#Freedom from a Non-Violent Direct Action perspective
Yesterday (02/03/2022) was a big day for Aotearoa New Zealand.
Considering the circumstances, the Freedom Convoy/Festival/Occupation was about as successful as it ever could have been.
So what can we learn?
I offer my analysis from an NVDA perspective.
In any non-violent direct action there needs to be a strategy. A robust theory of change from action to outcome to optics to impact. Often the strategy for protests is to apply specific leverage and steer public perception so decision makers are obligated to create change at a high level. Minimum effort for maximum impact.
Applying this to the Freedom Festival and ongoing occupation of Parliament grounds, it’s clear the strategic backbone was missing. The action was a blind, blunt instrument applying increasing degrees of force not against key decision makers, but against an entire city, and an increasingly sick nation.
To sharpen the strategy up a good start would have been to have a clear set of demands. ‘Ending the Mandate’ was tight and tidy, and I reckon the protest could have been successful with this if it weren’t for the swathe of adjacent demands such as ‘End All Covid Measures’ or ‘Hang Jacinda Ardern’.
These equate to saying ‘Fuck Your Grandma’, ‘Covid Doesn’t Exist’ and ‘Hang Jacinda Ardern’, so it’s pretty clear how that didn’t get much traction. It’s important to avoid presenting like you’re completely unhinged.
So when it came time for Key Decision Makers aka ‘Jabcinda’ to consider negotiating with the protest, it really doesn’t help that it’s leaders are completely unhinged. They couldn’t agree on anything (to the point of in-fighting) which is no surprise given their murky/unethical history. Anyone at this point still denying the alt-right/white supremacist influences of the protest can no longer claim plausible deniability by employing willfull ignorance.
This brings us to the objectives, and the optics of the objectives of the protest. It’s important to acknowledge that these are two different things, and that the second is far more critical overall.
While a bunch of my beautiful friends were streaming the Freedom Festival on their Instagram, the Freedom Folks running media channels with thousands of followers were calling for archaic witch-trials and public hangings.
I offer my friends my deepest condolences for this next piece. If you denounce the mainstream media with all it’s checks and balances, you relinquish your ability to pick and choose which messages the alternative media represent to your movement. Dogs.Fleas.
It really starts to fall over when legitimate queries around what might come after the great trial (violent or non violent) are met with blank stares, shrugs and sideways glances. My question for folks at the protest would be, so who do you nominate to fill the awkward power vacuum once you overthrow the GOVT?
Steve Bannon? Brian Tamaki? Kyle Chapman? Richard Sivell? Phil Arps? Claire Deeks? Chantelle or Leighton Baker? Sue Grey and Billy Te Kahika?
No flags worth flying here.
As someone who’s deeply contemplated the positive change potential that anarchy could bring, I would legitimately consider any proposal from the Freedom Protest would put forward for an anarchic alternative. The dream of dreams. Tino Rangatiratanga!
Sadly, the lack of political literacy demonstrated in most of the signs down at Parliament reveal that a die hard anarchist would be hard to come by, let alone an accurate depiction of fascism or communism. Chantelle’s claims that the fires were lit by ‘those ANTIFA types’ reveals the degree that the protest channels are reading from Trumps playbook.
For context, ANTIFA are an American phenomenon where anti-fascists militarise against alt-right nazi's (cos you know, 'Murica!). They’re not active in NZ, and the posts you might have seen have been proven to be fake.
To round out our NVDA analysis, we look to how the action has been represented on the national and international stage. No matter what we experience on the ground, optics have the final say.
There were fires on Parliament grounds, cobblestones used as projectiles (wonderfully convenient!) fire extinguishers used on police (but not the kids playground or flaming trees). The police came in hot with riot gear, got loose as fuck with the pepper spray, firehoses and some nasty ass piercing noises. I also saw some footage of some folks getting eye gouged, punched on the ground, and physically battered beyond what I felt was appropriate. I fucking hate that shit.
This is all real great strategic material when you’ve run out of options, and you want to make a scene for the live stream. There were more eyes on camera feeds than the news sites (is Chantelle the new MSM?), and the existing support and resulting empathy around the world will have a very real impact on our national identity in years to come.
I read (in the MSM) that the police shot people with rubber bullets as they continued to riot in surrounding streets. I was shocked, just as I was when I saw the naked lady being pulled by her hair and crushed on the second (?) day. Police brutality really doesn’t fly in Aotearoa, and the NZ Government would have had a real hard time clawing back the trust it lost without the interventions that transpired yesterday. It's a bad scene yo, vote Green.
After any violent transgression, action speaks louder than words, and time is the final decider.
The indicator that I’d draw attention to from here on is whether Jacinda’s government shows the same dedication to all issues that threaten our wellbeing. You can’t cherry pick community good, so unless we see the swathe of other issues getting the same amount of attention, then the protesters are right - the covid response smacks like it’s being driven by company profits and needs to be disrupted. If only the protest wasn't so focused on it's freedom.
As someone who gives a fuck about Aotearoa’s future, my message is: if the government continues to ignore ecological collapse, climate change, the housing crisis and obligations to Tangata Whenua, then you’ll see me on parliament lawns before long.
