A Failure of Tone: The National Party’s Week of Woe.

Tone Deaf? From a party-political point of view (and what other point of view should a National Party MP be taking?) Paul Goldsmith’s comments regarding the “benefits” of colonisation merely played into the fast-solidifying narrative of National being a stale white bread party that can’t get out of its own way when it comes to voicing outdated racial attitudes. What’s more, given the events of the week just past, National’s attitudes on race are beginning to look like the least of its worries.

PAUL GOLDSMITH, on the “benefits” – to Maori – of colonisation. First of all, and obviously, he shouldn’t have said it. From a party-political point of view (and what other point of view should a National Party MP be taking?) such a comment merely plays to the fast-solidifying narrative of National being a stale white bread party that can’t get out of its own way when it comes to voicing outdated racial attitudes. What’s more, given the events of the week just past, National’s attitudes on race are beginning to look like the least of its worries.

As with so much of National’s recent behaviour, Goldsmith’s comments raise some very dangerous questions. The most obvious being: ‘What’s wrong with these people?’ and, ‘In what, strange, alternative universe is conduct and attitudes like these considered okay?’ Questions that lead, inevitably, to a much broader concern about the quality of National’s due diligence when it comes to candidate selection. People begin to wonder whether the reason so many National candidates turn out to be embarrassing duds, is because their general demeanour and mode of discourse is construed by the selectors as entirely unremarkable. Or, to put it more bluntly, because National’s awfulness is now a feature, not a bug. They’re all like that.

Now, back in the days when the National Party boasted upwards of 200,000 members, what National’s candidate selectors recognised as good, solid, middle-of-the-road New Zealand-ness corresponded pretty much exactly with the perceptions of the ordinary voter. Back in those days, when memories of the Second World War and the enforced egalitarianism of the trenches were still fresh, unusual and/or disturbing idiosyncrasies were much easier to spot. People still recalled the stereotype of the “spiv”: the black-market con-men who were “all Brylcreem and no socks”. Both of the major parties were tolerant of a wide range of political beliefs and priorities, but the men and women they chose to represent them all evinced a reassuring sameness.

The effective destruction of New Zealand’s mass political parties, along with the thoroughgoing de-democratisation of the decision-making structures that remained, which the introduction of neoliberalism more-or-less mandated, robbed them of their almost automatic capacity to pick the “right” sort of person to represent them. The new economic order also required the major parties to abandon their former tolerance of heterodox ideas. Ideological orthodoxy now trumped social conformity. Especially after the arrival of MMP and its backroom-assembled Party Lists, the party bosses cared less-and-less about what MPs did privately – so long as they didn’t do it in front of the cameras and frighten the markets.

And it got worse. The political culture of neoliberalism bred its own, very special, kind of politician. Just as the producers of reality TV shows like Survivor are careful to screen out anyone displaying what most people would consider the “normal” human traits of compassion, co-operation and honest-dealing, in favour of the selfish, the ruthless and the faithless; so, too, are political parties careful to screen out those who display an excessive independence of mind and/or a principled unwillingness to subordinate their conscience to the dictates of the party leadership. The days of so-called “maverick” MPs like Mike Minogue and Jim Anderton are long gone.

The upshot, for the National Party, was John Key and his affably cynical amanuensis, Steven Joyce. Those of an older generation may have grumbled into their single malts about the party falling into the hands of a quintessential “spiv” and his backroom Machiavelli, but nobody who mattered cared. In a world where all that counts is the ability to buy and sell, the currency trader should be king. In a political environment where the ability to fake sincerity rates as the ultimate accomplishment, calling someone Machiavelli is a fulsome compliment.

Like it or not, these were the sort of role models National was happy to present to the next generation of aspiring MPs. Unfortunately, younger generations have a nasty habit of noticing attitudes and behaviours their elders would prefer them to overlook. This propensity to model themselves on the real – rather than the ideal – may be a perverse sort of compliment to the generation in charge, but the final product, when it steps into the public spotlight all-too-often proves to be an accident just waiting to happen – as National has discovered to its cost.

The ultimate guard-rail against these political eruptions is the party’s organisational leadership. The party president, in particular, must have an especially sensitive nose for potential stinkers. It’s a huge responsibility: in effect the president, and his/her colleagues on the party’s executive committee, must substitute their own judgement for the mass party’s homogenising instincts. In this regard, the incumbent National Party President, Peter Goodfellow, must be adjudged a costly failure. To put it crudely: far too many stinkers have been given the nod. National urgently requires a more sensitive pair of nostrils.

Not that Goldsmith is one of the stinkers, far from it. He’s one of National’s few remaining conservative intellectuals. As a politician, he is refreshingly open about expressing his opinions. The problem he has, however, is a very obvious lack of the common touch. Goldsmith is the polar opposite of Simon Bridges – a National politician who has not the slightest difficulty with the diction of the ordinary Kiwi. The bookish Goldsmith, one suspects, would struggle in the average public bar: too concerned about the facts; not concerned enough about the tone.

Factually, Goldsmith has a case to make. Colonisation has not been an unequivocal evil. What it has done, however, by forcing them to respond to its ever-increasing impact, is divide Maori.

