them.

Labour’s response was less insulting but, in a way, more troubling. In spite of delivering her internationally-acclaimed repudiation of Tarrant’s crime: “They are Us”; Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern clearly believed that neither “They” nor “Us” were strong enough to endure the harm, or resist the temptation, of “hate speech”. Seconded by the hilariously misnamed Human Rights Commission, the Labour-led Government set out to radically reduce in size democracy’s foundation-stone – the citizen’s right to free expression.

Sadly, Ardern was pushing on an open left-wing door. Once the most determined defenders of free speech, the New Zealand Left has, for more than a decade, been evincing less-and-less enthusiasm for the critical democratic insight that freedom of expression must never become a privilege, to be rationed amongst “our side’s” best friends, but remain a right, freely available even to our worst enemies.

The Covid-19 Pandemic made matters worse. When the fight is with a potentially fatal virus, individuals and groups communicating false information can endanger the health of millions. In these circumstances, the temptation is strong to rank the health of the democratic system well below that of the population as a whole. Or, even worse, to start seeing the key elements of democracy: freedom of expression; freedom of assembly; freedom of association; as the vectors of a dangerous political disease.

This is now the grave danger confronting New Zealand: a Labour Government which has convinced itself that people communicating lies can undermine the health and well-being of the entire population – rather than a tragic fraction of it. Traumatised by the occupation of Parliament Grounds (by people already traumatised by the Government’s imposition of vaccination mandates they had promised not to use) politicians and journalists, alike, have convinced themselves that the purveyors of “misinformation” and “disinformation” now constitute a direct threat to the security of the state.

Which takes us right back to Jan Tinetti and the “threat” of Nazis on school boards of trustees. The political class’s historical mistrust of democracy, long resisted by the Left, has now been embraced by what is left of it. No longer a “bottom up” party, Labour has grown increasingly fearful that its “progressive” policies are unacceptable to a majority of the electorate. Ardern’s government, and its supporters, are terrified that the Far Right will opportunistically seize upon this public unease and whip it into some sort of fascist majority. Hence their determination to shut them up, shut them down and shut them out.

Except, as the recent history of the United States makes clear, this determination to keep the “deplorables” as far away from power as possible, is actually the fastest and most effective way to bring on the destabilising lurch to the Right that the progressive Left most fears. Poorly educated though they may be, ordinary citizens are not stupid. They can tell when they’re not sufficiently trusted or respected to be given a decisive role in the government of their own country.

With distressing speed, New Zealand is dividing itself into two hostile, camps. The smaller counts within it the better part of the better educated, is positioned on the commanding heights of the state, and considers itself the brain and conscience of the nation. The larger camp, nothing like so clever, seethes with frustration and resentment, anxiety and rage. It fears that its world: the world it grew up in; the world it knows and trusts; is shifting on its foundations.

What remains to be seen is which outcome represents the greater catastrophe for New Zealand: that the policies of those occupying the heights should proceed unchecked; or that the depths should find a leader equal to the task of bringing them down?

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 29 August 2022.

Jacinda Ardern’s Radical Reshuffle.

Radical Options: By allocating the Broadcasting portfolio to the irrepressible, occasionally truculent, leader of Labour’s Māori caucus, Willie Jackson, the Prime Minister has, at the very least, confirmed that her appointment of Kiri Allan was no one-off. There are many words that could be used to describe Ardern’s placement of two tough political fighters in Justice and Broadcasting, but “conciliatory” isn’t one of them.

KRIS FAAFOI’S DEPARTURE from Parliament has left the Immigration, Justice and Broadcasting portfolios in need of new ministers.

In the case of Immigration the Prime Minister’s choice of Michael Wood to replace Faafoi is a sound one. The issues of employment, migration, and workplace relations are closely related, so entrusting the portfolios of Labour and Immigration to a single, highly capable, politician makes a lot of sense.

When it comes to the Justice and Broadcasting portfolios, however, matters are nowhere near so cut and dried. Between now and the General Election issues with considerable potential for creating serious political division are likely to test the skills of the new ministers to their limits.

Before examining those issues in more detail, however, it is important to establish what the Prime Minister has, and hasn’t, done.

The opportunity existed for her to make good her error in assigning Justice to Faafoi. Although acknowledged on both sides of the House as a man of great integrity and good-will, Faafoi was clearly out of his depth in the Justice portfolio. Unusually, given the requirements of the job, he was not a lawyer. Nor did he appear to have a very firm grasp of the foundational principles of this country’s legal system.

Nowhere was this more clearly manifested than in the fraught subject of “Hate Speech”. Faafoi floundered shockingly when questioned on scope and implications of the Government’s proposed legislation. The experience rendered him gun-shy for the rest of his stint as minister. At a time when the Government needed a person of demonstrable intellectual subtlety to explore with the public the full ramifications of controlling Hate Speech, it was saddled with a Justice Minister who, in spite of his background in broadcasting, seemed inordinately wary of the news media.

To be fair to Faafoi, he did not seek out the portfolio assigned to him by the Prime Minister. Indeed, he had told her back in 2020 that he wished to step down from Parliament altogether. Ardern would have been kinder, both to Faafoi, and her Government, if she had granted his wish.

The Prime Minister’s choice of the qualified lawyer, Kiritapu Allan, may, however, make matters worse. Faafoi’s bumbling, by pushing the Hate Speech issue onto the back burner, was almost certainly a godsend politically. Should Allan take up the cause with her characteristic élan, the chances are good that she will ignite a full-scale culture war between the Government and the defenders of Free Speech.

Ardern could have opted to further settle the feathers of the free speakers by appointing a Justice Minister singularly deficient in “woke” credentials – the Attorney-General, David Parker, perhaps? That she has, instead, opted to advance a feisty member of Labour’s Māori caucus: a woman lionised by Labour’s “progressives”; has sent the New Zealand electorate a message of admirable (if not entirely sagacious) clarity.

By allocating the Broadcasting portfolio to the irrepressible, occasionally truculent, leader of Labour’s Māori caucus, Willie Jackson, the Prime Minister has, at the very least, confirmed that her appointment of Allan was no one-off. There are many words that could be used to describe Ardern’s placement of two tough political fighters in Justice and Broadcasting, but “conciliatory” isn’t one of them.

If Allan presses forward with Hate Speech legislation, and Willie Jackson delivers to the people of New Zealand a state broadcaster that is te Tiriti-driven, committed to advancing the cause of “partnership”, and completely unabashed in its promotion of “co-governance”, the result will be a synergy of political enablement practically guaranteed to raise the hackles of at least half the nation’s voters.

