The ACT Party’s latest attempt to save itself from oblivion
could pay off more than it yet knows. At a much-touted, media-saturated ‘rebrand’
press conference for the party, David Seymour remarked that people were “looking
for something more”. He said “National are voting with the Government almost
half the time. People are saying we need some real opposition”. This is true
because in the main the Ardern-led, Greens-backed Labour-NZ First coalition
government is largely sticking to the policy agenda set down by the previous National
government, with the exception of some flagship policies like the ‘Families
Package’ and KiwiBuild. While Simon Bridges flops in desperation and continues
to be outshone by Paula Bennett as Opposition Leader, there does indeed appear
to be no real attacking force against the government. There are no left parties
outside the government as there have been previously in MMP cycles. ACT wishes
to rebrand itself as the political opposition to Jacinda Ardern.
How will it do this? If I was particularly churlish and
narcissistic, I would say David Seymour appears to be taking notice of my warnings
to the left. He has opted for a right-wing
spin on my critique of the ‘liberal left’ (he uses this exact label to describe
his enemy), highlighting the very real threats it now poses to freedom of
speech and from censorship in our country.
After the disturbing and heart-shattering Christchurch
terrorist attack that killed 51 Muslim New Zealanders at prayer, Prime Minister
Ardern decided that speeding up the corporate-led programme of Internet censorship
was the solution du jour, which went virtually unopposed in the media
and political commentariat. Ardern went to visit French President Emmanuel Macron
to lead the summit. Of course, the floundering French Government is attempting –
with little success – to silence the gilets jaunes movement which is now
in its 37th consecutive week of protest. Ardern’s government banned
the publication of the fascist terrorist’s manifesto under a law the party
theoretically did not support (the ‘Objectionable Publications Act’ – but, in
typical Labour style, despite not agreeing with the thrust of the bill they
voted in support of it anyway when it came to crunch-time). Media are censoring
the terrorist’s statements, which will of course nicely cover up his stated
support for the police and military apparatuses. It is hard to see how anything
Labour has done since has aided the situation and it is incredibly naïve to
think fascist thought will be eliminated by imposing such ridiculous measures. Not only that, but as we, of course, later
found out, Ardern’s strategy of blaming the Internet was a fig leaf that
covered her government’s security services’ complicity in the attacks even
taking place. While they were busily surveilling harmless Greenpeace activists
and members of leftist protest groups, a fascist with a plot known to Australian
intelligence was able to enter the country without so much as a squeak.
I have been covering for some time now the self-destructive
attempts of the liberal left to rid itself of the latest wave of fascistic
sentiment through state- and corporate-led censorship. This is highly embarrassing
considering the entire history of the socialist left has been a fight to secure
the freedom of speech, and is first in line to be censored by parties who seek
to suppress or re-channel worker uprising (this includes the ‘Labour’ Party).
The radicals of today do not seem to realise that the ‘House Un-American Activities
Committee’ – now known as the ‘McCarthyite era’ – began with a wipeout of
fascism, before it then moved on to a more pressing target - leftists. They
need to be aware that if they actually want to get serious with their politics
beyond carping from the sidelines and being perennially disappointed, Labour
and the Greens will not protect them from future censorship encroachments.
On social issues, it seems even some of the most
committed of socialists are in lockstep with liberals. A huge fraction of
socialists continue to advance a ‘movementist’ politics based on postmodernism –
Ernesto Laclau’s ‘chain of equivalences’ – an idea which is over forty years
old and whose real-world materialisations have largely failed. Although there
continues to be an academic wing of the left that reliably produces lucid and
provocative analyses of the world and the problems it faces, this does not
translate into any real new or refreshing political ideas. It has been marginalised
in comparison to an explosive force in humanities academia whose primary goal
is to constantly regurgitate and reiterate the narcissistic discourses of
identity politics. Although some dents have been made in this vacuous machine,
with genuinely interesting and profoundly intelligent figures like Akala assuming
the position of the radical, socialist pop-writer, identity politics is too
producing its drab, uninteresting ultraliberal spokespeople such as Ta-Nehisi
Coates and Afua Hirsch, who see the world through the singular prism of ‘race’
(i.e. an ideological worldview). The mainstream left has focused more on
filtering bizarre and patently wrong ideas from ‘culturalism’ into everyday
language than it has even merely trying to answer a growing wall of
working-class resentment beyond lip service.
As a left-wing defender of free speech, it is hard not to
feel cynical amidst a tide of liberal-left support for censorship, backed up of
course by much of the global mainstream centre-right. History will probably
repeat itself – except, of course, without the part where the left actually
posed a threat to capitalist society, as it did during the time of the ‘House
Un-American Activities Committee’. Instead, the mainstream left is more likely
to be seen upholding the current state of society implicitly, running to the arms
of the state for shelter. This signals nothing but total estrangement from the
world with the problems it once held at its centre.
As for the ACT Party, they are now starting to attack laws
protecting people that actually codify violating speech – the right not to
bully or publicly verbally abuse people, or incite violence. This is incredibly
dangerous and one should not underestimate ACT’s ability to pull National onto
its side to do this in any future coalition government. But the fact that such
laws already exist may surprise people who bother to listen to the Greens on
this issue, who have made a lot of noise about the need to widen existing hate
speech laws but have remained coy on how this might be done – which will only
work to their detriment.
What will the worrying signs be if the left does not take
action? The ACT Party re-emerging to become a legitimate force in politics in
this country is just one scenario that may occur – ACT may find it can never
recover from its wily brand, tainted by personalities who infamously fell from
grace like John Banks and Donna Awatere Huata, as well as David Garrett, who once
stole the identity of a dead baby boy to forge a passport application. We may chuckle
now at the stupidity of such a party continuing to exist. But this does not
stop a future extreme-right party emerging in its place. With no left
alternative on the horizon to a censorious Labour-Green alliance, we may soon
find ourselves unable to laugh.