Since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the internal divisions within Maoridom have resolved themselves into three broad factions: the Loyalists; the Adapters; and the Rejectionists. For the Loyalists, the British Crown has remained a symbol of power and authority over and above the treacherous settler state. Having secured its protection under Article Three of the Treaty, successive generations of Maori leaders have continued to appeal to the only institution which has been willing to defend them from the “democracy” of the Pakeha majority.

Strong believers in the hereditary principle, and inheriting all the aristocratic mana of their forefathers, they have found it hard to believe that the British sovereign – the ultimate rangatira – reigns over her subjects but does not rule them. Even today, many Maori leaders evince a profound mistrust of the democratically elected legislature, and show a decided preference for working with the executive and judicial branches of the New Zealand State. Cabinet, and a sympathetic judiciary, have taken the place of well-disposed Governors and the Church Missionary Society.

The Adapters continue to seek an enduring modus vivendi with the world of the Pakeha. Their original vision of the 1840s and 50s: of the Pakeha in their place, the tangata whenua in theirs, and the Treaty over them all, continues to inspire a significant minority of contemporary Maori – not least the authors of He Puapua.

More numerous, however, are those for whom the Treaty and the Maori tribes’ heroic resistance form just one part – albeit an important part – of their family heritage. For two centuries they have taken the Pakeha’s tools and used them to construct a new identity. One-hundred-and-fifty years after the Sovereignty Wars, and with the genealogies of tangata whenua and tauiwi inextricably intertwined, they think of themselves – and call themselves – New Zealanders.

For the Rejectionists, however, the British Crown turned out to be nothing more than the glittering bauble which ruthless settler politicians raised above their heads as proof that their government’s bare-faced larceny would soon enjoy all the security of legal title.

The rejectionists cast aside Crown and Treaty in favour of a return to the old ways. One thinks of Rua Kenana, lost in the mists of the Ureweras. Or of the fiercely independent Maori communities of Northland, the King Country and the Waikato and Whanganui Rivers. Among these proud tenders of te ahi kaa – the home-fires of inextinguishable possession – the incantations of their forefathers continue to work their magic, and, in the very bones of the land, they hear the echoes of Rewi Maniapoto’s last, defiant challenge: Ka whawhai tonu matou, ake ake ake! – “We will fight on, forever and ever and ever!”

Goldsmith’s mistake was his failure to appreciate that, for the moment, it is the rejectionists who have the floor.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 7 June 2021.

Who Poses the Bigger Threat: The Far Right, Or the Far Left?

Anyone Heard Of The 'Horseshoe Theory'? The notion that the political spectrum isn't really a straight line, but actually more of a horseshoe shape, is making something of a comeback in the 2020s. Its great appeal lies in the fact that it places those at the very ends of the Left-Right spectrum much closer to each other than to those at the centre. Listening to the diagnoses and proposed cures of those purporting to be opponents of the Far-Right, one is tempted to say: "If the horseshoe fits ..."

EVEN THE HEADLINE is misleading: “How the SIS Missed the Threat of the Far Right”. Marc Dalder’s latest posting on the Newsroom site purports to offer evidence of the Service’s failure to adequately assess the danger posed to New Zealand society by Far Right and White Supremacist groups. In fact, from the documents Dalder relies upon, it is clear that the SIS assessed the threat potential of New Zealand’s right-wing extremists with considerable accuracy.

That the SIS failed to prevent the “lone wolf” attack perpetrated by Australian extremist Brenton Tarrant is undeniable. But, once again, the official documents cited by Dalder make it very clear that without the assistance of the most extraordinary dumb luck the detection and prevention of such attacks is next-to-impossible. Curiously enough, this is also precisely what the Royal Commission of Inquiry Into the Christchurch Mosque Attacks concluded.

Dalder’s post highlights a paper produced by the National Assessments Committee of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (not, you’ll note, the SIS) entitled “The Right Wing in New Zealand: Myth versus Reality”.

According to Dalder:

The bulk of this paper examined the threat of far-right groups, even though previous right-wing terrorists like Anders Breivik were not affiliated with a specific organisation. It determined that ‘established, overt groups’ like Right Wing Resistance and the New Zealand National Front ‘posed no threat to domestic security’ and ‘there is no information to suggest either group has the intent or capability to impose their ideology through illegitimate means’.

Greater threats could be found in ‘small [extreme right wing] groups or individuals acting outside the sanction of established organisations’ who ‘are the key vector for harm associated with the far-right ... Extremist racist acts are rare and have not routinely featured the use of firearms, but the relative ease of access to semi-automatic firearms means that a ‘lone wolf’ attack scenario remains a possibility.

Reassuringly, the SIS agreed. Dalder quotes the relevant findings from the Service’s January 2018 Combined Threat Assessment Group report – the last issued before the Christchurch attacks:

This document briefly notes that publicly available information ‘indicates the popularity of far-right ideology has risen in the West since the early 2000s’ but that New Zealand's far-right groups don’t have ‘the intent or capability to promote their ideology by an act of terrorism’.

Yet again, this focus on groups appears to have slipped up the agency. What about a lone wolf attack?

