A certain disposition prevailing in the wind...

Its been over a week since the murder of 50 Kiwis in Christchurch and its taken me this long to feel comfortable to blog about it.

Yeah, I know, and besides with everyone else talking about it what was I going to add to the debate right when things were right there, right now? Probably not a lot.

Also, to be honest, I was not in the mood. I spent a chunk of Friday afternoon on the 15th messaging my daughter who was trapped in a closet in her school in Christchurch (as it was just across the park from the mosque there), dealing with a panicked teen who was worried about getting shot.

Suffice it to say feelings were high.

Then on the Saturday morning as I drove down hill past the local mosque where I live in Wellington there is a police officer with a automatic rifle standing outside of it, and there was one for most of the week.

Sunday I attend the vigil at the basis reserve and watch as it fills up to capacity and then some. While outside rather too smug looking young socialists, are pushing through the crowds and are pasting up "fight fascism" posters everywhere. The speeches inside reflect the shock, grief and some minor strains of anger at the situation but overall its clear that people have come together.

By Monday morning work is in chaos as more than a few people where I work have been pulled out to be part of the various crisis teams which have sprung up in sections of government. Several of my friends are pulling long shifts in PNHQ doing things and already there is the initial trickle of OIA requests, which will soon turn into a flood, all of them asking about "white supremacy".

In the media the name of the killer is now scrubbed from the narrative and copies of the his live streamed video and manifesto are being hunted down and erased. Articles are springing up discussing every aspect and detail of the situation but the tone is still one of shock but there is also a rising narrative of coming together and being stronger, of doing the exact opposite of what the killer wanted to happen.

As the days go back I slowly sink back into my work but I am now starting to see whats going on around me, the larger picture coming into focus and I like what I see because rather than spend all of this post talking about this tragedy and its consequences in minute detail I want to discuss the larger shift that happened in the last seven days by starting with the hour immediately preceding the attacks.

Friday 15 March, 12.00 Pm (approx)

Its a hot, late summer day and Q and I are sitting on the steps of the Court of Appeal watching the large crowd of school children filling the lawn of Parliament as we eat our lunch.

Overall the mood of the protesters is one that only young people can truly have, there is a palpable mood of doing something "naughty" mixed in with with a righteous generational anger at what they see as an issue ignored and its reflected on the placards of the protesters who are streaming past us.

School uniforms mixed in with face paint, cell phones and clusters of youth, some clutching coffees from the local coffee container up the street, are making themselves heard in the most positive of ways.

Q and I cant hear the people speaking to the crowd very well but its clear from the cheers and, on occasion, boos where the speakers are going. Over the roar of the crickets and traffic I catch certain phrases and words but its obvious that the politicians that are speaking in front of the crowd are not really getting it. Speeches go on to long, and at one point I can hear James Shaw telling the crowd about the "big concrete building" behind him and I am reminded of the large age gap between Shaw and most in the crowd (and myself) and realize that its two different political words coming face to face and having little in common. Shaw being a career politician with policy and polls to worry about and the protesting youth just wanting something to be done before they have to swim to school.

Then as things head towards One Pm the crowds start to filter away, even as the politicians continue to blather, as the protesters loose interest. They did not take the day off school, getting away from teachers and adults in general, raise the flag of generational protest to end up in front of Parliament being spoken to by a bunch of MPs as if they were back in school!

I'm thrilled by what I am seeing, from on the steps of the Appeal Court, lunch now eaten and just enjoying the whiffs of the carnival mood that has been emanating from the kids as they now head out of and away from parliament.

Its highly symbolic, they did not come to the seat of government to ask, they came to tell, they came (as they did across NZ) not as supplicants but with a message; "we are the future, not you. This is our issue now. You failed to deal with it, now its our turn!".

For me, I am watching the future come to life right before my eyes and my own faded idealism about wanting to make the world a better place feels invigorated by this youthful display of piss and vinegar, and its clear that if my own generation, now holding the levers of power, does not gets it act together then the next generation will remove them and do it themselves.

