Don't Happy, Be Worry

Fascism in fashion and the decline of democracy.

Got trust issues, bad paparazzi
Half of the news that act fugazi
Famine, but there's snacks at the party
Elon Musk and that pack of Nazis
Some are fighting boredom 'round their house
Others fight for borders ’round their house
The fallout's getting sort of scary now
This New World Order? Tear it down

Song: Hilltop Hoods.

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You’ve probably seen a meme that asks, “If you've ever wondered what you'd do during the rise of fascism, the Holocaust or the civil rights movement, you're doing it RIGHT NOW!!!”

Around the world, we increasingly see those in positions of power serving the interests of corporations, prioritising profits over people, holding repressive views that attempt to wind back social progress and with an appetite for power that can never be sated.

We see Governments that not only turn a blind eye to atrocities and war crimes, but also look to punish those who protest against them.

Thanks to the wonders of technology and big money, they don’t have to steal elections; with the right messaging, people can be convinced to vote against their interests, with relentless attacks on opponents, no matter what they do, and with falsehoods, making promises that are never going to be delivered which make you wonder how anyone could fall for them.

This isn’t a newsletter about what is happening in America, in the Middle East, or in autocratic states around the world. Even in countries similar to our own, some with supposedly left-wing governments, we see things occurring that would’ve been hard to imagine just a few years ago.

In the UK

This weekend at Glastonbury, there was controversy over Irish-language rap group Kneecap performing, with one member having been charged under the Terrorism Act for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November.

Should someone be banned from performing or charged for waving a flag? Would someone be so treated for waving an Israeli flag?

Of course not, but what’s the difference?

Both use terror to achieve their goals, it’s just that the latter has used a whole lot more of it. Surely, the actions of Israel are more offensive than a misguided protest, out of frustration that nobody will stand up to them and put an end to their slaughter of Palestinians.

The Palestinian flag is waved in a crowd of festivalgoers during Kneecap's performance at the Glastonbury Festival. Photo: Scott A. Garfitt/AP.

I recall how pleased I was when Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, was elected Prime Minister in the UK after such a long period of Tory rule. Yet so nervous are the traditional parties of the rise of the anti-immigrant Reform UK Party that he has been giving speeches about an Island of Strangers, echoing the anti-immigrant sentiment of Enoch Powell’s ghastly Rivers of Blood Speech.

Last month, he even spoke of plans to send failed asylum seekers to third countries.

In Australia.

Last Friday, Hannah Thomas, a lawyer, activist, and former Green candidate, was taking part in a peaceful protest against a company that supplies the Israeli military with services for the F-35 jets used by the Israeli Defence Force. This was the result:

Hannah Thomas, with a bruised and swollen eye and a bloodied face, in an ambulance after being arrested during a protest in Belmore, Sydney, on Friday. Photo: Sydney Morning Herald.

What the heck? Police thugs assaulting peaceful protesters against supplying the Israeli killing machine, not in Trump’s USA but just across the ditch in Australia?!?

What about Aotearoa?

Unlike Australia where they’ve had people dressed as Nazis saluting at protests, faces covered of course - no one ever accused a fascist of bravery, things are relatively quiet.

Yes, we had Kyle Chapman/’s bunch of inbreds a few years back, the veritable poster children for the falsehood of white superiority, but now it’s pretty much just Brian Tamaki’s lot.

The Destiny thugs, the black shirts, with their hatred of the other, opposition to refugees, and fury at the rainbow community for loving each other, or even reading a storybook in a library.

We see the opposite of what Christianity stands for, and a complete disregard for the rights of others. Brainwashed children and adults believing in their one true god, Brian, who bleeds them dry. If it were anything but a religion, he’d be locked up for fraud or struck by lightning by his boss, and I don’t mean Hannah.

We see our government, prepared to sacrifice the future for the sake of the present's balance sheets, and not ours but those of foreign energy companies…

Then there are the moves around banning gang patches, not many of us would feel sympathy for the gangs, but it still seems a bit unreasonable to be telling people what they can and cannot wear when they’re not necessarily breaking any law.

Is the way that Tamaki’s mob behave any different? Other gangs operate in their own worlds, distant for the most part from many of us, while Tamaki’s lot march through our streets aggressively shouting hatred and bigotry, and our government tuts, but doesn’t address the hypocrisy in the room.

Despite all the evidence that such measures don’t work, they have brought back Boot Camps, and are building more prisons to lock people up with longer sentences. Heck, we’ve even got at least one MP in parliament who was interested in imprisoning Māori MPs for doing a Haka.

The same party who having put forward the wildly unpopular RSB chose to respond to highly respected academics and others by bullying them and name-calling.

So what do we do?

These things, civil rights, a democratic system not influenced by big money, and not standing back while one group with essentially unchallenged power go about murdering their neighbours, are still what most people want. They require long-sustained opposition and supporting politicians on the right side of these issues, not those who cravenly remain silent or even undertake some of them.

These aren’t left-right issues, hard-won civil rights, the right not to be murdered, a fair democratic process, surely these are things that most Kiwis want.

For years, we have had politicians with a desire to make us like America, but that is not us, and it doesn’t have to be. We can be a proud, independent nation that calls out war crimes rather than being obsequious, one that is accepting of all people, and where people get to choose who to vote for based on policies that those making the promises genuinely believe in and intend to deliver.

We often hear about New Zealand not electing single-term governments. Still, we’ve never had a government before where the major party has essentially abdicated policy direction to the minor parties in the coalition.

To ACT, a party that makes no secret of the fact that it favours wealthy interests and has no genuine interest in regular Kiwis, other than to ratchet up the racism to attract another 5-10% of the vote.

But here’s the good news: We at least have alternatives.

In the US, the Democrats disassociate themselves from the left; in the UK and Australia, they already have left-wing governments, although it’s hard to tell in the former.

Here in Aotearoa, we have people who genuinely stand with the people for the right things, and we’re bloody fortunate to have them.

The way to win is the only tool we have: grassroots, people-led protest and action, demanding better from our government and supporting those politicians who are there for the people - Labour, the Greens, and Te Pāti Māori.

Ngā mihi,
Nick.

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To end today, a track recommended by a reader recently, Hilltop Hoods with Don’t Happy, Be Worry.