As has been evidenced in similar jurisdictions to New Zealand, an extreme right-wing lone actor attack remains a possibility, albeit a remote one.

Dalder’s judgement of the New Zealand Intelligence Community – revealed in sentences like: “Yet again, this focus on groups appears to have slipped up the agency”, relies entirely on ex post facto reasoning. He knows that Tarrant’s terrorist attack occurred, and therefore feels entitled to say that the SIS “slipped up”.

Except that it didn’t slip up. The SIS and its sister agencies looked at New Zealand’s tiny – and, frankly, rather ridiculous – Far Right community and quite correctly assessed its miniscule groups as possessing neither the intent nor the capability of carrying out a terrorist act. Far from slipping up, the SIS made the right call. It advised the Government that New Zealand’s Far Right groups were nothing to worry about – and they weren’t.

The ideologies of overt white supremacism and/or National Socialism simply do not attract New Zealanders in anything like the numbers required to merit the serious attention of the SIS. Every time these wannabe stormtroopers attempt to strut their stuff on the streets, they are monstered by a far superior force of genuinely aggressive anti-fascists – so much so that they usually require Police protection! Terrorists should be (and are) made of sterner stuff.

Certainly, the Christchurch Shooter was made of homicidally sterner stuff. Stuff which, as New Zealand’s national security analysts rightly warned, is almost impossible to detect or prevent. Yet, even here, their predictions proved accurate. They had rated the chances of a “lone wolf” New Zealander emerging to wreak the sort of havoc unleashed by Anders Breivik in Norway as “remote”, and, once again, they were proved correct. Brenton Tarrant was an Australian, radicalised online and overseas, who chose to carry out his “mission” in New Zealand precisely because it was just about the last place on earth where anyone would expect such a dreadful tragedy to happen.

So, what, exactly, is Dalder hoping to achieve by constantly berating the SIS and the rest of New Zealand’s national security apparatus for missing a “lone wolf” Australian terrorist? Especially when our spooks had repeatedly warned their political masters that “lone wolf” terrorists were almost impossible to intercept? Is he hoping that by repeating these charges over and over again he and his supporters will establish a political climate in which truly draconian levels of state surveillance are accepted as both urgent and necessary?

Assessing the response of the “anti-fascists” to the clearly illegal communication of genocidal ideas via a YouTube posting (quickly taken down) from a person later confirmed by the Police as suffering from a mental illness, one is left wondering. Our current laws prohibit the sort of violent, racially-charged speech posted by this individual – who may yet find himself charged with inciting racial hatred.

A small measure of comfort should, however, be taken from the fact that his anti-Maori threats were broadcast on YouTube, and were, consequently, detected almost immediately. Would that Brenton Tarrant had stated his murderous intentions so publicly: because, had he done so, the Christchurch Massacres would never have happened.

Sadly, this is not the way the “anti-fascists” think. The call has gone out from the Maori Party for a special “joint taskforce”, comprised of the Police and the SIS (and, perhaps, Race Relations Commissioner, Meng Foon, from the Human Rights Commission, who has gallantly volunteered his assistance) and mandated to step up the surveillance (and harassment?) of Far-Right and/or White Supremacist groups targeting Maori.

Even without such a taskforce, New Zealand’s own version of Antifa has succeeded in getting one such purveyor of Far-Right (but not illegal) online content sacked from his job.

What would a national security profiler say, presented with an individual, already dangerously radicalised, who loses his employment amidst a shrill chorus of public condemnation? Would the profiler be concerned that the subject’s anti-social inclinations might be even further inflamed? That his imagination would soon be seething with bloodthirsty revenge fantasies. Scorned and shunned, could he see such a person descending into the criminal underworld and letting it be known that he’s in the market for a military-style semi-automatic rifle?

One suspects a national security profiler, presented with such a case, would recommend that the subject be declared a “person of interest”. It is to be hoped that law enforcement would have the resources to keep an eye on him 24/7. Although, strictly speaking, until he actually acquired an illegal firearm, he would have committed no offence. So, round-the-clock surveillance might not be possible. What about the SIS? Well, no, the SIS is not permitted to engage in law enforcement – that’s the Police’s job.

Perhaps that’s what the Maori Party has in mind: the spooks and the cops working together, side-by-side – ably assisted by Meng Foon and an unofficial collection of civilian spies and YouTube monitors. Once the accusation of Far Right, White Supremacist and/or anti-Maori proclivities was made, these folk could swing into action. Maybe take the suspect into protective custody? Maybe interrogate him?

After all, interventions of this kind, targeting communists, socialists, gays and Jews, worked really well for the Nazis.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 4 June 2021.

The Many Faces Of Racial Terror.

Tulsa's Greenwood District Burning, 1 June 1921. In a frenzy of race hatred, a veritable army of whites descended on the prosperous African-American neighbourhood of Greenwood, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and laid it waste. As many as 300 African-Americans were murdered by the rampaging white mobs, who came against their fellow citizens with pistols, rifles, machine-guns and even aircraft. Upwards of 30 city blocks were burned to the ground.