An exaggeration? Not at all. The material made available to those seeking financial support from the Public Interest Journalism Fund (overseen by New Zealand on Air) makes it crystal clear that no state funding will be made available to journalists who do not adhere to te Tiriti, the doctrine of partnership, and co-governance. The advisory documents spelling out what that means in practice are of an historical and ideological inflexibility that would make even the most zealous of Stalin’s commissars blanche.

That the new state broadcasting entity will adhere to these revolutionary stipulations in every respect may be taken as a given. Likewise the temptation for both the Justice and Broadcasting ministers to characterise the inevitable chorus of opposition as Hate Speech.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times  and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 17 June 2022.

Protecting Freedom/Preventing Harm. Can New Zealand’s New Chief Censor Do Both?

A Delicate Juggler? Internal Affairs Minister, Jan Tinetti (above) has appointed Ms Caroline Flora as Chief Censor. Ms Flora owes New Zealand a comprehensive explanation of how she intends to juggle her duty to respect and protect the citizen’s right to freedom of expression, with her understanding of what is likely to cause society harm? 

IT IS TO BE HOPED that the new Chief Censor, Caroline Flora, will waste no time explaining herself. It is important that New Zealanders are told how her old job, Associate Deputy-Director Strategy and Performance, at the Ministry of Health, made her the obvious choice for her new job.

According to Peter Dunne, the Minister of Internal Affairs responsible for the appointment of Ms Flora’s predecessor, David Shanks: “The Chief Censor is responsible for protecting New Zealanders from material likely to cause harm while balancing the important right to freedom of expression”.

Clearly, the person tasked with this delicate legal and cultural juggling act should be someone with a solid background in law, and more than a passing acquaintance with philosophy, political history, the arts and literature, film, television, and social-media. Are these the core competencies required of the Associate Deputy-Director Strategy and Performance at the Ministry of Health? They may well be, but the prima facie case is not strong.

Which is why Ms Flora owes New Zealand a comprehensive explanation of how she sees, and how she proposes to carry out, her role. Where, for example, is her duty to respect and protect the citizen’s right to freedom of expression positioned in relation to her understanding of what is likely to cause society as a whole, or a vulnerable sub-section of it, “harm”. How does she define harm? A question which, depending on how Ms Flora answers it, will play a central role in how she carries out her responsibilities.

It is vitally important to remember that freedom of expression relates not only to the citizen’s right to communicate his or her thoughts and emotions to others, but also to their right to have their thoughts and emotions excited and stimulated by the communications of others. Our own Bill of Rights Act spells it out: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.” In other words, the right to emulate Shakespeare, as well as the right to read and watch Shakespeare’s plays.

What threshold will a book, play, film or video have to cross before Ms Flora bans it? Would she consider banning the performance of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice on the grounds that it is antisemitic? Would she ban a film which presented a young person’s decision to transition from female to male in a negative light? Would she pull from the bookshelves a work of history that purported to prove that the chiefs who gathered at Waitangi in 1840 knowingly surrendered their sovereignty to the British Crown? Would she prohibit the distribution of a video depicting Islam as a religion of violence?

One would hope that the new Chief Censor’s answer to each of these questions would be an emphatic “No.” But, considering the censorious times we are living through, it is, sadly, necessary to ask. From the Caucus Room to the Common Room, the urge to shut-down and shut-up those accused of inflicting “harm” on others is strong – and getting stronger.

In the United Nation’s summary of the “International Bill of Human Rights” the notion of harm is spelled out in relation to communications inimical to the free exercise, individually and/or collectively, of those rights and freedoms the International Bill of Human Rights was created to protect. The latter provides for protection of the rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and to freedom of opinion and expression. Significantly, it also calls for the “prohibition by law of any propaganda for war and of any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”

If this is Ms Flora’s definition of harmful “speech”, then she will find most New Zealanders are in agreement with her. Incitement of ‘discrimination’, ‘hostility’ and ‘violence’ would strike most of us as a sensible test for determining whether material not already defined as “objectionable” in the legislation establishing the Chief Censor’s office should be deemed so.

Were Ms Flora, in explaining herself to her fellow citizens, to refer approvingly to the legacy of her erudite and classically liberal predecessors, Arthur Everard and Bill Hastings, many of them would breathe a huge sigh of relief. They could then feel reassured that the Chief Censor’s power to rule a particular instance of communication objectionable (invoking all the powerful legal sanctions associated with that term) would be used both wisely and sparingly.

The worry, of course, is that Ms Flora will use the powers of her office to extend its reach into the communication of ideas and policies that, while falling well short of inciting discrimination, hostility or violence, nevertheless are likely to upset and alarm specific individuals or communities.

The new Chief Censor’s background in the upper reaches of the public service raise fears that her institutionally-honed inclination will be to move in the direction of the incumbent government. Given this Government’s growing obsession with misinformation, disinformation and extremism, driven by the Christchurch Mosque Massacres and the Covid-19 Pandemic, it would be helpful to know whether Ms Flora plans to go with the flow, or stand against the tide. Will she be guided by the fundamental tenets of classical liberalism? Or, will she be moved by the definitions of extremism supplied last year to the Department of Internal Affairs by the UK-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue? If it’s the latter, then freedom of expression in New Zealand could take a hit.

This is why the new Chief Censor owes New Zealand a clear explanation of where she stands, and where she would like to go. Ms Flora is taking up office in a climate of deepening antagonisms between ethnicities, identities and faith communities. If the Labour Government’s announced intention to criminalise “hate speech” is expedited by the new Minister of Justice, Kiri Allan, then the Office of the Chief Censor, along with the Human Rights Commission, will find themselves caught between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. The dual mandate set out by Peter Dunne: to protect New Zealanders from “material likely to cause harm while balancing the important right to freedom of expression” can only become harder and harder to fulfil.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 16 June 2022.

Describing The Katipo.

Poisonous! From a very early age New Zealanders are warned to give small black spiders with a red blotch on their abdomens a wide berth. The Katipo, we are told, is venomous: and while its bite may not kill you, it can make you very unwell. That said, isn’t the Acting Chief Censor’s decision to suppress absolutely mass killers’ manifestoes a bit like a parent telling his child that, yes, New Zealand does have a venomous spider, but, no, he is not going to give her any information about what it looks like and where it is most likely to be found?

THE ACTING CHIEF CENSOR’S decision to ban the “manifesto” of the latest hate criminal doubles-down on his predecessor’s error. Putting to one side the universal tendency of all forbidden things to stimulate popular interest purely on account of being banned, keeping the deranged, hate-filled ravings of Brenton Tarrant – and now Payton Gendron – out of New Zealanders’ hands has once again robbed us of the opportunity to gain some understanding of the tortured and fantastical world these individuals inhabit.