Q, slightly more jaded than I, is not so enthusiastic and makes a joke about the failed Children's Crusade from the 13th century. I'm not amused and its one of the few times I chide him for his attitude. Its not "politics as we know it" I tell him, when was the last time he bunked school to protest, I ask him. I never did and neither did he (I did bunk a lot of school but not to protest. My own protesting only started when I was at university). A point he concedes as we part ways and head back to our respective places of work.

Friday 15 March, 3.00 Pm (approx)

My Daughter is messaging me on snapchat, sending me pictures of her feet as her and a friend huddle in a closet as their entire school in Christchurch is now in lock down. She is scared and upset but also calm, she just wants to go home.

She attended the protests in Christchurch earlier in the day and now is facing this. Rumors are swirling, battery life on her phone is running low and her link with the world is about to go dark. I tell her I love her and that things are in hand, she just has to sit tight and she will be out of there soon and then sign off.

Two and a half hours later she messages me; its over, shes out and free to go home.

By now the media is swirling with stories and after reading a  few I pack it in. I'm not going to learn anything there. I studied terrorism and counterinsurgency for my Masters, spent five years dealing with that and related risks at Immigration and I already know what I have seen. With the exception of the 50 souls killed and the others wounded on this day the remaining details are almost irrelevant. Terrorism has finally come to NZ.

But unlike the US and other nations in the wake of their own terrorist attacks, where fear, anger and decent into the bottomless hole that is national self doubt that those attacks brought on, New Zealand has come together and in one clear voice said no to the message behind these acts, said no to racism and its various subcategories and instead simple taken action to deal with the matter and enable those who need to grieve to grieve and those who need to heal to heal and started doing what needs to be done to to deal with the problem.

The attacks in Christchurch are horrific and will not be easily forgotten but I'm proud of this country for the way its come together to deal with this, say no to the message the killer was hoping to promote.

I'm also proud at the youth of this country who shortly before the attacks were making their voice felt in the most positive of ways and showing that there is a reason to hope for a better future because they are have plans how to make it.

The killer wanted to divide but their is little fertile ground in Aotearoa for what he was saying and its clear that the time of people who have such messages (be they overt or coded) is over. The paradigm has shifted and the mood of this country with it.

A week later, laws removing the weapons used from public life have been enacted and every effort has been made to heal and support. We will not be launching any punitive invasions of Australia in retaliation for whats happened nor closing our borders but instead, like Gallipoli, have experienced one of those moments in a nations life which help to define and test its national character and we have not been found wanting.

Its deeply and sadly ironic that March 15th should have contained two of the most defining moments in this generation yet perhaps in a cosmic sense that's how needed to happen. To be honest though I would have preferred if people had not been shot for this to have come to pass.

National character is important and as I saw at the Basin reserve, the national character of this country is one of many colors and creeds, of many peoples but of one nation, of Muslims, Pakeha, Maori, Asian and many others but we all spoke with one single voice and I like this multi ethnic, tolerant yet strong society I see before me.

I love you New Zealand.

Kia Kaha.


NOTE: The title of this post is taken from the lyrics of the Jamiroquai song Emergency on Planet Earth.

All hail the gentle revolution! #MeToo

This one is for you Anon.

Lets start this post by getting the elephant in the room out of the way by making it clear that I am a man.

Shock and horror I know but being a man does not mean that I have not supported the #MeToo moment, in NZ or worldwide, but have in fact been down with it.

Also, in the past some on this blog have called me a "sexist" for comments made about Paula Bennett but the extent of their arguments extended to calling me a "sexist' and that was it, no actual evidence or discussion but just labeling me as if that was enough to do.

And I raise this here because being critical of a person (a single individual), be it their dress sense, their politics, their lifestyle, religion or whatever does not mean that its appropriate to attach some sort of "ism" or "ist" based label as a badge denoting that that view can be expanded to cover an entire sex, race or species when its just comments about a single individual.

