Allan Alach – The Far Right Is On the Rise in New Zealand

Around the world, parties on the far right are making inroads into popular opinion, examples such as Reform in the UK, the Alternative für Deutschland (AFD) in Germany, and the National Rally Party in France. But we must also include Trumpism in the USA and many of the USA aligned governments in the Americas. 

Closer to home, there is the One Nation Party in Australia, and here in New Zealand we have our own parties with similar ideologies, as well as the more extreme voices such as Brian Tamaki.

Many policies espoused by these parties have much in common with fascism, the scourge that World War ll was fought to eliminate. 

While currently it would be an overstatement to label our mainstream parties on the right as fascist, the fact is that they are on the road that heading in that direction. Taking action to make it harder for people to vote is one example. The overuse of urgency to pass contentious legislation is another, as is ignoring public submissions against proposed legislation and passing it anyway. All these remove the people’s voice and therefore diminish democracy.

We need to be mindful of Benito Mussolini’s definition of fascism:

“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” 

 

The ever increasing influences of the very rich in supporting and funding our right wing parties is a clear warning sign that Mussolini’s definition may come to pass here.

Each party has candidates that tend to be further on the right than the official party line, e.g., New Zealand First’s Elliot Ikilei. Then of course there are the fringe right wing parties, not major players at the moment but they put pressure on the bigger parties.

If you want to explore the role of the far right in New Zealand, I recommend this recently published book:

The Far-Right Playbook

‘The Far-Right Playbook is a collection of essays outlining some key tactics the Far-Right are using in Aotearoa New Zealand to incite fear and division in order to capture more power for themselves. Chapters include:

A History of the Far Right in Aotearoa by Tina Ngata 

Scapegoat Politics and the Role of Social Media by Byron Clark 

Attacking Te Tiriti o Waitangi 101 by Luke Fitzmaurice-Brown 

Misinformation: The Many Ways to Mislead by Matt Macdonald 

Democracy at its Core: How Voter Suppression, Participation and Power Play Out by India Logan-Riley 

The Weakening of Civil Society by Valerie Morse 

Planting Allies into Positions of Power, Byron Clark 

Neoliberalism? Let’s talk Corporate Capture, Profit and Privatisation by Neil Vallelly and Simon Barber 

“Would You Like Urgency With That?” Drive-thru Politics, Governing Through Overload and Flooding the Zone by Māni Dunlop’

 

The following article by Yanis Varoufakis explores this disturbing trend and sets out ways to battle and defeat the rising of fascism.  As you read through it, draw your own comparisons with his observations and the political scene in New Zealand.

Here’s How the Left Can Defeat the Fascists

‘Fascism happens whenever capitalism has an existential crisis and the left fails to offer a credible alternative. At that point, the fascist playbook stands ready. If the left does not counter it with a clearheaded, persuasive, uncompromising socialist programme, the fascists’ policies shall triumph even before fascists win office.’ 

 

A capitalist existential crisis in New Zealand? Check. The left (Labour) failing to offer a credible alternative? Check.

‘They call for radical change. But, when it comes to defining that change, they suffer instant amnesia. Not a word comes from their mouths against Big Business, the bankers, the developers privatising social housing, the monstrous cuts the Radical Centre made to public education and health. Studiously, they steer clear of saying anything about the cult of austerity that successive governments have adopted to wreck the lives of the majority whom the fascists are trying to woo.’

 

Sound familiar to you? 

And who does this remind you of?

‘Portraying our cities as crawling with impure, foreign, dangerous miasmata, stirring up a moral panic about the dark-skinned aliens about to invade our borders and traverse our seafronts, they promise to purge them, to make our nation pure “again”, to eradicate these impurities: Muslims, Jews, trans people, poor brown people, whoever can be stigmatised at little cost. Once they have thus poisoned enough souls, they promise to make us great “again”.’

 

And

‘Meanwhile centrist parties, hoping to remain in government, even if only in the fascists’ shadow, adopt fascism-lite (see the UK Labour government’s performative cruelty to disabled people and to refugees).’

 

Varoufakis explores the situation in many overseas countries, fortunately at this time the situation in New Zealand is nowhere near as concerning. However some of our politicians and their parties have set their feet on the road that will lead to this. 

Then he writes:

‘What is the alternative? Wherever we turn our gaze, from Trump’s America to Burnham’s Britain to Merz’s Germany to Macron’s France, one thing shines through. The Radical Centre has lost control of the capitalist crisis it helped create. The recalcitrant ultra-right is on the march. Fascism is in the air. Social democrats in Europe and Clintonite liberals in the United States are blowing massive winds in the fascists’ sails – even when in opposition.’ 

 

His remedy:

‘Only the unbowed left can counter the expanding domain of radical misanthropy with a radical humanism. But, for that to be possible – let alone likely – the left must be unashamedly radical. And to be that, it needs to wage war against all those things that European social democrats and American liberals made their peace with a long time ago.’

 

Time to to commit neoliberal heresy!

‘First, investment cannot be left to the financial markets. 

Second, private banks can no longer be allowed to harness society’s collective capacity to create money. 

Third, the oligarchic principle of a free market in shares needs to be replaced by the principle of one employee, one share, one vote in the shareholders’ general meeting.

These three policies, if they become the foundation of a socialist left, can accomplish two things. They can lure the masses back from fascism’s lair, and they can create the shared prosperity that removes the driving forces behind crisis and war.’

 

I can already hear the neoliberal screams! Heretics need to be burned at the stake! 

Or alternatively, is this a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes, where everyone can see what is happening but are too ideologically hidebound to open their eyes and admit it? 

‘The question is not whether the left can afford to be radical. The question is whether the left can afford not to be. The fascists are waiting. The only thing that is preventing them from wrecking the world is their incompetence. It would be irresponsible to continue to bank on it.’

 

It would be fatal to be complacent and foolish to think it would never happen here.