WHEN IT COMES to racial terror, it’s easy to feel superior to Americans. Certainly, New Zealand has nothing in its colonial history to match what happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 31 May/1 June 1921 – exactly one hundred years ago this week.

In a frenzy of race hatred, a veritable army of whites descended on the prosperous African-American neighbourhood of Greenwood and laid it waste. As many as 300 African-Americans were murdered by the rampaging white mobs, who came against their fellow citizens with pistols, rifles, machine-guns and even aircraft. Upwards of 30 city blocks were burned to the ground.

The Greenwood community, so full of black expertise and entrepreneurship that journalists dubbed it “The Black Wall Street”, never recovered. The story of the massacre, one of the most deadly and destructive race riots in US history, was buried by the Tulsa authorities for decades. Only in the last 20 years have the efforts of African-American historians and activists succeeded in forcing White America to confront this dreadful incident from its bloody past.

What made them do it? The story put about at the time was all-too-familiar: a young black man had ‘disrespected’ a young white woman. That’s all it took. The findings of an official commission of inquiry, convened three-quarters-of-a-century after the massacre, told a different story. Released in 2001, the final report stated that “the city had conspired with the mob of White citizens against Black citizens”. Why did they do it? The screenplay of the movie Mississippi Burning offers a powerful insight into the mindset of the sort of Whites who burned down Greenwood:

You know, when I was a little boy, there was an old negro farmer that lived down the road from us, name of Monroe. And he was... well, I guess he was just a little luckier than my daddy was. He bought himself a mule. That was a big deal around that town. My daddy hated that mule, ‘cause his friends were always kidding him that they saw Monroe out plowing with his new mule … One morning, that mule showed up dead … After that, there wasn’t any mention about that mule around my daddy … I knew he done it. He saw that I knew. He was ashamed … He looked at me and said, ‘If you ain’t better than a n*****, son, who are you better than?’

Still, those 300 Greenwood deaths require some context, because, appalling as that number is, it represents barely 5 percent of the estimated 6,500 African-Americans who fell victim to racial terror between the end of the American Civil War in 1865 and 1950.

Before we Pakeha New Zealanders start feeling too smug, however, we should give some thought to what our Settler State did to thousands of young Maori – especially young Maori males – in the decades following World War II.

These were, of course, the years of the great internal migration of Maori: from the rural margins of New Zealand into which they had been shunted by the settler economy; to the cities, where their unskilled labour was urgently needed by employers who had run out of unskilled Pakeha to exploit.

For the New Zealand state, this huge demographic shift was fraught with potential problems. Would Maori be able to adapt to the new and profoundly different lifestyle that awaited them? And, what should be done with those who couldn’t – or wouldn’t – behave themselves?

Part of the answer came in the form of the special “boys’ homes” established by the state to corral the wayward offspring of Maori families in transition. Young people in general were widely perceived as problematic in post-war New Zealand, but young Maori males provoked all manner of racially-charged fears.

The callous, indeed almost frivolous, incarceration of young, brown people in out-of-sight, out-of-mind state institutions, where all too frequently they were victimised and abused, must stand as one of the most scandalous misapplications of state power in New Zealand history. The Royal Commission of Inquiry Into Abuse in Care has calculated that upwards of quarter-of-a-million young New Zealanders – most of them Maori and Pacifica – suffered horribly in the course of what some might call these slow-motion lynchings.

The Tulsa Massacre represents race hatred at its most vicious and unequivocal. New Zealand’s racial terror has always been inflicted with considerably more discretion.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 4 June 2021.

Sucking Up and Kicking Down: The NZ Media Covers the Queenstown Summit.

Steady-On, Cobber: After the vicious attack on New Zealand’s prime minister and foreign policy, broadcast on Channel Nine’s “60 Minutes” programme, during which this country was accused of selling its soul and abandoning its Australian “mate” for a mess of Chinese pottage, most Kiwis would have greeted the Aussie media pack with hackles raised and teeth bared. Not our journalists, or, at least, not where anyone could see them.

THE NEW ZEALAND NEWS MEDIA’S coverage of the regular get-together of the Australian and New Zealand prime ministers was appalling. Like their reporting of New Zealand politics generally, most of the journalists’ effort was devoted to seeking-out story-lines with which to embarrass the Labour Government of Jacinda Ardern. In many cases, this involved openly talking-up the Australians’ book at their own country’s expense. Confirmed, yet again, is the unhealthily large number of “suck-up, kick-down” personalities currently at large in New Zealand’s Fourth Estate.

So many contemporary journalists appear to be in the job for trophies. Not the sort of trophies one displays on the mantelpiece (although they like them too) but the sort of trophies big-game hunters hang on their walls. The current Press Gallery’s definition of a good political journalist would appear to be based on how many politician’s they have “bagged”. As if stuffing someone’s career is something to be proud of.

Never has the British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin’s (1867-1947) crushing condemnation of the news media been more apt: “What [it] is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”

After the vicious attack on New Zealand’s foreign policy, broadcast on Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes programme, during which this country was accused of selling its soul and abandoning its Australian “mate” for a mess of Chinese pottage, most Kiwis would have greeted the Aussie media pack with hackles raised and teeth bared. Not our journalists, or, at least, not where anyone could see them.