Whats that got to do with the price of milk in Mongolia? Well a lot actually.

See, the #MeToo movement is part of the longer running struggle for women's rights and equality  as well as a larger shift in the ability of the public to discuss things like sexual abuse without feeling shame or being pressured into silence and the very visible outpouring in the wake of #MeToo in NZ has shown that behind the wall of silence the pressure had been building up because for all the legal enactment of women's rights (and for LGBTQ community as well) the social follow through has been slow in coming.

Its been nearly 50 years since the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969, which are generally considered as the start of the modern fight for Gay rights and over 120 years since women got the right to vote in NZ yet its been clear that despite having had several female PMs, many female MPs and business leaders (and its great to see criminal and traitor Jenny Shipley breaking though the glass ceiling by showing that women can be held just as liable as men for extremely dodgy criminal dealings) and so on and so forth men still seem to be ruling the roost, or more correctly the framework is in place for "equality between the sexes and genders" but the culture has not shifted fully and hence why #MeToo flared up in late 2016 and became a widespread rallying call to shift that culture.

And I call this the "gentle revolution" not in reference to the female sex or anything like that but because as revolutions go its been completely bloodless (well almost bloodless).

Most revolutions will see at least someone put up against the wall and shot (usually literally but occasionally metaphorically) but this revolution has occurred without any of that happening.

Yes some careers have been flushed down the gurgler but in an age where the Catholic Church now appears to be organized and run purely for the benefit of pedophiles and  sexual abuse is still a major issue it was clear that having a law was not enough and that some actual change at ground level (read an actual revolution) was still needed.

And its a revolution that was predicted almost 50 years ago by Germaine Greer in the Female Eunch and hoped for Simone De Beauviour 70 years ago in her book The Second Sex (and with Naomi's Woolf's The Beauty Myth in the 90s) but sadly not able to metamorph at the time but finally kicked off with the #MeToo movement and the ongoing social agitation of what has been called Third Wave Feminism.

However that does not mean that I am down with all that has gone on in this "revolution" and I maintain a stance similar to that of Camille Paglia (in her book Sexual Personae and her general thought and theory) in that just because you are a feminist does not put you above criticism, give you an invincible moral shield (based on your sex/gender) which protects you from all criticism or that sex and sexuality is not just an abstract social construct but something also rooted in biology and as such there are some immutable aspects of sex and sexuality which cant just be ignored or overridden by blind ideology and group chanting.

One of the m ore valid criticism often leveled at feminism is that it seems to have been enacted and empowered mostly for and by rich white women (and I get the irony of the four feminist authors cited above being such) and that the spoils of the revolution have not been shared equally which is why the legal enactments of the past have not been matched by the broader cultural shift.

The counter argument is that the current beneficiaries of Feminism (the rich, the white and academic) have merely been the revolutionary vanguard and that such benefits will "trickle down" in time to the rest as such things just take time, so stop moaning about it.

I'm not so convinced about that as that argument has been used before in the often blind and monolithic theories about class, used by socialists (also often rich, white and academic, as well as male), which always just seem to say that they are leading the debate and only they have the knowledge and foresight to lead people to the glorious revolutionary utopia that awaits just around the corner if only they would buy a copy of their book.

And we have seen that in NZ with the most prominent aspect of #MeToo being in the legal profession. Strange that this bastion of wealthy, well paid individuals should be the only area of NZ where sexism is so rampant that they had to organize protests while other heavily female professions* (such as teachers and midwives) are striking for better pay and working conditions.

Which is not to say that there is not sexism in those professions (I used to be a teacher) but that the priority for the profession is elsewhere and while sexism does exist I have seen it go both ways, (because women can be sexist too) but fixing the problem of overwork and underpay takes precedence.