Since the ideas of these mass killers are extremely dangerous, and potentially fatal, it is surely in the interest of society to be provided with the means of recognising them when encountered. When a family member or friend starts spouting forth the sort of racist ideas that motivated Tarrant and Gendron, that is presumably a strong indication that all is not well. But, with the ideas of both men kept out of the reach of the public, how are those closest to potential offenders supposed to know what they’re looking for?

From a very early age New Zealanders are warned to give small black spiders with a red blotch on their abdomens a wide berth. The Katipo, we are told, is venomous: and while its bite may not kill you, it can make you very unwell. That said, isn’t Mr Rupert Ablett-Hampson’s decision to suppress absolutely Gendron’s manifesto a bit like a parent telling his child that, yes, New Zealand does have a venomous spider, but, no, he is not going to give her any information about what it looks like and where it is most likely to be found?

Ablett-Hampson’s news release justifies his decision to declare Gendron’s manifesto “objectionable” – thereby making it a serious offence to possess and/or disseminate its content – by referencing the harm it could do if accessed by the wrong sort of person:

We understand most people in Aotearoa reading such publications would not be supportive of these hateful messages but these kind of publications are not intended for most people. We have seen how they can impact individuals who are on the pathway to violence.

It is, however, extremely doubtful if declaring such documents “objectionable” will have the effect Ablett-Hampson intends. Those disposed to the arguments of white supremacy, for example, need only search for the topic on YouTube to activate the algorithms that will supply them with a great deal more information than is good for anyone’s mental digestion.

Moreover, if our white supremacist is persistent he will soon be in a position to move well beyond the material available on YouTube. There are places on the web where the red meat of murderous racism is served up blood raw and dripping. In these infernal regions of the Internet, the Acting Chief Censor’s writ simply does not run.

Another place the Acting Chief Censor’s writ does not run (at least, I hope it doesn’t!) is the past. History, sadly, is one long chronicle of human cruelty and suffering. The acts of injustice committed by our ancestors cannot be undone by the simple expedient of declaring them “objectionable”.

One could try, I suppose, but it would mean banning all material relating to the Knights Templar (who inspired the Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik) and the Ottoman Conquest of South-East Europe (which played an important part in the formation of Brenton Tarrant’s worldview). All literature and films relating to the Ku Klux Klan (To Kill A Mockingbird, Mississippi Burning) would have to be proscribed, along with all histories of the Third Reich, and, of course, Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. A similar fate would, presumably, lie in store for the writings of the eugenicists and “scientific racists” of the early Twentieth Century. The thoughts of H.G. Wells, Beatrice and Sydney Webb, Winston Churchill – all would have to be declared objectionable.

The list of things one could be sent to jail for possessing and disseminating grows long!

And then there are the everyday conversations and personal rantings of ordinary New Zealand citizens. A fair proportion of these are bound to contain all manner of objectionable ideas and claims. Racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia and Islamophobia are to be found everywhere. Misinformation and disinformation are not restricted to social media, they constitute the daily subject matter of our national discourse. It is still possible to sit on a bus and hear the person seated in front of you regale his companion with the long discredited myth that the Māori, upon arriving in these islands, encountered the culturally less sophisticated Moriori people, and exterminated them.

Objectionable? Of course it is. But what is the best way to finally put this white supremacist myth to rest? By jailing everyone who repeats it? – A solution which would require all of us to become government spies ready and willing to dob in our neighbours, relations, friends, lovers? Or, for New Zealand society to use its considerable educational and media resources to set forth clearly the anthropological and historical evidence revealing what actually happened – thereby equipping our children to move beyond the myth and embrace the truth?

Would there still be some, diehard racists all of them, who still peddled the Moriori myth? Yes, there would. The point, however, is that when we heard them spout their racism we would be well placed to assess whether or not we were listening to nothing more alarming than a bore in a bar, or, to an individual “on the pathway to violence”.

Hate speech is jarring, distressing, and potentially indicative of murderous intent. After the Christchurch Mosque Attacks it was completely understandable that many of us made the leap from the terrible events of 15 March 2019, to the terrible idea that another such event might be prevented by banning the expression of objectionable ideas – on pain of imprisonment.

But, the actions of the Acting Chief Censor notwithstanding, we cannot incarcerate our way to virtue, we can only arm our fellow citizens with a reasonable description of vice. So that, when they encounter it in the street, the pub, on the bus, or at a dodgy Coastal Otago gun-club, they will recognise it and contact the appropriate authorities – who will do something about it.

Like the blood red blotch of the Katipo, the manifestoes of mass killers must be allowed to acquaint us with the offensive smell and the bitter taste of ideological poison.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 17 May 2022.

Not On The List.

A Moral Authority? The Chief Human Rights Commissioner, Paul Hunt, is supposed to uphold the secular character of the New Zealand state. As a public servant, he is not entitled to talk like an Archbishop. He may tell us what is lawful and unlawful. He may even reiterate the purposes of the Act of Parliament which created his office. But he has no mandate whatsoever to instruct New Zealanders on what is “Right” and what is “Wrong”.

PAUL HUNT, our British-born Chief Human Rights Commissioner, missed his calling. He would have made a much better Archbishop of Canterbury.

Archbishops are expected to use terms like Good and Evil, Right and Wrong. They subscribe to a faith in which the moral conduct of its adherents determines where they spend eternity: in Heaven, or in Hell.

Chief Human Rights Commissioners, however, are supposed to uphold the secular character of the New Zealand state. As public servants, they are not entitled to talk like Archbishops. They may tell us what is lawful and unlawful. They may even reiterate the purposes of the Act of Parliament which created their office. But they have no mandate whatsoever to instruct New Zealanders on what is “Right” and what is “Wrong”.

It is the arrogation of precisely this sort of moral authority, and the determination to instruct New Zealanders in right conduct, that makes the recent opinion piece by Mr Hunt, published in the NZ Herald of 31 August 2021, so objectionable. That, and the answers he gives to the questions he asks himself about “hate speech”.

“What’s the most effective way of stopping – or at least moderating – hate speech?” Mr Hunt self-inquires. The answer? “A fair, equitable, inclusive, diverse, plural, open, multicultural society which, in Aotearoa New Zealand, is grounded on Te Tiriti o Waitangi.”

It is difficult to imagine a sentence more loaded with concepts more likely to spark lively, not to say bitter controversy. The nature of fairness, and its first cousin, equity, has taxed humanity’s best minds of more than two millennia. What are the boundaries of inclusiveness? How much diversity is a society obliged to tolerate? Does multiculturalism tend towards unity or division? Does pluralism? How far does a society open itself before it simply collapses? Is the Treaty of Waitangi New Zealand’s “founding document”, or an historical artifact now dangerously overloaded with obligations nowhere iterated in the document itself?

