NZ's Left: Too Posh to Protest
The anti-mandate protests are a class struggle the Left are too privileged to attend
This week Nicky Hager became one of several left-leaning middle class white males to disavow the anti-mandate marches in Pōneke. He implored for “Reasonable New Zealand friends to please actively, vocally disavow and denounce the violent cheerleaders. Please realise that your concerns are being exploited for other agendas. And never, ever join or support this kind of fascist protest again.”
But this righteous appeal to the left to abandon protesting because of the right-wing affiliations of the organisers severs us from the messy history of doing what needs to be done to achieve goals that go beyond the political binary. There are countless examples of bipartisan movements throughout our history.
Class struggle, demanding just and equitable policies for workers, has always involved a broad bloc to garner momentum. In 1838 The Chartists, an early and unlikely coalition demanding political reform bought together right-wingers and violent revolutionists to campaign on six demands that were considered radical at the time, but now read as eminently sensible. A vote for each man, etc. The movement collapsed before their demands were realised, but much of our democracy was influenced by the People’s Charter they co-wrote.
More recently, in 1999, the uprising around the WTO meetings, named “the Battle of Seattle” saw environmentalists stand side by side with neo-facists and anarchists marching with Proud Boys – it was a crowd made up of extreme left and extreme right, each having entirely different motives for protesting the global elite. The environmentalists and anarchists at this protest became my heroes. They wrote the book on modern activism and it’s a badge of honour to have been at the Battle of Seattle, despite the complicated crowd it gathered.
From the Miner’s Strikes to May Day protests, workers’ movements have put aside fear of an imperfect coalition in order to mobilise in large numbers for political impact.
So, what’s changed? What has made the left so picky with this current example of disaster capitalism? What has happened to allow them to be so overly scrupulous in who it stands with?
Affluence happened.
There’s a new left and it’s middle class. It’s comfortable. It’s become removed from the workers that the left was originally aligned with. The middle-class-left can now distance itself from the sharp edge of injustice, we can afford to be fastidious about who we march with.
Protest is always misconstrued by the media. What the public saw on their televisions about the Battle of Seattle was filled with skinheads and violence. These images gather the “reasonable” viewers firmly and resolutely behind the “reasonable” status quo. Nearly all the demonstrations I’ve ever attended have been misrepresented by the press. I have spoken to fifty people who attended the anti-mandate march in Pōneke on Wednesday 9th November and they all say there were five Trump flags amongst a sea of Tino Rangatiratanga flags. And yet, the alt-right were stoutly over-represented in NZ’s news coverage of the event.
What is causing the middle-class-left’s amnesia in this moment? Why are they aligning with the media, when we know the media’s traditional role in coverage of protests is one dripping in scorn, derision and paternalism? The left have forgotten the pain of mis-representation. For they are no longer the mis-represented. Instead they are the media’s target, have become experts in the shadow aspects of this movement. And they are using their position against the people they say they are concerned about.
Historically, into the fray of the discrimination wrought by these mandates, the left, community organisers, and Unions would surge. These would traditionally be the organisations and people aligning with the disenfranchised workers, championing their rights and denouncing unethical policies. And yet, right now, in NZ, they are not.
Instead, the left’s absence has created a void into which slick, focused, organised and motivated alt-right people have stepped. And instead of rallying around the anxious cries of the soon-to-be-jobless, the middle-class-left are tucked up at home, focusing their energy on critiquing the people actually protesting, because they don’t like the people organising it.
It was only six weeks ago that I too was tucked up in my privilege and warning my friends, getting ready to go to the protest in Kirikiriroa, not to go. “It’s organised by Brian Tamaki! And he’s bad news! We can’t lend his cause our numbers!” They were shocked, they didn’t know. None of us went.
Within days all that changed. The vaccine mandates were announced at a press conference – one of the most un-democratic things I’ve witnessed. These mandates had the potential to decimate the lives of the several teachers and health workers I know who are vaccine-free and I felt a deep desire to stand in solidarity with them. The only protest I was aware of was a Freedom and Rights Coalition protest. I leant into the discomfort and I chose to go.
