A Huge Response: The Anti-TPPA protest of 4 February 2016 packed out Auckland's Queen Street from end to end. The last big protest to do that was Greenpeace's Anti-Mining in National Parks demonstration of 10 May 2010 - when the NZ Herald estimated the number of marchers at 40,000. The 4 February protests were also notable for the numbers of Maori and young people on the streets. Is the "Missing Million" waking up?
SOME TRIBUTES FIRST, then an apology. To Jane Kelsey and
Barry Coates I can only say thank you. Demonstrations like the one I marched in
on Thursday don’t just happen. They are the product of hours and days and years
of hard work, during which people fight not only against loneliness and
fatigue, but against the insidious thought that their unceasing efforts might
all be in vain. Observing the glowing faces of Jane and Barry, as they rode down
Queen Street on the afternoon of 4 February 2016, it was their selfless
commitment to battling on, heedless of setbacks and against all odds, that
brought tears to my eyes. Once again, thank you.
Tribute is also due to Real Choice. By their extraordinary
actions throughout the morning and afternoon of 4 February they proved just how
sterile theoretical debates about tactics and strategy can be. Somehow, in
growing older, I had forgotten the words of the young student activist, Mario
Savio, spoken 50 years ago on the steps of Sproull Hall at the University of
California’s Berkeley campus. In my teens and twenties I had sworn by them,
and, to my older self, they certainly bear repeating:
There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so
odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t even
passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon
the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it
stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who
own it that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at
all.
On 4 February, Real Choice put their bodies on the asphalt
of Auckland’s inner-city carriageways, and for several hours they made things stop.
In doing so they sent a much-needed reminder to the people who run, to the
people who own, this country that it can, if the provocation is great enough,
be prevented from working. No one has indicated that to them for a very long
time.
So, to Real Choice I say: Respect. No one was seriously hurt
and no one was arrested. In the words of the little man in the grey suit who
was right there in the thick of things, that was: “Bloody marvellous!”
I also say: Sorry. For my throw-away, and clearly unfounded,
suggestion that Real Choice might be a “false flag” operation, I apologise –
and my statement is withdrawn unreservedly. No false-flag operation could
possibly have out-thought, out-run and out-manoeuvred the Police like Real
Choice did on Thursday. The Springbok Tour protesters of 1981 could not have done
it better.
BUT, NOW WHAT? In which direction should the energy
generated by the 4 February protest actions be turned?
Happily, there is no shortage of targets.
Parliament resumes sitting on Tuesday, 9 February. The slow
wending of the TPPA document through numerous select committee hearings;
followed by the Government’s enabling bill’s passage through the four stages of
parliamentary debate; both will provide excellent opportunities for carefully
targeted protest action. Likewise, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trades’
(MFAT’s) travelling road-show of public presentations intended to “sell” the
Government’s pro-TPPA position to the electorate. All should be seen as
educative political events, reinforcing the anti-TPPA’s core messages of
diminished national sovereignty and a deepening democratic deficit.
The extent to which these core messages have already entered
the public’s consciousness has unpleasantly surprised the TPPA’s supporters.
They were taken aback at the size and vehemence of the Auckland protests and
will already be working on ways to unpick the picture Jane Kelsey and her
comrades have embroidered so vividly on the public mind. The Government’s and
big businesses’ counter-offensive will have to be met, held, and rolled back.
This will be made considerably easier by the simultaneous
fightback against the TPPA occurring all around the Pacific rim – but
especially in the United States. Strategically, the struggle is between the
progressive/patriotic forces operating within the twelve signatory states, and
the defenders of the transnational corporations. Obviously, this puts the “Pro”
forces at a serious disadvantage. Far from being able to pass themselves off as
promoters of the public good, they will emerge from the contest as the big
corporations’ fifth columnists, committed to defeating the patriots fighting to
prevent the agreement’s ratification.
John Key and his Government thus risk entering election year
as a collection of figurative “Quislings”, guilty of conspiring against the
national interest on behalf of entities without countries, morals or scruples.
If this perception can be driven deep into the electorate’s mind, then
National’s chances of re-election will be nil. More importantly, the victorious
coalition of Labour, the Greens and NZ First will be swept into office with a
broad mandate to take on a corporate plutocracy that has ruled without
challenge for far too long.
For the first time in over 30 years, there will be a mass
political movement dedicated to putting itself “upon the wheels, upon the
levers, upon all the apparatus” of the neoliberal machine – and making it stop.
This essay has been
jointly posted on the Bowalley Road
and The Daily Blog of Saturday, 6
February 2016.
