Freedom. According to the song, it's just another word for nothing left to lose. What does it mean when the stakes are higher? For me, freedom means I wouldn't live in a country you can't leave when you want to or where you can't protest. A country where you are a prisoner, not a citizen.
Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, we can leave. Getting back in, not so much. A steady, cautious, inevitably imperfect plan for opening the borders to New Zealanders and the world is set to begin at the end of February. Freedom. It will no doubt come at a price.
Steady, cautious, imperfect: this approach to the mayhem unleashed by Covid-19 has worked out so far, by comparison with … anywhere. Here, Omicron is faced by an admirably vaccinated population. I'm proud of us for having the ability to imagine what "let it rip" might look like for vulnerable people, front-line medical workers, businesses, and schools.
Even when outcomes can be measured in lives saved, you can't please everyone.
At time of writing, the approach deployed to deal with the "freedom convoy" who have set up camp on the grounds of Parliament mirrors the nation's Covid strategy, writ smaller and more muddied: steady, cautious and, for many put-upon Wellingtonians, maddeningly slow.
In other places, protesters might face water cannons or rubber bullets. Here, despite cries of police brutality from the wilder corners of social media, it has been water sprinklers and Barry Manilow. In solidarity with Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard's pitiless playlist, one-hit wonder James Blunt, who has made a side hustle out of not taking himself remotely seriously, tweeted, "Give me a shout if this doesn't work." Mallard duly unleashed You're Beautiful. In a tripartite salvo of retaliatory cruelty, protesters signed Mallard up to the National Party, The Act Party and Pornhub.