Once there, I could see that this thing is way, way bigger than Tamaki. In fact, the speaker referenced Tamaki at the start of his talk and it sank like a lead balloon amongst the 5000-strong crowd. People either didn’t know who he was, or care what his role was. His message had been drowned out by the roar of the people fighting for their bodily sovereignty.
That day I stood shoulder to shoulder with midwives, firefighters, teacher aides, caretakers, and construction workers. Working class people - all being stood down because of these divisive policies. They weren’t there for Tamaki. They were there trying to salvage their livelihoods, their vocations. They should have been at a protest organised by their Unions. But the unions have ceased to represent them. Instead, these disenfranchised workers, by going to the only protest available to amplify their voices, are reported as anti-vax, right wing, homophobic climate deniers. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Do the middle-class-left imagine that they are telling us something revelatory when they point out how problematic it is that it is Destiny Church that are organising these protests? Is it part of their paternalistic privilege that they feel compelled to state the obvious – in case we missed it? We didn’t miss it. It is deeply uncomfortable. But, the people who should be mobilising along with the workers are not. They are not on the streets making their voices heard. And if this is because of social distancing constraints – let us hear their voices ring out from their social media boltholes, on their blogs, in opinion pieces – anywhere. We have been listening. We are met only with silence.
The middle-class-left are using their uneasiness with Tamaki as an excuse for complacency. They can afford to opt out of action while they think their complicated thoughts. They can afford to tear down the people protesting, while constantly ceding ground. Because, ironically, if the left here in New Zealand would use their voices to oppose vaccine mandates as the left in other countries are, the alt-right wouldn’t have a void to step in to.
It is time for the middle-class-left to begin interrogating these mandates on the basis that they are unscientific, unethical and will lead to inequality. It is time for them to interrogate themselves, and their privilege. It is time for them to ask, what am I standing for? And who does that benefit?
“All history has been a history of class struggles between dominated classes at various stages of social development.” Friedrich Engels
This is a class struggle and it is as messy and uncomfortable as all other class struggles have been. Now is not the time to be “reasonable”. From where I am standing, history will show that this was yet another time that the privileged class ran roughshod over workers’ livelihoods, lives and communities. On which side of this struggle does your bleeding heart belong?
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Families Against Mandates are a collective of vaccinated and unvaccinated people demanding the mandates get reversed. Find us on Facebook or Telegram.
Photos of the Pōneke anti-mandate protest by incredible photographer Joe Mcphee
There's one part of Nicky Hager's piece I think we can all endorse:
"I hope all this will blow over. I hope that few years from now it will be hard to find any normal person who wants to admit they took part in this madness. But in the meantime, something ugly and dangerous is occurring and you should not be part of it."
This is an incredible, surgical analysis. Thank you. It has prompted many thoughts.
These people of the Left are my people - my friends and workmates. The journos on Twitter, the public servants at the pub, the academics in the op-ed pages - we studied together, we lived together, we eat together, we talk together, and we vote together (at least until now).
I have spent months in dismay, and incomprehension, at how readily they have turned into bystanders. At how readily they discarded the fine words of equality and rights and justice that always adorned their identities.
My friends can now hear a mum say "I stood outside my daughter's club in the rain to catch a glimpse from the outside of her end of year performance and prize giving" and it leaves them cold. My friends in Melbourne saw a pregnant woman pulled from her house for sharing a post on Facebook, and watched police shooting fleeing protestors in the back. They felt no compulsion to say a single thing.
It has been baffling, and disturbing. I keep asking myself: when they spoke and behaved and seemed to think like me before, were they ever really there? Or were their principles just a costume all along? Were they simply people who couldn't be trusted to take the serious things seriously?
It has been the oddest thing. A polar inversion in the location of rights and authoritarianism on the political spectrum. And a loss of faith in people I unquestioningly trusted.