But without the theory there is no practice, at least no with any direction, so the need for the above female theorists is there but it does expose the oft uncomfortable dynamic at work.

Still it took a twitter hashtag to kick off what I think has been the best thing for sexual relationships since sliced bread in that without the cultural shift all that legislation and law was going to be nothing more than words with a few elite individuals benefiting while change elsewhere was not enacted.

And the revolution has benefited not just women but men and others also as its part of a larger culture of openness and acknowledgement (via things like Alison Mau's #MeTooNZ or Mike King and John Kirwin talking about mental health) which is all part of shining the light of openness and transparency on what were once dark areas of humanity which dare not be discussed.

Have I liked all of whats gone on, as I said before, no I have not but you cant make an omelette without breaking some eggs and you cant have a sexual revolution without some revolutionary justice being dished up piping hot because revolutions occur exactly because the normal means of justice and law have broken down so once the new norms are bedded in they will get drawn into normal legal practice.

For now expect more peoples tribunals via public accusation and more than a tinge of unsubstantiated hot scandal because all law is based on the authority of violence and while the threat of violence being waved about here is less physical than emotional and reputational its still going to be the violence of having ones life and career exploded in the media and social media for all and sundry to see.

Still there are some fish hooks with this because there is a reason why we have courts, juries and the idea of innocent until proven guilty and the frenzy of accusation around #MeToo is not always been used for altruistic purposes and without actual evidence there is always going to be ambiguity, doubt and a mob mentality.

Which leads us to identity politics and victim culture which has ridden in on the coat tails of #MeToo and feminism and is in part a reflection of the break down of the institution of the nation state and traditional politics in the age of globalization , as well a christian based western culture (for both the good and bad its done), and introduced micro societies and techno savagery (both my own terms) as a world where social relations are atomized into groupings of race, sex, gender, identity and a host of classifications like games, comics, music and subculture and where people have access to advanced technology like digital media, the internet and mobile (and always on) devices yet do not have the slightest idea of how this technology actually works (in essence making it the same as magic).

And that's probably where I draw the line because while #MeToo promises to level the playing field identity politics and victim culture intend to chop it up, fence it off and create a space that fosters permanent revolution and not an inclusive society of tolerance and understanding but one where revenge and utu are part of the plan, if not all of the plan!

An example of this is the breakdown of the Auckland Pride Parade over issues which, on the face of it, looked like a shift away from wanting to be part of the community to wanting to have their own community (enacting their own micro-community) and where extremism is an acceptable behavior set and justified no matter what**.

And I get the arguments made by those that voted to end the parade in its current form but was it worth destroying the whole parade over Police involvement, yet only to be subject to the irony or having a march protected by Police and where the ideological blinkers go on to the reality that yes fighting for tolerance is a good thing but that when you fight intolerance with MORE intolerance you don't get a better situation, you boil it down to a numbers game and in the end they have more numbers than you!

But again, in the main, #MeToo has been a good thing and as with all omelettes some eggs etc etc etc.

New Zealand, overal is rather tolerant society, but with some rather dark streaks running through it to be sure but the push for change in the underlying culture brought about by #MeToo has be for the most a good thing but that remains to be qualified by the new, and better, society that will emerge as the cultural shift is enacted.

Also more than a few of those riding on the coattails of #MeToo have the stench of those who have never lived outside of their own cultural context (ie never lived overseas or in a country which is a lot less tolerant of things like gender roles, sexuality and such) and as such have more in common with those feminists in the ivory tower than those women outside.

If #MeToo is the harbinger of nothing more than reversing the sexual polarity (ie women on top***) then its doomed to fail if not be beaten back by a counter revolution which is currently just the beleaguered and minor extremism found in the rearguard of toxic masculinity but if that label is hijacked to be used as the new label for all men and masculinity by extremists with revenge on their agenda then expect more than just men to oppose its imposition, expect society as a whole.

