Simon Wilson: Playing Barry Manilow at Parliament was a genius move

Former National Party MP Matt King at the protest in Parliament grounds over the weekend. Photo / George Heard

OPINION:

They're "regular, garden-variety Kiwis", according to Matt King on the TV news on Saturday. King was a National Party MP until he lost his seat in 2020 and now he's resigned from the party because he's an anti-vaxxer.

Nice turn of phrase, that. It's like we're garden gnomes. Although it is clear that, however gnomish, the protesters are not "regular, garden-variety Kiwis".

Camping illegally in a small tent in the mud and pouring rain at Parliament, while consorting with the far-right, is an excellent example of something "regular" New Zealanders do not do.

King made a rousing speech to the protesters. He has an eye, perhaps, on the currently vacant political leadership of this new movement.

Not that the range of political views and personal ethics on show make this a movement, exactly.

Pacifists rub shoulders with people who call openly for the lynching of the Prime Minister, along with other politicians, health officials and journalists. Some make a point of behaving decently, others think it's okay to spit at schoolkids walking past, because they're wearing masks.

Some have found their lives ruined because of their choice not to get vaccinated while others, without choosing anything, have had their families devastated by the MIQ rules. For both groups, this is the worst time of their lives.

But many of the protesters appear to be having the time of their lives. They've lived for this moment.

Protesters at Parliament on Sunday. Photo / George Heard

This protest does not signal a deep divide among New Zealanders. Anti-vaxxers enjoy very little support here: Our astonishingly high vaccination rates are proof of that. Conspiracists who believe the PM will soon face trial for murdering babies are even less popular.

It is true that many people believe the mandates are unjust or unnecessary, although it's not true the debate has been suppressed. Inside Parliament and widely in the media, it's a hot topic.

So what's going on here?

In the early days, the pedestal of the statue of Richard Seddon was painted with a swastika. Is the protester who did that a fascist, or do they think the Government is fascist? It could be either. Another protester cleaned it off the next day: Fair to say that guy is anti-fascist, unless he just didn't want us to think about the fascists in the crowd.

But they're there, as David Fisher reported in the Herald on Sunday.

An outfit called Counterspin has been fighting with the Freedom and Rights Coalition (FRC) for control of the protest. Leadership of the far right is at stake and the good-hearted folk who are stuck in the mud and just want their old lives back are pawns in the conflict.

The FRC is connected to Brian Tāmaki's Destiny Church. Counterspin operates on an online TV channel set up by Donald Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon. Its New Zealand leaders include Kelvyn Alp, who belonged to an armed insurrectionist group in the early 2000s.

Last week, before he arrived at Parliament, Alp declared, "I would love to go there and mow them [politicians and media] all down, but unfortunately, we can't do that … [but] we are coming close to that because this Government is a criminal organisation – there's no way about it – and they need to be stopped."

Both the FRC and Counterspin have picked up the marquee slogan of the American far right: "Freedom".

They don't mean the freedom that allows everyone to go about their business free from harassment. If the protesters respected that kind of freedom, they would not be blocking the streets with their cars and forcing shops to close.

Nor do they mean freedom from harm, because that's what vaccines and vaccine mandates help to do.

The German novelist Thomas Mann, a refugee from Hitler, once told an American audience, "Let me tell you the whole truth: If ever Fascism should come to America, it will come in the name of freedom."

Counterspin declares, "Mobilise for freedom: This is war!" and "New Free Land". It's exactly what Mann meant.

On Saturday, a man wielded his umbrella like a rifle, pointing it at the police. When he did that, what did he want us to think? That it was a joke? Or that next time he'll bring a real weapon?

Is this guy in the protest at Parliament delivering a warning or just having a bit of fun? Photo / Supplied

Probably it was the former and he was "having a bit of fun". But that's the excuse used the world over by people who behave badly and think they should be free to get away with it.

Alp, Tāmaki and their mates will be thrilled with how this protest has gone. They've dominated political debate for days. They've associated their ridiculous claims with a grievance many people think is legitimate. And the number of followers on their social media channels has exploded.

Eyeballs, not storming the barricades or changing Government policy, is what this is all about. Boosting their own ranks while wrapping their militancy in a cloak of righteousness. With more supporters, there's online talk of protests at pharmacies that offer vaccines, harassing kids at the school gates, arguing with bus drivers. Doing their best to throw civil society into disarray.

And who will those supporters be? They'll be "garden-variety Kiwis", encouraged to make common cause with the far right by stooges like Matt King and the opportunist Winston Peters.

One of Thomas Mann's great insights was that the Nazis weren't a diabolical subspecies of human: They were ordinary people, voted into office by ordinary people. That this is possible is the number-one lesson of 20th century history, isn't it?

Perhaps it's less possible here than elsewhere. One of the salient features of our Covid response has been that "garden-variety Kiwis" find it quite easy to distinguish between genuine public-health emergencies and undemocratic abuse of power.

And from the start, the secret of New Zealand's pandemic success has been the way the Government has tuned its responses to public support. We've been locked down, closed off, scanned, vaccinated, mandated and traffic-lighted, but always no more than we would accept. On the whole, it's worked.

Now, as we move into the uncertain but possibly calamitous realms of Omicron, maintaining public support remains the key.

Would it be helped if politicians met with the protesters?

It's hard to see why they should. Some of those protesters want to "arrest" them on sight and then "hang 'em high". And any meeting would allow the protesters to claim a victory: "We forced them to talk to us!"

Vaccinations have been given to New Zealand children for many decades, and yet ... Photo / Mark Mitchell

Would the Government generate more public support if it fessed up to mistakes? Such as, for example, the exclusion of pregnant women from MIQ emergency applications?

The answer is yes and no. It's obviously the mature thing to do. It's also obvious it would be used by opponents as proof of incompetence. That's why politicians of all stripes almost never admit they're wrong.

Meanwhile, at Parliament, the streets should be cleared of cars and the tents should go too. But how? There's no easy answer to that and, to their credit, the police have tried to avoid creating martyrs. In Paris over the weekend, protesters were dispersed with teargas and rubber bullets.

That makes Trevor Mallard's use of music look like a genius move. Playing Barry Manilow was never going to drive anyone away but it did take the heat out of an ugly conflict.

Social media may thrive on conspiracy and extremes, but even more than that, it thrives on humour. Thanks to Mandy and Copacabana, everybody got to make jokes. These are tough times, but we're doing okay.