Rather than respond in kind to the “60 Minutes” onslaught, with questions about the Australian Defence Minister courting Armageddon over Taiwan and the South China Sea, our scribes were more keen to know how fast Jacinda planned to skulk back, like a whipped puppy, to her kennel in Canberra’s back yard.

Certainly there was no one there in Queenstown with the wit to object, when Scott Morrison blathered on about not letting hostile forces divide the Anzac partners, that, since the man in charge of Channel Nine was his old mate and Liberal Party colleague, Peter Costello, he might like to pick up the phone and ask him to stop calling New Zealand a Chinese puppet.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it. The hacks and hackettes of the New Zealand Press Gallery just don’t know stuff like that. All they know is what the smooth operators at the Australian High Commission, the British High Commission and the American Embassy whisper in their shell-like ears at receptions and cocktail parties arranged for just such a purpose.

One is reminded of the famous scene in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four when the “orator” on the platform is handed a note informing him that Oceania is no longer at war with Eurasia, it is now at war with Eastasia:

The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker’s hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed.

For nearly 40 years, New Zealand’s diplomatic stance has reflected its location in the Asia-Pacific region of the world. Its relationships with other nations are based on the indisputable reality of New Zealand being a small, economically vulnerable, trading nation situated in the south of the South Pacific. It’s a stance that has the merit of being both expedient and ethical. Other nations know exactly where we stand and what we want – which is, essentially, to be everybody’s friend and trading partner. For decades now, New Zealand diplomacy has possessed the added advantage of in no way contradicting the general strategic posture of the region’s major military actors – the USA and Australia. We were focused on the Asia-Pacific. They were focused on the Asia-Pacific.

Except, they’re not – not any longer. The USA’s and Australia’s strategic perspective has shifted abruptly from the Asia-Pacific theatre to the Indo-Pacific theatre. From an essentially defensive stance, aimed at preserving the regional status-quo, New Zealand’s former ANZUS allies (with Japan and India in tow) have adopted a clearly aggressive posture aimed at containing, weakening, and ultimately breaking, the Peoples Republic of China. (In exactly the same way the USA and Nato contained, weakened and ultimately broke the Soviet Union.) And New Zealand, like the orator in Orwell’s novel, is supposed to accept the change without missing a beat. “Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.”

Significantly, the Press Gallery – bless their hawkish little hearts – has fallen into line without a murmur. China is New Zealand’s enemy. China has always been New Zealand’s enemy. Canberra says so. Washington says so. Even London says so. (Although what business it is of theirs God alone knows!)

Never mind that, by putting our export earnings at risk, the demands of our “allies” pose a direct threat to our national security and wellbeing. Never mind that, like the Soviet Union, China is a nuclear power, which, if cornered, has the power to blow up the world. None of this matters. As far as this country’s senior political journalists are concerned, New Zealand is out of step with the big boys. Ergo, New Zealand must get in step with the big boys. Jacinda needs to hold hands with “ScoMo” and “Sleepy Joe”, and quickly – or run the risk of being “bagged” and having her head hung on the Press Gallery wall.

Unless, of course, our “friends” decide that Oceania is no longer at war with Eastasia. That Oceania has never been at war with Eastasia.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 3 June 2021.

Australia’s Eschatological Diplomacy.

Riders In The Sky: This extraordinary snapshot of a thunderstorm over Brisbane reveals nothing less than the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding the storm-clouds to Doomsday. The Australian Right's dangerous liaisons with the dark eschatology of Evangelical Christianity have turned Australian diplomacy - especially as it relates to China - down a very dangerous path. 

Eschatology is a part of theology concerned with the final events of history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity. This concept is commonly referred to as “the end of the world” or “end times”. – Wikipedia

WHY ARE THE AUSTRALIANS behaving so provocatively towards China? What makes a nation of 25 million think itself the equal of a nation of more than a billion? China’s economy is second only to that of the United States’. Technologically, it is well ahead of the best Australian science has to offer. Militarily speaking, the Peoples Liberation Army dwarfs the Australian Defence Force. Oh, and China possesses its own nuclear arsenal, with rockets and guidance systems more than equal to the task of delivering a 20 kiloton atomic device through the front doors of the Australian Parliament and detonating it on the Speaker’s Chair.

A government would have to be mad to set itself and its people against a foe so huge and dangerous. Unfortunately, madness, might just turn out to be the most robust explanation for the Australian Government’s eschatological diplomacy.

Let’s begin our diagnosis with Australia’s frankly insane belief that China needs Australia’s iron ore more than Australia needs China’s iron ore purchases.

The most likely source of this delusional thinking is the undeniable fact that Australia holds nearly 54 percent of the world’s iron ore reserves. The problem with this figure is that, if China is removed from the equation, Australia’s huge quantities of iron ore could not be absorbed by any other market. Nowhere else on the planet is there anything like China’s demand for iron and steel. The USA, Europe and Japan are essentially sated economies, and the rest of the planet is simply too poor to take up the slack if China suddenly stopped buying – from Australia.

