Exclusive property for sale! Exclusive offer! Exclusive Brethren! Exclusive school! Wherever we look, the politics of exclusion dominates the physical and political landscape. And while it may be argued by some that ‘exclusive’ does not really mean ‘exclusion’, a quick look shows that it really, really does. It defines social hierarchies, enables bullying and corruption and strongly demarcates social class, gender and ethnic boundaries.
If climate change as an existential threat to our species refuses to motivate Governments into action, maybe losing money might? The latest research from the Fed spells out how climate change could spark the next financial meltdown…
The atrocity in Christchurch will have enormous societal and political reverberations, it has reset the cultural landscape in an enormous way and trying to ascertain how something of this magnitude impacts everything will be a bunch of haphazard guesses.
So here are my haphazard guesses.
There are already murmurs being made that the GCSB, SIS and Police need mass surveillance powers to combat the extremism that erupted so violently towards Muslims in Christchurch last week.
MARAMA DAVIDSON and Golriz Ghahraman would be well advised to take a break and read a little history. Not the history of colonial New Zealand: they seem very well-acquainted with that dismal narrative. No, the history they should familiarise themselves with, is the history of the Alliance in the weeks and months that followed the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.
I don’t believe in any God, but wish I did. For what good prayers and hugs in defence against violence and terrorism have served in the past, it might provide some comfort to the believers. It’s hard to believe in the saving graces of love and hope when they can so easily be overthrown by one evil man with several guns.
As fingers point at our intelligence and security services ahead of an inquiry it’s also worth looking at the fingers pointing back at the accusers.
A lot of jokes don’t make sense until you get to the end.
As the numbness dissolves, as the recoil shock to ourselves and our national identity slows in its reverberations, we are left with an enormous amount of damage to heal, new steps forward to take and real questions that demand answering.
…attempting to connect the violence on Friday with right wing opinions, the defence of free speech or concerns about immigration and conflate that with all white people as racist murderers is a sure fire way of eroding the solidarity in sorrow that has bound many.