Mr Hunt’s solution for hate speech – a New Zealand Utopia in which all of these controversial concepts have been debated and resolved to the satisfaction of all its citizens – is self-evidently unsatisfactory. Clearly, such an utopian state-of-affairs could only have arisen in circumstances of untrammeled freedom of expression. Only in an intellectual climate peculiarly favourable to the discussion of contentious and even painful propositions could such an astonishing level of consensus have possibly been achieved. And yet, reading the rest of Mr Hunt’s essay, it becomes increasingly clear that any form of speech which alarms, excludes, distresses, and/or “denies dignity”, is “vile” and must be prohibited by law.

Mr Hunt is very keen on establishing the “boundaries” at which the robust discussion of ideas must cease. “If you are powerful and privileged,” he writes, “it is easy to dismiss the idea of boundaries indicating what is acceptable. But if you are a member of a disadvantaged group […] boundaries matter.”

It is here, of course, that Mr Hunt, for all his fine talk of “a respectful model for relations between individuals and communities” comes unstuck. By his own admission, the proposed hate speech legislation will have, as one of its principal aims, the limitation of the ability of the “powerful and privileged” to defend their interests.

But, who are the powerful and the privileged? Mr Hunt is extremely careful not to identify those upon whom these tendentious labels should be pinned. We can, however, answer the question by a simple process of elimination. Mr Hunt identifies the “disadvantaged groups” – i.e. those without power and privilege – as: tangata whenua, ethnic minorities, faith communities, sexual minorities, women, and disabled people.

Who is missing from this list? Well, men, obviously. That is to say, men who are not brown, gay, transgendered and/or disabled. Which just leaves white men. This is the group Mr Hunt is enjoining to be “respectful, self-aware, and empathetic” as the hate speech debate heats up.

Also missing from Mr Hunt’s list of disadvantaged groups are the poor and the exploited. Which is strange, because down through the ages it is the poor and the exploited who have felt the lash of power and privilege most keenly. What’s more, the key which unlocked the shackles fastened upon them by the powerful was always and everywhere – Free Speech.

Then again, as all Archbishops know: “The poor are always with us.”

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 3 September 2021.

“No Jab, No Job!” – Preventing The Injury Of All By One

Intramuscular Solidarity: A trade union movement dominated by the working-class wouldn’t have a bar of all this anti-vax nonsense. The idea that some ignorant believer in conspiracy theories peddled by right-wing nutters on the Internet should be allowed to refuse vaccination – putting countless other Kiwis at risk – would strike them as complete bullshit. A working-class-led trade union movement would have been in the ear of  Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Wood for weeks, urging him to institute a “No Jab, No Job!” policy ASAP.

ALL TRADE UNIONISTS are familiar with the slogan: “An injury to one is an injury to all.” It encapsulates the principle of solidarity and signals the determination of the collective not to be picked-off one-by-one. Employers who are not brought up sharply by their employees’ union for harming one of its members, will very soon feel emboldened to harm them all. Much more challenging, from the union’s point-of-view is how to guard against the behaviour of a single worker imperiling the health and safety of their co-workers. How to prevent the injury of all by one.

It might be expected that, with the Delta Variant of the Covid-19 virus rampaging through Auckland, and mass vaccination being presented as the most important escape-route from the pandemic, the institutions dedicated to the protection of workers’ health and safety would be leading the charge against those who refuse to acknowledge the obligations of social solidarity. Why then, are the trade unions not at the forefront of a “No Jab, No Job!” movement? In the midst of a pandemic, a refusal to be vaccinated (without medical justification) is surely the crowning example of individual indifference to the welfare of the whole. Is it not the duty of the trade unions to take a resolute stand against such anti-social selfishness?

In the context of a Labour Government with an absolute parliamentary majority, is it not, similarly, the duty of the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety, Michael Wood, to do all within his power to ensure that the obligations of solidarity are backed-up by the full force of the law? If, upon inquiry, that same Minister discovered that employers presenting their employees with the “No Jab, No Job!” alternative would almost certainly be acting unlawfully, then, surely, his next step would be to arrange for the law to be changed? After all, this is exactly what was done to ensure that “border workers” were all fully vaccinated. If “No Jab, No Job!” was good enough for customs officers and stevedores, then why not for every other group of New Zealand workers?

Wood was unable to provide a clear answer to questions such as these when he appeared (by Zoom) before the relevant parliamentary select committee. A superb chance to cast himself in the role of a hard-nosed, no-nonsense, champion of the working-class was squandered. Instead Wood chose to present himself as the inconsistent and mealy-mouthed champion of, well, God knows what.

The employers of workers already on the payroll, he informed the committee, could not say “No Jab, No Job!”, but, it would be perfectly okay for them to demand it of their next job applicant as a condition of employment. What a principled stand! Almost as principled as dodging the questions relating to the employers’ legal obligation to provide a safe and healthy work environment for their employees. Isn’t New Zealand lucky to have a Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety who is willing to place the rights of anti-vaxxers ahead of the rights of everyone else in the workplace – and the country?

Wood’s failure is emblematic of the more general failure of the entire New Zealand Left. To prevent certain classes of citizens from feeling hurt or offended by the free speech of their fellow citizens, leftists are all in favour of breaching the Bill of Rights Act and jailing “hate speakers” for three years. Those same “leftists” would not, however, dream of overruling the Bill of Rights Act’s prohibition against forcing medical procedures upon citizens – even at the cost of undermining the nation’s collective effort to defeat the Covid-19 Pandemic.

A trade union movement dominated by the working-class wouldn’t have a bar of this sort of “leftism”. The idea that some ignorant believer in conspiracy theories peddled by right-wing nutters on the Internet should be allowed to refuse vaccination – putting countless other Kiwis at risk – would strike them as complete bullshit. A working-class-led trade union movement would have been in the ear of Michael Wood for weeks, urging him to institute a “No Jab, No Job!” policy ASAP.

Sadly, however, New Zealand’s trade union movement isn’t led by the working-class (of which fewer than 10 percent now belong to a trade union) but by a council dominated by middle-class public servants of every description. A surprising number of these regard the right to refuse having their bodies polluted by injections of unwanted fluids as sacred, and not to be overruled for any reason – not even to preserve the health, safety, livelihoods, and lives, of their fellow citizens.

The idea that there are circumstances (fortunately rare) in which the safety of all might require the injury (but only to the pocket) of one, would strike them as barbaric. Unless, of course, the “one” was engaging in Hate Speech!

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 27 August 2021.

I understand why you want to do it, Jacinda – but don’t.