Because, of course, while Australia owns most of the world’s iron ore, it does not own all of it. At a pinch (and Australia has been pinching China pretty hard of late) China could turn to Brazil and South Africa for its iron ore supplies. Yes, it might take Beijing a little while to reorganise its mineral imports regime, but this minor inconvenience would inflict far less harm on the Chinese economy than the collapse of iron ore exports would inflict upon Australia’s.

The Aussies are fond of pointing their accusatory little fingers at New Zealand on account of the Kiwis’ extreme reluctance to offend the largest purchaser of their country’s crucial dairy exports. Truth be told, however, Australia earns an even larger chunk of its export receipts from China than New Zealand.

If Beijing were to impose a ban on the import of Australian iron ore, the economic impact would be devastating. In very short order, Australia would slide into a deep recession, generating political consequences inimical to the incumbent Liberal-National Coalition Government. The likely election of a Beijing-friendly Labor Government would not only bring the diplomatic and economic stand-off to an end, it would also deliver a harsh, but necessary, lesson in the realities of international politics to a (hopefully) chastened Liberal Party.

That’s the hopeful scenario. An alternative explanation for the current madness of the Australian Government is that, within its ranks, there exists a righteous gaggle of evangelical Christians for whom politics is no longer “the art of the possible”, but eschatological: facilitating the Second Coming of Christ.

The prospect of mutual nuclear annihilation was crucial to the refusal of both the United States and the Soviet Union to push their diplomatic competition beyond the point of no return. Neither side wished to see its people incinerated in a nuclear flash, or succumb slowly to the effects of radiation poisoning. Irrespective of their capitalist and socialist ideologies, Washington and Moscow remained essentially secular, scientific and rational. Had they not, the world would not have survived the First Cold War.

Much has changed, however, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the consequent ending of the First Cold War, in August 1991. In the United States, the ever-increasing influence of evangelical Christianity over the political process, especially over the Republican Party, has seen the practice of politics become radically less secular, less scientific and less rational. It has also undermined the political system’s capacity to respond self-defensively to existential threats. If the end of the world is perceived as a good thing: as the fulfilment of the prophecies contained in the Book of Revelation; what incentive does a true believer have for trying to prevent it from happening?

It is a sobering fact that between 1995 and 2007 Tim LaHay’s 16 “Rapture” novels repeatedly topped the bestseller lists. In 2016, alone, over 65 million copies were sold worldwide. No less an authority than Jerry Falwell reckoned the impact of LaHay’s novels on American Christianity at second only to the Bible itself. Believers in the Apocalypse look upon the end of the world – and fear no evil.

On 5 July 2005, the Sydney Morning Herald published a story headlined “Politics Goes To Church At Hillsong”. According to the SMH:

“They were all there - NSW Premier Bob Carr and federal ministers Alexander Downer, Kevin Andrews and Peter Dutton, as well as NSW Christian Democrats MP Fred Nile, Liberal MP David Clarke and other state parliamentarians.

“But the 20,000-strong crowd of evangelical Christians reserved their most enthusiastic applause for Treasurer Peter Costello, who received an almighty welcome – just as he did last year”.

Fifteen years on, it’s 2021, and Peter Dutton is Australia’s Defence Minister. His deep-seated hostility towards China is undisguised, as is his belief that some form of military confrontation with Beijing is inevitable. Peter Costello, who lays claim to the title of Australia’s longest-serving finance minister, is currently the Chair of Nine Entertainment Co. – the television network responsible for the rhetorical question: “Has New Zealand become New Xi-land?” (As in Xi Jinping, China’s President – geddit?)

It is difficult to know how New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is able to deal sensibly with an Australian Government (and an Australian bureaucracy and defence force) in which evangelical Christian eschatology often seems to count for more than the rational assessment of national self-interest and self-preservation that has long guided New Zealand diplomacy.

One can only imagine what China’s politicians and diplomats make of Australia’s eschatological diplomacy. Let alone the fact that the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is a member of the “Horizon” congregation – a “happy-clappy” evangelical community that just can’t wait for Jesus to win the Battle of Armageddon and carry up the righteous to glory.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 1 June 2021.

Let Racism Show Its Face.

Pre-Programmed, Or Re-Programmed? Is New Zealand at risk of becoming a nation of “Stepford Citizens”: people who smile politely, nod encouragingly, and recite word-perfectly the bi-cultural and multi-cultural slogans of their masters?

“COPROLITE” was the word that sprang to the mind of Paora Stanley, chief executive of Ngāi Te Rangi. Although unsurprised by the behaviour of some of the 300-strong crowd who had turned out to the founding meeting of the Tauranga Ratepayers Alliance, their vicious heckling of Kim Williams, chair of the Alliance’s steering committee, as she attempted to greet her audience in Maori, constituted a “sad indictment on them and the city”. (Coprolite, for those who don’t know, is what archaeologists call fossilised shit.)

