Dr Liz Gordon: Liberty and equality: the anti-lockdown marches

By
The Daily Blog
-
37
1567

Many of the great civil rights movements of the postwar period stemmed from the desire of populations to be freed from something or another: racism and segregation; capitalist oppression; fascism and dictatorship; class bias; gender inequalities and so on.

In such formulations, the state being requested is ‘freedom from’ attitudes, values, laws, regimes and forms of social organisation that prevent some other outcome: an equal society, perhaps, or a redistribution of goods.

Workers of the world, unite!  You have nothing to lose but your chains.

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Negative liberty is the shedding of shackles that constrain the human spirit. The outcome is the ability to meet one’s potential, to be fully human, to “fly free”.  It is heady stuff. It should not be under-estimated.  

- Sponsor Promotion -

And I saw, in Brian Tamaki’s deplorable gathering at the weekend, a strong yearning in the audience for freedom from the current system.

I am certain that they have come to believe that they are being unreasonably oppressed by the system. Watching them sing and sway, it took me right back to the 1960s when, at the age of about 12, I sang ‘We shall overcome” with such passion, such conviction, that masked the fact that I had no understanding at all of what we were trying to overcome.

I am sure that my common comment was “I just want to be free”.  There was certainly a lot of shaking out of my long, thick, curly hair so that only my glasses peaked through the mess. Hair was important in those days. It drove my parents mad, to the extent they noticed (sober, before about 5pm).

I have always thought that protest songs are most powerful tools.  You feel it right down in your gut: the pain, the passion, the struggle.  And I saw this in them.

But now, I find myself firmly establishment in the matter of freedom from masks, vaccines, lockdowns.  I support the government and think it has done as well as any can against such a slippery enemy. I am strongly against hosting superspreader events, condemning of those who do, railing against the stupidity of people holding a rally in the middle of a pandemic.

Generally speaking, the protests of the 1960s were, in the UK at least, peaceful. Peace was one of our things, of course. I did not see violent protests until the grim marches against the forces of the state during the Springbok tour, many years later. Some of the footage shown in recent months on the 40th anniversary renewed those traumas.

The protestors on Saturday called for freedom. This is a negative freedom.  Whether it is freedom from masks, lockdowns, state mandates, Treaty breaches (I noticed a couple of tino rangatiratanga and United Tribes (He Whakaputanga) flags among the banners), poverty, ideologies or what, they definitely meant business.  For a wide range of reasons (see Martyn’s excellent blog on the fractions that make up the protest movement), those people were determined that the barriers of life far outweighed the benefits at the present time.

Their feelings of oppression are not going to be fixed by kind words.  They are certainly not going to be fixed by violent action.  Calls for protestors to be arrested for breaches are misguided – you would simply set up martyrs, and further increase the barriers that exist between the majority ‘us’ and the passion-filled them. You can’t discipline people out of their beliefs, only their actions.

It is not news to anyone who reads this blog that there are big gaps between groups in society in wealth, power, status, goods and access to resources of all kinds.  That they have come to crystallize around an anti-lockdown, anti-vaxx movement is perhaps not all together surprising, but it does involve a lot of ironies and realities.

The first is that the most vulnerable to infection are putting themselves and their families and associates most at risk.  While the rest of Auckland might be mildly inconvenienced, the Covid spreading that may ensue will occur primarily among those who are not vaccinated.

The second is that Brian Tamaki is a terrible leader. The promised land that he is leading his followers to will not remove shackles and bring freedom – perhaps just replace some shackles with others.

Finally, we face a long, hard road to bring vaccination rates up to 80%, let alone 90%.  We are getting to the sharp end now, where pressures to re-open New Zealand will continue to build.  The government is going to get bombarded, as in this past week, with numerous contradictory views.  The political management of Covid has been, relatively speaking, a breeze to date, but may become a hurricane over the next little while.

Dr Liz Gordon is a researcher and a barrister, with interests in destroying neo-liberalism in all its forms and moving towards a socially just society. She usually blogs on justice, social welfare and education topics.

37 COMMENTS

  1. Renters need to take to the streets en masse, maybe then she will finally do something about her monstrous house prices.

    • What a silly comment jonesy, do you think that the housing situation only became apparent in the last few years? For 9 years the National Government propped up the economy by increasing immigration without a thought to the infrastructure to support increased numbers and at the same time denied that there was a crisis.

      • Yeah, well they’re gone now, so let’s stop wasting energyon them. What is this majority Labour government doing about it? Because it has significantly worsened under there watch.

        • Yeah nah, worsening? Got some evidence to support this or are you like the political homicidal maniac The Kraut, barking at every parked car?

          • Triggered again Bert. Look at the social housing waiting list for just one area that is significantly worse. Or shall we continue to do nothing and blame John Key?

          • Triggered again Mickeytwoblueeyes. People have come forward for social housing rather than living on the streets, thousands have returned home because of a government that cares. Do the math, many didn’t bother going on the housing register because of an uncaring government, now they have.

  2. Brian Tamaki is all about promoting himself. Like many individuals of his ilk his preachings are empty and vacuous. Unfortunately there are people who although they might not necessarily go along with his absurd ethos, they certainly support his ramblings to the point of even attending his stupid rally in the weekend and they are the ones who will prevent Auckland reaching the vaccination target to let us drop down to a restriction level that will allow businesses to open again.

    I think one word sums up Tamaki and his followers and hangers on – selfish.

    • It was just Tamaki at his day job. He was at work, working a crowd to get change which would see mass crowds allowed at his church to give him money. He was advertising.

      Some getting covid? Pshaw, mere collateral. Some dying? The same. God’s will and all that.

      • Totally utterly agree. He is a money making Grifter. Not a Christian as far as I can tell, not a good man. Just someone who is using good and often poor and marginalised people to make money and lots of it.

        His latest actions are not about freedom or helping people, they are about greed and greed at the expense of other New Zealanders, particularly those poor people in his ‘flock’.

    • Selfish is right. While in lockdown Pope Brian the Vacuous cant hold services, therefore can’t tithe his followers %10 of their earnings (before tax), guarantee his modest lifestyle. This therefore constitutes tyranny or fascism for our poor man of Christ.

  4. That photo’s a but of a doozy. For someone that vehemently opposes banning gay conversion therapy, he’s looking quite stereotypically camp. Slap a bit of lipstick on that pig and you could call it Bryony

    • Jordan do you know what a gang is? I am sure there is no law to allow people to be put in prison until they get vaccinated. We still do have choice on this.

      There are many groups that I would term gangs but they just don’t have that title.

      Rotary, that group of elite businessmen who get together to raise a bit of money in-between eating nice food and drinking and they decide who are the deserving poor. These shits never ever want real change, because they have their little niche in society and gee they wouldn’t really want to move people up the ladder, they might become equal one day and we can’t have that, we’ve worked hard to get where we are.

  6. If we get to a situation where all the information, expense, patience and coaxing is ignored and the ignorant, the misguided and the plain stupid start dying from exposure to Covid then so be it.
    We can call it Darwinian and move on.

  7. Hurricane – as in children getting COVID for Christmas?

    We’ve adopted Key’s plan. Community spread in Auckland to 100 a day and going nationwide by the end of this month. By the end of next month pressure on hospitals and school closures lest …. , and it will be a Level 3 lock down nationwide before Christmas.

  9. Hey Bert, just Google any search term about nz house price chart etc result example:
    New Zealand median house prices skyrocket 25 percent in a single year to new record high – Aug 2021 newshub.

Comments are closed.