Promise-Keeper: The events of 15 March 2019 are seared upon Jacinda Ardern’s memory. She will not, therefore, abandon the proposed “Hate Speech” legislation lightly, seeing it as a particularly effective means of preventing such horrors. It is also clear that the Prime Minister believes she has promises to keep to the victims of the Christchurch Mosque Attacks. All of this is understandable, but none of it makes the abrogation of New Zealanders’ freedoms acceptable.

I UNDERSTAND WHY the Prime Minister feels so strongly about “Hate Speech”. The events of 15 March 2019 are seared upon Jacinda Ardern’s memory. She will not, therefore, abandon lightly what she sees as a particularly effective means of preventing such horrors from ever happening again. It is also clear that the Prime Minister believes she has promises to keep to the victims of the Christchurch Mosque Attacks. From her perspective, legislating against “Hate Speech” is the most important way of keeping those promises.

She’s wrong, of course.

Prime Ministers cannot afford to take things personally. That may sound harsh and unfeeling, but it is, nevertheless, true. As the leader of this country, Jacinda Ardern has a responsibility to honour not just the pain and suffering of the victims of the Christchurch terrorist, but the pain and suffering of the generation of New Zealanders who battled against the most malign terrorist of all time.

Tens-of-thousands of young New Zealanders were killed or wounded in the global struggle against Adolf Hitler. One of the most precious things they were fighting to protect was the first thing Hitler and his fellow Nazis set out to destroy: the right of every human-being to think, speak and communicate freely.

The urge to suppress ideas and beliefs which contradict what one fervently believes to be the truth is not a healthy urge. It is a totalitarian urge. An urge to bend the whole world to your way of thinking. The great danger of succumbing to this urge is that you begin to see those who disagree with you as willful enemies of the truth. Confronted with their dissent, with their deliberate refusal to acknowledge what is self-evidently true, with their hate speech: what else can you do but make sure that the offenders are disciplined and punished?

Tragically, this is the direction in which the Royal Commission of Inquiry Into The Christchurch Mosque Attacks opted to steer the Government. Out of the terrorist’s mayhem, the Royal Commissioners were determined to bring forth what they called “Social Cohesion”. The people of New Zealand, they said, must be brought closer together, and in order for that to happen, all forms of speech which foster division, are insulting, create disharmony, and/or incite discrimination and hate, should be criminalised.

Had the Royal Commission restricted itself to recommending that language intended to incite hatred and/or violence against followers of the Islamic faith be outlawed, it is just possible that New Zealanders would have conceded the point. After all, if the law already forbids such expression in relation to ethnicity, then why not religion? In the dark shadow of the Mosque attacks, surely it would have been the least New Zealanders could do?

But, no. Restricting the extension of the existing law to cover religion was not deemed to be sufficient. The strengthening of New Zealand’s social cohesion would require the creation of a whole swathe of new “protected groups”. To bring the country together, the Royal Commission – and now, seemingly, the Labour Government – is intent on empowering the citizenry to send their neighbours to jail for up to three years for the “crime” of pissing them off.

One can only feel desperately sorry for the Police as women turn on men, Trans on TERFs, Maori on Pakeha, Christians on atheists, supporters of Palestine on supporters of Israel, Baby Boomers on Millennials, and Neoliberals on Marxists. The courts will be filled with angry and bitter complainants and defendants. Juries will be asked to solve problems philosophers have struggled with for centuries. Vast sums of money will be expended on lawyers. No one will emerge from the process emotionally unscathed. And all in the name of strengthening New Zealand’s social cohesion!

It won’t work, Jacinda. No matter how much you’d like it to; no matter how sincere all those promises you made to the victims. It won’t work. You need to listen to those who are warning you that the unintended consequences of this direct attack on the freedom of thought and expression, guaranteed to all New Zealanders in the Bill of Rights Act, will be huge.

Uniformity of belief and behaviour is Xi Jinping’s goal – it shouldn’t be Jacinda Ardern’s.

Freedom is unruly. It’s rude. It hurts people’s feelings. Makes them angry.

But people died for it, Jacinda.

Leave it alone.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 2 July 2021.

Is The Government’s Proposed “Cure” For Hate Speech Worse Than The Complaint?

For Our Own Good? Police officers knocking on New Zealanders’ doors on account of what they might think, or what they have said, is more likely to make the rest of us think we are living in Nazi Germany – not drawing lessons from it. The disharmony such heavy-handed state intrusion is bound to create will exceed by a wide margin the disharmony it is attempting to prevent.

IF ANY NATION UNDERSTANDS the relationship between “Hate Speech” and “Hate Crime” it is the German nation. Not only is Germany the nation which gave birth to Nazism, but it is also the nation which gave birth to the constitutional protections which allowed Nazism to destroy Germany’s fledgling democracy.

The constitution of the Weimar Republic – fragile successor to the defeated German Empire of Kaiser Wilhelm II – was the most progressive of its time. It conferred upon the German people civil and political rights as new as they were exhilarating. Foremost among these was that capstone of democracy, Freedom of Expression. Without this crucial freedom, all of Democracy’s other rights and freedoms are swiftly rendered illusory.

But, as the excellent German documentary series The Abyss: Rise and Fall of the Nazis, makes clear, the Weimar constitution’s unconditional guarantee of Freedom of Expression allowed the virulently anti-Semitic newspaper, Der Stürmer, to go on pumping its poison into the German body-politic. Tellingly, at the post-war Nuremberg Trials the editor of Der Stürmer, Julius Streicher, was charged with being an accessory to the mass murder of European Jewry. For his relentless incitement of hatred against the Jews, Streicher was found guilty of aiding and abetting the Holocaust and condemned to death. He was hanged on 16 October 1946.

The judgement of the international jurists at Nuremberg was clear: hate speech leads to hate crimes. To incite hatred is to invite violence – and worse. The constitution of the German Federal Republic (modern-day Germany) reflects the lessons learned from the tragic fate of Weimar. Germany’s “basic law” makes it clear that democratic rights and freedoms do not include the right to turn democracy against itself.

The question which New Zealanders must now answer is whether or not they confront a situation which in any serious respect resembles that of the doomed Weimar Republic? Is there a political force at work in New Zealand society remotely similar to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party? And, if such a force does exist, is it reasonable to characterise its protagonists as an existential threat to this country’s democratic institutions?

The answer to all of those questions is an unequivocal “No.” Nevertheless, the Labour Government is getting ready to pass legislation which will more define more clearly – and punish more harshly – “hate speech”. It is doing so at the behest of the Royal Commission of Inquiry in to the Christchurch Attacks of 15 March 2019. In the name of strengthening “social cohesion” – and thereby lessening the likelihood of future attacks – the Commissioners concluded that some revision of our current legal protections against hate speech was in order.