Stanley may be a little hopeful in describing the sort of folk who shouted-down Williams with cries of “Speak English!”, “We don’t want to hear that!” “Sit down!”, as fossils. It may simply be the case that, in a city like Tauranga – for many years the home of a particularly outspoken brand of Kiwi conservatism – the hecklers believed themselves socially licenced to respond in the way they did. Certainly, many of these folk may be old: reflective of a time when Tauranga was the “retirement capital” of New Zealand. Some of them may even have been fervent supporters of Tauranga’s erstwhile MP, Winston Peters, and his NZ First Party. But to assume that every heckler in the auditorium was a political fossil is surely a little heroic?

There is a strong political assumption across pretty much the whole of the mainstream news media, that racist, anti-Maori and white supremacist views are confined to the benighted inhabitants of rural and provincial New Zealand. That only in the sort of far-flung places one glimpses in the Steinlager advertisements is it still possible to find folk willing to express racist opinions out loud. For “woke” New Zealand, Tauranga is the epitome of provincialism: a centre that went from small town to big city without passing through any of the civilising experiences that dignified Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. In the eyes of these sophisticates, Tauranga is what Hamilton would have been like without the University of Waikato.

If only New Zealand’s political geography was so simple. Provincialism, however, is a state of mind, not a postal code. Racist views cannot be neatly corralled in the “heartland” so beloved of advertising executives. It lives and breathes just as vigorously in the suburbs of all our major cities – and is certainly not confined to this country’s burgeoning archipelago of retirement villages.

In metropolitan New Zealand, however, it would be most unusual to encounter anything as unselfconscious and virulent as the recent outburst in Tauranga. In the big cities, any such expression would attract instant retribution. In the big cities, racists have learned to censor themselves. Only among people they trust absolutely, do they feel free to say what they feel.

This is, of course, a much more dangerous problem than the honest and open expression of racist attitudes supposedly encountered in your nearest country pub. New Zealand risks becoming a nation of “Stepford Citizens”: people who smile politely, nod encouragingly, and recite word-perfectly the bi-cultural and multi-cultural slogans of their masters. Harmless enough, you might think. And so they tend to be, right up until the day the equivalent of a Donald Trump happens by with a whole new line of behavioural software.

Or, to put it another way: How likely is it that the nation which is happy to arrest and incarcerate Maori out of all proportion to their numbers; the nation which mentally replaces the word “beneficiary” with the word “Maori”, and then waxes eloquent on the moral deficiencies of all such bludgers, fraudsters and deadbeat-dads; is truly the tolerant and progressive nation its Stepford Citizens proclaim it to be?

Indeed, turning the whole proposition around, why is New Zealand’s political class so ruthless in its policing of ordinary citizens’ thoughts and expressions, if the racist cohorts of the population are, allegedly, dwindling rapidly in number and power? What would be the point of hate speech laws in a country whose younger generations are entirely at ease with the sorts of changes championed in the He Puapua Report? Why seek to curtail freedom of expression when, far from threatening to poison the political discourse, free-speakers are only likely to expose the wholesomeness of their ideals? One does not build a wall if there is nothing and no one to fear living on the opposite side.

Apropos of which, was it not the contention of Marama Davidson and Golriz Ghahraman, speaking in the Domain to the thousands of Aucklanders who had gathered to express their sorrow and solidarity with the victims of the Christchurch mosque attacks, that the actions of the lone terrorist represented only the tip of the spear of the white supremacist ideology that lies at the heart of colonisation? And, why on earth would the Ministry of Education sanction courses designed to confront “White Privilege”, if racism was not an all-pervading evil of New Zealand society?

Either, racism is a coprolitic throwback: a fast-disappearing affliction restricted to the sort of “crusties” who heckled Kim Williams in Tauranga. Or, it is an all-pervading evil that must be confronted unflinchingly at every level of our society. What it cannot be, is both. Moreover, whatever it turns out to be: failing-fast, or fuelling-up; it cannot be dealt with successfully by suppression.

To their credit, the authors of He Puapua, two of whom fronted-up on TVNZ’s Marae programme on Sunday, 30 May 2021, are consistent in their call for a “mature conversation” about the ideas contained in their report. What the producers of the show, and the New Zealand news media generally, need to grasp, however, is that one cannot have a “mature conversation” if the only people invited to participate are all of the same mind. Nothing is more likely inflame public opinion than a well-justified belief that only one version of the story is being told.

It is worth recalling that the catalysing issue behind the turnout of 300 ratepayers in Tauranga was the Labour Government’s decision to unseat the Tauranga City Council and replace it with commissioners, whose first major decision was to impose a swingeing 17 percent rate increase on the city’s residents. It is not difficult to join the dots between the audience’s anger at losing the right to set their own rates, and what they saw as the equally high-handed imposition of Maori language and culture upon citizens with little liking for either.

Racism is not defeated by such methods. To defeat racism it is necessary to let people see it in all its ugliness – as they did in the reports of that Tauranga meeting. To construct a bi-cultural constitution, one must not only advance the arguments in its favour; one must also allow people to hear the arguments against.

When the Commissioner of Public Safety for Birmingham, Alabama, Bull Connor, ordered his police to turn firehoses on African-American children in their Sunday best; when Alsatian dogs were set upon unarmed civil-rights protesters; who got the better of the argument? When bulldozers flattened the wharenui on Bastion Point, what was it that New Zealanders witnessed?