The dynamic here is simple, if you create a moral economy of "being offended" and "cultural repression" as your currency then expect those positions to be used by everyone and anyone as a moral position based on "being offended" has little substance and having an Actus Rea without the Mens Rea is a subjective hell from which few can escape because, like any good meme, you cant control it once its been released into the wilds of public discourse or general culture.

But, on the other hand, if #MeToo is a long over due cleansing of the cultural pallet without the the decent into messy but necessary revolutionary anarchy being enshrined as the new and "permanent" revolution for the sake of revolution then the long hoped for equality among the sexes, and yes genders, can and will be achieved, in a future where its everyone wears those unisex jump suits like in all 70s Science fiction TV shows.

But maybe that's just me (the jumpsuit thing I mean).

As a male I am in support of #MeToo but that does not mean I am in support of scrapping the good things about being a male because there are masculine values which are good and I reject the idea that opening a door for a women is just the gateway to a whole swamp of toxic masculinity, especially when there are still plenty of women that both like and expect such behavior and when civility and kindness are still common virtues.

However, by saying that the general argument runs that I am showing "unconscious bias" and am in fact harboring all sorts of bias based on my actions, behaviors and values. Its a tempting and delicious argument to be sure, and it does exists but using it as some sort of test to benchmark how tolerant one is, is fraught with more problems than solutions.

Still that has not stopped people using it but more than some of those people are using it as a trojan horse stuffed full to bursting point with their own agendas rather than using it to address the actual issues. And while not an indicative example, I once had a "debate" (I put the little squiggles around it because politeness is a virtue) with an ardent feminist who was basing her position on the point that science and rationality were male constructs and therefore served no purpose for women or general society. Not a norm I know but a fair indicator of how far out some of the positions can get.

Nor am I against the idea of women as leaders or being in charge, If I take issue with our current female PM its not due to her sex but her politics and her behavior etc, and the same goes for my disdain for MPs like Paula Bennett.

As an individual I was raised by my Grandmother until the age of five (who was a stern but fair women who gave me much of my values and ideals and who also taught me to read before I started school) and who I have an un-payable debt to for looking after me when no one else would.

I have also had female bosses and leaders/managers and some were good and some were not but my opinion of them never had to do with the fact that they had ovaries but whether they were actually competent or not at their jobs which might just be more of that "male orientated construct" talking but who if so #myrealityisstrongerthanyours.

In some situations I prefer male company to that of female and sometimes vice versa but I think that the generational shift is further along than people think as I found out a few years back when my downstairs neighbors got a new female flatmate who was as much a geek as I was, had the same interest in comics and video games as I and showed that the shift of these areas from being once male only preserves was shifting so that ones gender no longer mattered and what did matter was the fact that there was a common language and interest. And I was down with that*4.

But, and there is always a "but" with me, that does not prevent me from saying that I think all plans the revolution are making are the best (back to Camille Paglia's position) or that I will go along with the current vogue for cheap ideology, chanting slogans or the now fashionable rush to be offended by anything which does not toe the increasingly strict sexual/gender/whatever party line espoused by extremists who get off on nothing more than revolution as a moral crutch for their intellectual, social and emotional failings (ie joker-politics or just wanting to watch the world burn).

Revolutions (like jihads and fashion trends) have their own energy, and like fires tend to only burn out when they run out of fuel, sometimes to be sparked back into life again but eventually ceasing and leaving behind the ashes from which something new (and hopefully beautiful) may grow.

So all hail the Gentle Revolution, long may it last.



*-because female lawyers are the majority in NZ now.
**-because such an argument has been made before that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice etc etc and look how well that always works out
***-Yes, pun fully intended
*4-What I was not down with was that she could beat me at every and any drinking game ever conceived and lead to one particularly bad night where I got thrashed at cards, drank an entire bottle of cheap Irish Cream, half a dozen beers and one bottle of wine and passed out dead drunk on my kitchen floor with my feet resting in the open, and now rapidly warming refrigerator.