Before examining the Government’s proposed changes, it is important to determine whether the “Lone Wolf” Australian-born terrorist who carried out the Christchurch attacks did so as a consequence of absorbing hate speech uttered and/or published by New Zealanders on New Zealand soil. Or, more bluntly, was Brenton Tarrant incited to murder 51 people by a New Zealand variant of Der Stürmer? Once again, the answer is unequivocal: “No, he was not.”

Tarrant’s inspiration came from much further afield. He was a disciple of the Norwegian Lone Wolf terrorist Anders Breivik. He spent years visiting battlefields in southern and central Europe where Christian and Ottoman armies clashed more than 500 years ago. He participated in chat-rooms on the notorious US-based “4-Chan” social media platform. His political focus was upon events unfolding in the Northern – not the Southern Hemisphere.

Indeed, Tarrant chose New Zealand as the location for his attack on Islam precisely because it was so blessedly free of the unbridled hate speech that so inflamed the political discourse in other jurisdictions – along with the protections erected to preserve their citizens from its consequences. Prior to Tarrant’s deadly attack, New Zealand had not experienced a fatal terrorist incident since the death of Ernie Abbott in the Wellington Trades Hall bombing of 1984, and the loss of Fernando Pereira a year later in the state terrorist bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by the French government. Tarrant felt able to hide in plain sight in this country, confident that until he acted, he would not be detected. He wasn’t wrong.

All of which is not to suggest that New Zealand is entirely free of racial and religious prejudice and hatred. Verbal and physical assaults on people of colour and adherents of non-Christian religions are, sadly, all-too-common here. The point remains, however, that the level of this verbal and physical harassment was low enough for Tarrant’s attack to fall upon New Zealand like a bolt from the blue. No one anticipated anything like the horror and mayhem of the 15 March 2019 mosque shootings.

Why, then, did the Royal Commission feel moved to recommend a strengthening of our hate speech legislation? Did they not consider our democratic institutions robust enough to meet the outpouring of hatemongers head-on? Did they not regard the power of our news media to name and shame extremists of all kinds as a sufficient bulwark against the rise of a New Zealand Nazi Party and/or the publication of a down-under Der Stürmer? After all, when Far-Right and White Supremacist groups have shown themselves on the streets, the only impression they have left is one of profound weakness.

Although not yet “official”, the following wording would appear to be the Government’s preferred alternative to the existing legal prohibition against inciting racial hatred, it reads:

the incitement of disharmony, based on an intent to stir up, maintain or normalise hatred, through threatening, abusive or insulting communications.

It is further reported that legislative protection will be extended to target hate speech directed at religious belief and gender identification. Those found guilty of hate speech will be liable for a prison sentence not exceeding three years.

What sort of speech will it take to convince a jury of ordinary New Zealanders to send a fellow citizen to jail? One suspects that hatred of the sort perfected by Julius Streicher in Der Sturmer will be required to secure a conviction. Speech falling short of that measure will almost certainly result in acquittal. In the process of sorting out where the cut-off point lies (which is unlikely to be very far from where it is currently) real damage could end up being done to New Zealand democracy.

The framers of the Weimar constitution weren’t wrong to hold up Freedom of Expression as the capstone of democracy. They could not have foreseen the intensity of the hatred that fuelled the rise of the Nazis – hatred which the victors of World War I did so much to feed. Nor should we condemn the framers of Germany’s present constitution for attempting to learn the lessons of their country’s awful history. The problem our government faces, however, is that New Zealand is not Germany. Our political history contains nothing even remotely resembling the Nazi Party – or Der Stürmer.

And that’s the rub – isn’t it? Police officers knocking on New Zealanders’ doors on account of what they might think, or what they have said, is more likely to make the rest of us think we are living in Nazi Germany – not drawing lessons from it. The disharmony such heavy-handed state intrusion is bound to create will exceed by a wide margin the disharmony it is attempting to prevent.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 19 April 2021.

Sticks And Stones - And Bullets.

They're Only Words: New Zealanders are not angels, and they should not be expected to behave like angels. In the hours and days after the Christchurch Mosque Attacks, what mattered most was the swiftness with which the Prime Minister (unlike some of her left-wing fellow-travellers) moved to reassure her fellow citizens that they were not devils. That designation belonged to the terrorist alone. Words did not kill 51 innocent human-beings on 15 March 2019 – bullets did.

AT THE SERVICE marking the second anniversary of the Christchurch Mosque Attacks, New Zealand’s Prime Minister spoke of resilience.

“Many of us will remember, or indeed have seen children being taught from a very young age to be stoic.” Jacinda Ardern declared. “That if they face the harsh words of others they should adopt a stiff upper lip. Perhaps it has been our way of teaching children resilience in the face of those who might intend to cause harm.”

She’s right, that is the way New Zealanders used to bring up their children. Subjected to hurtful speech, those on the receiving end were taught to sing: “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

The Prime Minister was not convinced.

“Of course we want our children to be resilient,” she said, “but surely no more than we want our children to be kind?

“And so we have to ask ourselves, what does it take to create a generation that is empathetic but strong. That is kind, but fair. That is knowledgeable but curious. That knows the power of words, and uses them to challenge, defend, and empower.”

Jacinda’s question was rhetorical, but it deserves an answer.

What it takes is a society comprised of something other than human-beings – angels, perhaps.

Certainly, empathy confers a kind of strength: Jacinda proved that in the way she conducted herself in the hours and days after the massacres at Al Noor and Linwood. New Zealand was unquestionably strengthened diplomatically by the raw emotional power of its Prime Minister’s empathic response.

Jacinda’s empathy ran out, however, when confronted with the enormity of Brenton Tarrant’s crime. So unequivocal was her condemnation of its perpetrator that she vowed never to speak his name. Nor has she demonstrated the slightest curiosity concerning Tarrant’s motivation. On that matter, at least, she just doesn’t want to know.

But, how can words have power: how can they “challenge, defend and empower” if they are not imbued with the knowledge born of asking “Why?”

The Prime Minister’s own words notwithstanding, there is scant evidence that anyone in this government; the state bureaucracy; or the mainstream news media; has the slightest curiosity, or in-depth knowledge, of the forces that drive individuals like Tarrant. Indeed, within 72 hours of the massacre, New Zealand’s Chief Censor had declared his manifesto “objectionable” – thereby making its mere possession an offence punishable by imprisonment.

New Zealand has not been challenged to do anything about the Christchurch Mosque Attacks except condemn them.

And, of course, they should be condemned. They were cruel and wicked and utterly devastating of the lives of scores of innocent people. But, the overwhelming horror and disgust which such wanton savagery naturally elicits is all too easily harnessed to serve the interests of political causes that are neither kind, nor fair, nor innocent. Causes that have no interest whatsoever in encouraging the free exchange of words to “challenge, defend and empower” their fellow citizens. Causes whose purpose is, rather, to condemn, attack and weaken all those who refuse to endorse their ideology wholeheartedly and without reservation. Causes determined to silence all speech that does not echo their own.