The most effective case to be made against racism and white supremacy is simply, and always, to allow people to look upon its face.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website of Monday, 31 May 2021.

Like We’ve Been Here Before: The “Friends” Reunion.

From I To We: The selfishness of “Friends” Joey, Chandler, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe and Ross was an absolutely crucial aspect of the iconic 1990s series’ success. Most of the humour of “Friends” is derived from the ever-so-slightly fucked-up self-absorption of the principal characters. Just as most of the series’ dramatic power derives from the six friends’ constant collision with the core truth that, in spite of everything we’ve been told, we can’t actually make it on our own.

I’VE NEVER BEEN a big fan of reunions. All they seem to reaffirm is the wisdom of Heraclitus. Heraclitus? Yes, the ancient Greek philosopher who wrote: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

Now, it’s an open questions as to whether Ross, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe, Monica and Rachel were ever great readers of Heraclitus (although, you know, Ross was a pretty academic kind of guy). What’s even more doubtful, of course, is whether the actors who played these most famous of friends ever dabbled in ancient Greek philosophy. That being the case, it was probably a bit hopeful to expect them to turn down the huge money involved in bringing all the characters back together for one, last “reunion” episode.

Mind you, they were a pretty remarkable ensemble, and they did manage to stamp a whole decade with their very own brand of cultural ink. So, you know, why not?

Why not! Seriously? Because the politico-cultural river has flowed on so far from that first episode of “Friends”, screened way back in 1994. In those days, it was still possible to gather together three white guys and three white girls from the suburbs of Middle America and drop them into a quirky “twenty-something” sitcom without being accused of unforgiveable cultural myopia and unconscious racism.

Not anymore.

Judging from the intensity of the Twitterstorm which the “Friends” reunion has generated, there’s a whole generation out there which feels deeply embarrassed by the enjoyment their younger selves derived from following the trials and tribulations of Ross, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe, Monica and Rachel. Long before they made it to college and learned all about white male privilege, cis sexuality, and systemic racism, “Friends” represented something pretty close to the ideal of how they wanted to live. Sure, the series celebrated independence, discovery and adventure – but always within the context of the unconditional emotional support endlessly available from these all-too-human explorers of young adulthood.

As Chandler might have put it: “Could anyone have possibly BEEN more selfish?”

Well, no. Not really. But that selfishness was an absolutely crucial aspect of the 1990s zeitgeist. Most of the humour of “Friends” is derived from the ever-so-slightly fucked-up self-absorption of the principal characters. Just as most of the series’ dramatic power derives from the six friends’ constant collision with the core truth that, in spite of everything we’ve been told, we can’t actually make it on our own.

The other reason for “Friends” extraordinary success was the way it taught a whole generation of white, well-educated, middle-class Americans how to negotiate the hazards of neoliberal society. Not an easy project, and one that would be rendered instantly impossible if any considerations other than those of how to be a member in good standing of the professional-managerial class had been introduced to the self-contained world of the Central Perk.

Seriously, what the hell would Ross, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe, Monica and Rachel have done if they had witnessed the murder of a black man by a dead-eyed cop? How would a hopeless methamphetamine addict have been received by Gunther? How would rape, domestic violence and gross economic exploitation have fitted into the comedic schema of “Friends”? How long would the friends of “Friends” have remained friends if these sorts of issues had suddenly become the main topics of conversation over all those café lattés? There aren’t a lot of laughs in injustice. At least, not a lot of laughs for liberals.

And yet, and yet, it had something – didn’t it? “Friends” had a human warmth and a core of decency that, through all the jokes and ridiculous personal crises (We were on a break!”) served a consistently uplifting didactic purpose. Not the least important of these lessons was that it is actually okay to hang out with people of the same age, sexuality, ethnicity and social class. It’s what humans have done pretty much since there were humans. In a capitalist society, where the advertisers’ dollars pay for everything from Chandler’s shirts to Phoebe’s guitar, it’s simply not reasonable to expect intersectional purity on every page of the script.

At least, it didn’t used to be reasonable. Nowadays, with “colour-blind casting” (an Indian Nicholas Nickleby anyone?) and every cast carefully sifted through the sieves of gender, ethnicity, sexuality and class (does anyone actually watch “The Irregulars”?) one is moved to wonder whether profit is even the point anymore. The thing to remember, however, is that didacticism only works when you cease to be aware that you are being taught.

“Friends” taught us about the importance of companionship in the perilous straits of early adulthood. But, it did not achieve this entirely worthy objective by hitting us over the head with the sledgehammer of fashionable ideology. It did it by making us laugh and, on occasion, cry. The millions and millions of people who watched (and still watch) “Friends” did so, and do so, because they saw/see themselves in the characters. Even people who aren’t well-educated, white and middle-class are somehow able to do this. How? Because Ross, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe, Monica and Rachel are recognisably human types.

If the writers of “Friends”, David Crane and Marta Kauffman, had made Joey black, but not vain; and Monica a lesbian, but not neurotic; would we have laughed so loudly? Hell, would we have laughed at all?

I doubt it. That version of “Friends” would have been a very different river.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 28 May 2021.