A year of dangerous thinking
It was one of those late-winter Saturdays so clear and sharp you could have heard the sky squeak, but for the fact that “Poi E” was blasting from a sound-system on the edge of Aotea Square. It was pointed towards the Auckland Town Hall, where 20 or so people — almost all men — clustered beneath the clock tower, holding their placards up — a flimsy cardboard barrier against the wall of music bombarding them.
The night before — Friday, August 3 — Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern’s Auckland event had been cancelled at the last minute. Most of the men’s signs riffed on the far right’s side of the “free speech” argument. There were pictures of the British far-right agitator Tommy Robinson with his mouth taped over, accompanied by the global catch-cry “Free Tommy”. (Robinson had actually been freed from a contempt-of-court sentence a couple of days earlier, but let’s not quibble over such details.) And there were posters in support of Southern and Molyneux. There’d been rumours Southern might show up. For the second time in 24 hours, she left her fans disappointed.
The sound-system belonged to the “Love Aotearoa, Hate Racism” campaign, which had joined the “Rally Against Racism”, organised by Tāmaki Anti-Fascist Action (TAFA), the night before in Aotea Square. The Saturday counter-protest against the “Free Tommy” crew had the vibe of an after-party — 60 or so people still going from Friday night, cranking the stereo up, not ready to go home yet.
Two young women wearing head-scarves and flying Palestine flags danced to a Public Enemy track under a Free Tommy sign. There was Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”; Herbs’ “Sensitive to a Smile”; Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up”; Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All”; Band Aid’s “We Are the World”; bhangra music, which a young Māori woman with a temporary moko kauae blew along to on a conch shell; and a rousing “YMCA” that all the counter-protesters joined in with, actions and all. Even the Free Tommy guys grinned at that.
They weren’t skinheads; mostly, they looked like slightly confused dads. I thought back to 2005, when I was living in London, and the Fathers 4 Justice movement, which briefly captured the public imagination when one of its members scaled the Houses of Parliament to protest against their perceived lack of custodial access to children.
I wondered whether any of these blokes would be game enough to do the same to the clock tower. They weren’t, and instead, drowned out and outnumbered, they were hemmed in by an afternoon dance party. Heated exchanges broke out, mostly as isolated arguments between individuals. In the end, their own white van pulled up, they packed their signs into it, and most of them drifted away — to Freddie Mercury belting out “We Are the Champions” as the counter-protesters claimed the space beneath the clock.
The Friday Rally Against Racism had brought about 500 Aucklanders together, and the Saturday events mustered maybe 100 in total. These were small-gatherings, sure. But they were also the tail-end of a much larger clusterfuck that briefly held Auckland on the edge of a potentially dangerous moment.
It started with the announcement that Canadian far-right speakers Molyneux and Southern were planning to speak at the council-owned Bruce Mason Centre. Auckland Live — a division of the council’s Regional Facilities Auckland — cancelled it on public safety grounds. Then, after Auckland Live’s decision,
ABOVE-Canadian far-right speakers Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux had their Auckland event cancelled at the last minute.
Mayor Phil Goff decided to tweet that council-owned venues wouldn’t be used to stir up ethnic and religious tensions.
Many lauded Goff for his stance. But byFranks, left-inclined commentator Chris Trotter, historian and author Paul Moon, former Labour Cabinet minister Michael Bassett and Taxpayers’ Union founder Jordan Williams, among others — brought along the petrol. Both sides were as naive as each other, failing to understand the ways in which the concept of free speech is being weaponised by conservative and far-right groups online, and by the financial interests that drive them.