In this regard, there is cause for New Zealanders to wonder exactly where their Prime Ministers stands on how free their use of words should be. What should we make, for example, of this rather oblique passage from her memorial address?

“We all own and hold the power of words. We use them, we hear them, we respond to them. How we choose to use this most powerful of tools is our choice.”

Is it drawing too long a bow to say that there is something vaguely threatening in the construction of those sentences? Something along the lines of: “Yes, of course you have freedom of speech – just be careful how you use it.”

The sense of menace is not dispelled in the sentences which follow:

“There will be an unquestionable legacy from March 15. Much of it will be heart breaking. But it’s never too early or too late for the legacy to be a more inclusive nation, one that stands proud of our diversity, embraces it, and if called to, defends it staunchly.”

Whenever political leaders begin to declare their intention to defend staunchly the ideas for which they stand – and for which they blithely assume the rest of the nation also stands – it is time to worry.

Stripped of its rhetorical finery, Jacinda’s speech boils down to this: If hateful words are directed at vulnerable groups, then legal sticks and stones will be deployed to silence those who utter them.

Jacinda wound up her speech by implicitly inviting her followers to be ready to respond, as she vowed to be ready, when empathy proves unequal to the darkness that dwells in the human heart:

“And [at] those moments, may I never, and may we never – be at a loss for words.”

The effectiveness of those words, however, will largely be determined by the strength of the person speaking them and the resilience of the society hearing them. Jacinda’s inspired words of 15 March 2019 – “they are us” – spoke much more to her strength than to her empathy. She imposed an explanatory framework on a society that was tough enough to carry it and make it work.

New Zealanders are not angels, and they should not be expected to behave like angels. In the hours and days after Tarrant’s attack, what mattered most was the swiftness with which the Prime Minister (unlike some of her left-wing fellow-travellers) moved to reassure her fellow citizens that they were not devils. That designation belonged to the terrorist alone.

Words didn’t kill 51 innocent human-beings on 15 March 2019 – bullets did.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 16 March 2021.

Little's Hate Speech Laws Will Destroy This Government.

High Risk Call: Insensitive though it may seem to even pose the question: how will the electorate respond to what the Prime Minister’s opponents will undoubtedly characterise as an attack on New Zealanders’ freedom of speech? At more than twelve month’s remove from the terrible events of 15 March 2019, will Jacinda’s inspired “They Are Us” formula be enough to turn aside the free speech defenders’ counterattack?

ANDREW LITTLE has confirmed that the Coalition Government will announce changes to New Zealand’s free speech laws before the election. Clearly, Jacinda Ardern has not been able to persuade her Justice Minister that introducing “hate speech” laws is a sure-fire election loser. Or, perhaps the Prime Minister also believes that attacking freedom of speech is an election-winning strategy.

The timing of Little’s announcement is interesting. It points to a dramatic weakening in the position of Labour’s coalition partner, NZ First. For the first time since the Coalition’s formation in October 2017, Winston Peters finds himself and his party dependant on the good will and protection of the Prime Minister.

The Serious Fraud Office’s decision to launch an investigation into the NZ First Foundation has prompted multiple demands for Jacinda to stand Peters down for the duration. She has been called “weak” for refusing to discipline her Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, and he is very aware of the political rewards that would flow to the Prime Minister if she decided to give in to his critics’ demands.

If she did give in, Peters knows that any threat to “pull the plug” on the Coalition in retaliation would be met with a cool “go on then”. Being seen to have forced a snap election over the SFO investigation would seal NZ First’s fate. The electorate would punish Peters and his party mercilessly. Jacinda and the Greens, on the other hand, could present themselves to the country as the principled and courageous defenders of “clean” politics. What would undoubtedly be suicide for Peters and NZ First could end up being the making of his erstwhile coalition partners.

All of which adds up to a radically changed power dynamic on the Beehive’s Ninth Floor. From here on out, what Jacinda and her “progressive” colleagues want, Jacinda and her “progressive” colleagues are going to get. Three weeks ago Peters would have shaken his head coldly at the very thought of introducing anti-hate speech legislation prior to the election. Today, he has bowed his head meekly and walked away. The Coalition’s “handbrake” has been released.

Returning to my earlier speculation about Jacinda’s actual position on hate speech, I can’t help recalling how strongly she reacted to the pain and suffering of Christchurch’s Muslim community. I am minded, also, of her passionate advocacy for her own “Christchurch Call”. In the bitter aftermath of the Christchurch Massacre, the Prime Minister promised New Zealand’s immigrant communities her protection. Tougher gun laws were Step One. A ban on hate speech could very easily be Step Two.

Insensitive though it may seem to even pose the question: how will the electorate respond to what the Prime Minister’s opponents will undoubtedly characterise as an attack on New Zealanders’ freedom of speech? At more than twelve month’s remove from the terrible events of 15 March 2019, will Jacinda’s inspired “They Are Us” formula be enough to turn aside the free speech defenders’ counterattack?

Those in the Prime Minister’s professional and personal entourages will be adamant in their insistence that being seen to move against hate speech is not only the right thing to do, but that it will also reap Labour a rich harvest of votes – not least from New Zealand’s 57,000 Muslims. The brutal question which must be asked, however, is whether or not winning the support of the 1 percent of New Zealanders who subscribe to the Muslim faith can sensibly be counted as an unqualified addition to Labour’s overall Party Vote; or whether it will be more than offset by the defection of those New Zealanders opposed to Labour’s restriction of free speech? The next, equally brutal question is: “Where will those votes go?”

The obvious, and worrying, answer is: “They will go to the Right.”

It is one of the greatest tragedies of contemporary “left-wing” politics: that its practitioners have allowed themselves to become identified, irretrievably, with the suppression of free speech. Most particularly, with the suppression of the free speech of persons identified as “right wing”, or, more ludicrously, as “Nazis” and “fascists”. Worse still, they have secured this “de-platforming” by threatening to unleash violence and disorder if these individuals are permitted to speak. They have thus supplied local government, university and corporate leaders with the “health and safety” justification for shutting these speakers down. Free speech advocates refer to this tactic as “The Thug’s Veto”.

Little’s reaffirmed commitment to introducing legislation aimed at curbing hate speech will, therefore, be received by right-wing New Zealanders as a direct assault upon their personal liberties. Labour and its Green allies will be accused of using the power of the state to demonise and silence their political opponents.

The Right will not take this lying down.

