The real dangers lurking in the 'freedom convoy' protests

Friday, 18 February 2022

Jacinda Ardern said what was happening 'is illegal, we're all clear on that'.

Morgan Godfery is a senior lecturer at the University of Otago and te ao Māori editor at Metro. He is a regular opinion contributor to Stuff.

OPINION: And so here we are – 11 days after the “freedom convoy” found its way to Wellington – and the shape of the movement occupying the parliamentary precinct is clear.

On the most generous assessment, it’s made up of a couple of thousand dupes. People who believe the booster shot could kill their spouse, that mask wearing can cause “carbon dioxide poisoning” or that Ivermectin – the horse dewormer – is the best treatment after catching the virus.

But on an honest assessment, the “movement”, if we’re willing to give it that much credit, is dangerous.

Last week messages were chalked across the parliamentary forecourt threatening to “Hang ‘em High”. This week a noose was still dangling from a tree. Phil Arps, the white supremacist who once dumped a pig’s head at Al Noor Mosque, the site of the Christchurch massacre, has been in Picton attempting to join his racist comrades - like Action Zealandia - on the ground.

* ACT leader David Seymour speaks with Parliament protesters, as anti-mandate movement tries to gain legitimacy

After a show of force early on in the protest, police have taken a less confrontational approach.

* Who is who at the Convoy 2022 occupation of Parliament's grounds

This week, photos emerged of a ute with “Jewcinda” scribbled across the cab.

We can add that ute to the black trailer doubling as the Prime Minister’s prison cell and to the ordinary acts of harassment and disruption occurring in Thorndon: occupiers assaulting school girls for wearing masks, squatters forcing local businesses and the university to close, and cars blocking the bus interchange and Molesworth St, one of Wellington’s chief thoroughfares.

In ordinary times police wouldn’t hesitate to move against a group that is, one, threatening to kill politicians, and two, grinding the capital city to a halt. But these are extraordinary times.

By sea or by air, former New Conservative leader Leighton Baker needs a negative Covid-19 test result to return home to Canterbury. (File photo)

Police understand that this isn’t a typical protest “movement”. Instead, it harbours violent elements – from the hangmen to the white supremacists – and so the use of force is likely to meet with a bloody resistance.

This is something the protest organisers refuse to confront. If their movement is, as they claim, so “peaceful”, why do threats of violence and acts of harassment occur day after day? Last week an occupier holding a “love is the cure” sign told a journalist that they were going to execute her.

But this kind of cognitive dysfunction – identifying with love while wishing violence – typifies the organisers as well as a not insignificant number of occupiers. In welcoming anyone who is “anti-mandate”, no matter their motivations or their final aim, the organisers welcome people who would go a good deal further than repealing public health legislation in a pandemic. Kelvyn Alp, for example, the fake newsman documenting the occupation, is calling for an end to mandates as well as a military coup.

In a coherent protest movement, organisers work to control their fringe elements, reiterating the core demands and collectively agreeing to strategy and tactics. But in this “movement” the fringe elements are coming to the fore and, as commentator Neale Jones points out, it’s attracting some of the country’s worst chancers.

Derek Tait, the Destiny Church pastor who told his followers he was refusing the vaccine only for members of the public to catch him out presenting a vaccine pass, was in attendance with his leather-bound friends.

Leighton Baker, leader of the New Conservatives (presumably the old conservatives were insufficiently conservative) and his daughter, Chantelle, another fake news monger, are on the ground.

Cameron Slater, the blogger whose dirty politics saga took down his closest ally (former Leader of the Opposition Judith Collins) also took the opportunity to address the occupiers.

From this angle it’s tempting to read the occupation as nothing more than a carnival of the bizarre. Cameron Slater – really? But that would amount to ceding too much ground to the far Right.

The Government is beginning to acknowledge as much with the country’s top national security officials convening to assess the threat level. The last time they met was to address the Covid-19 crisis in 2020, and the March 15 massacre in 2019.

Historians understand that any “movement” that welcomes fascists or the far Right eventually becomes defined by that mistake. As the apocryphal goes “if there’s a Nazi at the table and 10 other people are sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 Nazis”.

This isn’t to suggest that everyone on Parliament’s lawn are neo-Nazis. They aren’t. Some of them are just scared. Others are just terribly confused. Maybe one or two are just along for the ride.

But if they won’t collectively eject the far Right elements among them – well, police will have to do it for them.

Footnote: The second paragraph of this column has been amended to make clear Ivermectin is a horse dewormer, not tranquiliser. (Amended, Feb 18, 3.56pm.)