Damien Grant: Golriz Ghahraman and the visceral antipathy she generates at the fringes

Sunday, 2 February 2025

Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective.

OPINION: A febrile air took over some dark corners last month when news began swirling that former MP and bête noire of the idiot right, Golriz Ghahraman, was in trouble. Again. There is something about this MP that invokes a degree of loathing that is disproportionate to her political status.

Golriz, and we can call her that as she has, like Madonna and Bono, earned the celebrity cachet to be known by her first name, is an individual of significance and, with grace and wisdom, can remain so.

But first, we need to confront the visceral antipathy she generates at the fringes.

There is a contradiction central to the political career of Ms Ghahraman.

Her main thesis is that Aotearoa is a flawed country, although it is difficult to ascertain from her various positions precisely what those flaws are; yet her life and career tell a different story about our shared country.

In her 2020 book, Know Your Place, she tells with moving pathos the welcome her small family receives, the support from the state and individuals who work to ensure their refugee claim, her life at Auckland Girls Grammer and legal career. She also finds aspects of her new land that show latent racism.

She details trivial incidents such as Sir Paul Holmes cheeky darkie comment about Kofi Annan and Paul Henry’s snide remake about the Governor General needing to look like a New Zealander, as well as the Christchurch terrorist attack, to make the point.

In her media appearances and in the house she mastered a rhetorical style of feigned disappointment. The impression a casual observer develops is one of perpetual moral superiority over the failures of others and the ready adoption of that week’s particular cause. From Gaza, liberation for West Papua and freedom for Iranian dissident Behrouz Boochani you will find Ghahraman on the front lines and before the camera.

None of this explains why she generates such vitriol, and why her misfortunes generate such delight. Many politicians have had their careers derailed by misdeeds considerably more serious than the de minimis acts of idiocy that led Ms Ghahraman to the appalling indignity of having to explain herself to John Campbell; but none have been greeted with such delight.

The problem for Ghahraman, as her book title alludes to, is she does not know her place. There are others who went to better schools, who were born here, who look more like New Zealanders, and who have not enjoyed the same level of success. And for some that rankles. Especially when she lectures us on our failings when her prominence is due in part to what we may perceive is our generosity in embracing her family when they fled Iran.

I am familiar with this sort of disdain; being an ex-con with no redeeming social skills holding grimly to my little corner of the public and commercial square; much to the irritation of those unable to compete despite having greater respectability and never bothered the constabulary.

Yet the weekly Greek Chorus of vitriol that I enjoy would be a gentle breeze to the storm of abuse suffered by our high-profile refugee MP with her confronting perspectives on our nation. She wrote in 2020; “As the abuse grew, it began to hurt…It hurt to know that you are hated because of your face and your story, which you had very little hand in shaping.”

You do not have to have been at the centre of an internet storm to appreciate the potential for personal misery. Judith Collins gave her the wise advice to not read the comments; but at some point we all lift the grate over that sewer and you find yourself crafting retorts in your head that will never be delivered.

It erodes your soul.

I find Ghahraman’s economics misguided, her views on Gaza appalling and her cheering every passing progressive cause insincere. But that is nothing to my disgust at those who revel in her destruction, who believe that the way to achieve political victory is to break your opponents, or that a moral failure in one aspect of your life invalidates your politics, career and even existence.

Take a step back and look at this woman’s career. It is impressive. Read her book; it will surprise you with her self-awareness, her struggles to find herself and the insecurities that, knowing what we now know, are prescient. And then acknowledge that she wrote a book.

Consider that she arrived here as a young child, cut adrift from the world she’d known and forged her own path to parliament, one that went through Oxford University and the war crimes tribunals of Rwanda and Cambodia.

And then embrace that not only are we the country that gave her the opportunity to succeed, but we are the sort of individuals that will celebrate her future success.