It is, however, doubtful whether Little has given much thought to what making bitter enemies of the entire Right might lead to. While National and Act – especially Act – will be content to fight the issue at the level of abstract principle, those further along the right-wing spectrum will not hesitate to link Little’s hate speech legislation with those it is intended to protect. The very white supremacists the Left has vowed to extirpate will present Little’s laws as proof positive of the Labour/Greens’ surrender to the demands of multiculturalism in general – and of Islam in particular. Such linkages can only pose a grave threat to the safety of all New Zealand’s immigrant communities. The very ugliness that hate speech laws are intended to hide will be even more openly and defiantly displayed.

And this, sadly, is the problem which the advocates of hate speech legislation all fail to appreciate. That people cannot be forced into abandoning their erroneous, hurtful and/or dangerous opinions. They can only be argued out of them.

Does Andrew Little truly believe that hate speech laws would have stopped Brenton Tarrant? His murderous rampage was inspired not by the rantings of some fool on 4Chan, but by his close study of the centuries-long struggle between Islam and Christianity in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. Are the hate speech laws to be set wide enough to capture the wrongful interpretation of history? Will they extend to banning trips to the European battlefields where the Ottoman armies were checked by Christian knights? And if they are, how will that help to persuade people that what Little is proposing is anything more than the thin edge of the wedge of totalitarianism?

Our current laws forbid the incitement of actual physical harm, and will punish those who wilfully defame their fellow citizens. Attempting to pass laws against the giving of offence, however, is a fool’s errand. Far from eliminating offensiveness, such laws will only encourage and intensify it. Harm cannot be prevented, but it can be healed. Building trust and amity between peoples is achieved by starting conversations – not by shutting them down.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 21 February 2020.

Defining Issues

Courtroom Drama: There is no off-switch in a courtroom. Neither is it possible to turn the page in disgust. Ill-formed and ill-defended opinions will be exposed ruthlessly and unapologetically. As Shakespeare put it: “Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.” Sometimes the best course of action is to take no action at all.

UNFOLDING, IN A WELLINGTON COURTROOM, is a drama which speaks directly to the defining issues of our time. What is racism? How central is racial discrimination to the moral deficiencies of our society? What is Hate Speech? More importantly, what is the relationship between Hate Speech and Free Speech? And, lastly, what sanctions – if any – should be imposed upon those whose opinions give widespread offence?

It is, of course, forbidden to comment upon the rights and wrongs of a trial in progress. My apologies, then, to all those anticipating a right royal roasting of either the plaintiff, or the defendant, or both, in the matter of Sir Robert Jones versus Renae Maihi.

What can be observed of defamation cases in general, however, is that it is possible to be too protective of one’s good name. A court of law is a fearsome and dangerous place for those unaccustomed to having their ideas and opinions publicly scrutinised and dissected by persons whose ability to marshal and present contrary evidence has been honed by years of legal training and experience. There is no off-switch in a courtroom. Neither is it possible to turn the page in disgust. Ill-formed and ill-defended opinions will be exposed ruthlessly and unapologetically. As Shakespeare put it: “Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.” Sometimes the best course of action is to take no action at all.

Let us then turn, then, to the broader issues at play in that Wellington courtroom: Racism, Hate Speech, Free Speech, and the most effective response to willful offensiveness.

Increasingly, in this country, as in other countries dominated by Europeans, racism is being viewed as the fundamental driver of social, economic and political injustice. Fifty years ago this was not the case. For most of the Twentieth Century, unequal class relations were deemed to be the primary cause of injustice. With the demise of actually existing socialism, however, and the global triumph of neoliberal capitalism, class inequality has become, to paraphrase Lord Alfred Douglas: the lack of love that dare not speak its name.

The neoliberal ruling-class, with considerable political finesse, has tapped into the energy once devoted to uplifting the working-class (within whose ranks are many, many people of colour) and diverted it into identifying and demanding atonement for the sins of slavery and colonisation committed by the ancestors of contemporary Europeans. The process of elevating racism to the status of the West’s original and abiding sin was greatly assisted by the inspirational examples of Martin Luther King’s non-violent campaign for African-American civil rights, and the African National Congress’s four-decades-long struggle against Apartheid. The impact of these historical struggles on the indigenous victims of European colonialism was direct and enduring.

The development of Maori nationalism in New Zealand offers an excellent example of the process. As the neoliberal experiment gathered momentum in Aotearoa, the formerly close ties between Maori, the traditional left and the trade unions were broken. By the early 1990s, what Dr Elizabeth Rata has dubbed “neo-tribal capitalism” was rapidly transforming Maori nationalism into a vital political adjunct to the all-conquering neoliberal project. The nightmare of working-class Maori and Pakeha making common cause against what was fast becoming a strategically bi-cultural ruling-class faded away, to be replaced by the new and rapidly expanding Maori middle-class’s scorn for the irredeemably racist redneckery of the Pakeha proletariat.

In this context, any unabashed expression of white ethnic chauvinism is almost always construed by Pakeha intellectuals as an unforgivable affront to the state’s steadily evolving anti-racist and decolonisation projects. For those Maori deeply embedded in these processes, however, such reiterations of white supremacist ideology are a godsend. Every such outburst reinforces the anti-racist and decolonisation critique and highlights the baked-in character of the colonisers’ prejudices.

Why then condemn such racially charged outbursts as “Hate Speech” and seek to punish its purveyors? Surely, by constantly exposing their racism, white supremacists provide ongoing and invaluable confirmation of the colonisers’ moral deficiencies? This may well be true, but it’s also irrelevant. The decolonisation process can only be advanced in an environment of hair-trigger outrage and demonstrable indigenous distress. Racism must, therefore, be confronted and condemned whenever and wherever it raises its ugly head, and the offending and offensive racists held accountable for the harm they have inflicted.

It is, accordingly, entirely unsurprising that the liberal-democrats’ passionate defence of the citizen’s right to freedom of expression is viewed as a serious obstacle to the success of the anti-racist and decolonisation projects. At the core of the free speech argument is the proposition that every citizen is obliged to uphold the right of every other citizen – even those whose views fundamentally contradict their own most cherished beliefs – to express their opinions freely and without the fear of any retribution beyond their opponents’ vigorous refutation.

The problems begin when the vigorous refutation of offensive speech is no longer considered sufficient. When the paucity of intellect and the absence of evidence so obvious in the arguments put forward by the racially prejudiced cease to be the best reason for fair-minded people to reject not only the content of those arguments, but also the morally dubious claims of the people making them. When the citizenry, in their confusing and contradictory entirety, are deemed inadequate to the task of determining the proper shape of their society and its future. When the responsibilities of government are entrusted exclusively to those powerful enough to determine which opinions are “correct”. And when those who deviate from such opinions are subjected to the full rigors of the law. At that point, it is possible to give these problems a name.

Totalitarianism.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 13 February 2020.