I’m of two minds about protests generally. On the one hand freedom of assembly and freedom of speech come together in protest marches, and so they are a key part of a free society, especially protests which challenge Parliament, an institution which derives power directly from counting heads (in this case heads that choose representation). They are particular potent in societies that are not free because people literally risk their lives in order to get the attention of others, so that they might just break down the order of the system of power.
On the other hand I’m not a great fan of protests in liberal democracies, because they rely on the idea that because you can get a few hundred or thousand people to walk with some signs that this grants greater legitimacy to a political position than if it were held by one person. I’m no fan of counting heads rather than what is in them. Yet there is a place for them to highlight injustice which isn’t being reflected through mainstream discourse, through the media or through politics more generally.
The protestors in Wellington would put themselves in that category, because their views are not supported by most politicians or media. Beyond debating vaccine mandates, I don't support much of the other rhetoric that seems visible.
I don’t support vaccine mandates for private property and private businesses, it should be the choice of individuals as to whether they get vaccinated, and whether their staff or customers must be vaccinated or not on their premises. However, the health system is dominated by taxpayer funding and state owned institutions and as such, the state must decide as to whether it simply wants to promote vaccines or require vaccines for its employees in such facilities. It has the right to do that, based on evidence and if you don’t like it, then you should be free to work privately, for others who wish to pay for your services. There is a case for doing all that is reasonable to protect the vulnerable in a pandemic.
I’d be much more sympathetic if the protest was against how opaque this government is, how evasive it is over OIA requests, Parliamentary questions and the effort involved in managing narratives. This is everything from MIQ to Three Waters to inflation. For a government that has largely had support because it kept Covid19 at bay, the litany of other outcomes are worthy of protest. Housing costs that have skyrocketed (because of monetary incontinence and decades of supply constraints), inflation spiralling at nearly twice the rate of Australia, ICU capacity that is second bottom in the OECD per capita (after Mexico), at mediocre educational performance by global standards, and much more. Imagine the fear of this government (or any) if tens of thousands marched for housing.
I don’t have time for those who think there is some grand conspiracy around vaccines, or who tout quackery. Those engaging in quackery deserve to be challenged as much as they challenge others. Yes, there are also a few flotsam and jetsam that joined the protest that are vile and distasteful, including actual fascist/racial supremacists inciting violence, and some anti-semitism, and they deserve to be challenged, they ought to be confronted by protestors, and anyone who threatens violence should be arrested.
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| What protest do you want to be on with this sort of vileness? |
There is good reason to be wary of such people given Christchurch, but I am loathe to condemn the majority of protestors with such a label, although it has become a common trend to simply treat those they dislike as being “fascists”. Don’t be mistaken, such types deserve to be ostracised, condemned and monitored, and the protestors ought to know by now that letting such elements be tolerated utterly decimates sympathy they will get from many people. Yet what of those who oppose vaccine mandates and find that some of their fellow travellers are Nazis? What do you do if a largely anarchic protest attracts totalitarian eliminationists? You kind of have three choices. Confront the Nazis, ignore the Nazis or don't go and surrender the issue. To do the former requires some collective effort and will, the do the second is damaging and evasive, and to do the third might seem like surrendering the issue that matters to you. None of those types believe in individual freedom, not remotely.
Other protests do go down dark paths of promoting violence though, and it doesn't get the same attention from the left when it's not in power.
You see when lefties go on a protest that results in paper face beheadings of John Key, Bill English and Judith Collins
… a protest backed by Labour and the Greens (called Aotearoa is Not for Sale), you’re just meant to blank that out. Meanwhile, Jacinda Ardern thinks there is something sinister about the anti-mandate protests to be "imported" (in that they are no doubt inspired by similar protests overseas), but it is just fine for BLM and climate change protests to be inspired by similar protests overseas. You see implying the anti-mandate protestors aren't "real" Kiwis is just the sort of noxious rhetoric seen by some of her nationalist opponents against Ardern and other leftwing politicians. It's not only mindless, but toxic as well.
See it's awfully ironic when organisations like the Victoria University
of Wellington Student Association (VUWSA) (which once warmly defended
forcing students to belong to and fund it) openly take a conservative view of protest. when
it almost certainly wont support this approach to protests when it
comes to backing its own causes, which almost always are about demanding
more of other people's money and more government.
There are good reasons to arrest anyone who is threatening anyone, or vandalising property, and those inciting violence, but the recent trend for some politicians to treat the protestors as being somehow lesser citizens is both unfair and counterproductive. It’s hard to spin your way out of this, and people who feel treated as second class citizens (literally) are much more willing to hold out when they feel they have nothing to lose. They are also more likely to be aligned to seriously sinister types when they are the only ones giving them any form of succour.
Unfortunately no MPs will talk to the protestors in part because they are fearful of violence from the protestors, but also because they know they will be hounded and vilified by media and other politicians for doing so. The only way to nullify that would be for one MP from each of the parties in Parliament to agree to talk with a few representatives - that would help to reveal whether this is just about mandates or not.
It might also give the protestors some reason to move on, because they might feel that they have been heard.
UPDATE: David Seymour does appear to spoken to someone at the protest, and while the cynic might say it's because polling is looking not too great for ACT given Luxon seems to resuscitated the Nats, I'd like to think he actually is embracing the idea that mandates need to be phased out.
