Refugees, Referenda, and The Rugby-Industrial Complex

Looking back over this past week in politics, I struggle to find the words to describe my feelings towards the messy, incomprehensible, variegated swirl of events that have taken place. It's as if someone has pulled out that box in my cognition that processes events and deciphers them so the can be analysed at a later date and replaced it with a meat mincer. But is this just me, or is it the bizarre mix that has gone into it? In order to process what has possibly become the farcical peak of the Fifth National Government, it is going to need a rigorous break-down of its almost paradoxical parts.

Anybody who knows me personally, knows that my interest in rugby has waned to the point of oblivion over the last ten years. I can't remember the last time I watched a full game (perhaps the the 2011 World Cup final, but even then it was work, as I was a technician in the corporate audio-visual industry at the time—so that wasn't of my own choice). Firstly, it's not that I have anything against rugby per se, or even sport in general, but I just don't find it that interesting. I'm an odd person out: I don't mind cricket, in fact, I wish I had more time to watch cricket, but I just don't like rugby that much anymore. Secondly, and more importantly, I loath the ubiquity of the hyper-commercialised, hyper-masculine, alcohol soaked, and now politicised nature the game has become. I'm sure there are other sports worldwide that get the same treatment, but, what I'm going to call the Rugby-Industrial Complex, has become unique to New Zealand. I've derived this terminology from Dwight Eisenhower's warning to Americans in 1961 of a military-industrial complex that has since derailed the American political system. Eisenhower described the monetary relationship between legislators, the military, and the arms industry. Thankfully, New Zealand doesn't have such a war-mongering culture, but the political ties between rugby and the National Government are almost certainly discernible.

It was Robert Muldoon's National Government that insisted in 1981 that the national rugby team of a country that had openly racist and oppressive policies should not be stopped from touring in New Zealand because, obviously, sport and politics don't mix. Sure, different nations can come together at the Olympic games and compete for the spirit of the game, but below that semblance of unity there are often deep tensions and political motives. Why do all the rich countries win more medals? Surely sporting talent can arise anywhere on the globe? It was Aristotle that said man (just man) was, and still is, a fundamentally political animal. There is no way to completely depoliticise sport, just like every other action anyone takes, the motives for that action are linked to your moral principles, and hence, your political principles. The relationship the 1981 National Government had with rugby is one of convenience, just like the present National Government. Muldoon didn't want to upset his rural rugby-loving, liberal-hating constituents. To Muldoon, the tour wasn't going to become a political football—but in performing that do nothing approach it inherently was still politicised.

Fast-forward three decades and that switched has been flipped in its opposite direction, but as aforementioned, the relationship is a relationship of convenience. I'm not going to go terribly in-depth with the events of the 2011 Rugby World Cup because they have been highly publicised and scrutinised. But suffice to say, that is when the Rugby-Industrial Complex reached maturity. What other country has a Rugby World Cup minister? How about that awful political point scoring three-way handshake? As we descend on another traffic-stopping tournament the Rugby-Industrial Complex is stoking its boilers and exercising its political muscle. The rugby and politics train collided head-on on Sunday when John Key opened Parliament especially for the announcement of the 2015 World Cup Team. For the "sport and politics don't mix" attitude this seems the be a juxtaposition. This is the Key Government putting the spotlight on themselves as just as rugby-mad as the rest of New Zealand rather than on the mounting political failures of late. Also, I can't remember the last time there was so much media attention given to the players that didn't even make the team. Are we that obsessed?

Yet again, the telling influence of the Rugby-Industrial Complex has shown its ugly side this week with the bill rushed through Parliament allowing bars to be open at the early hours of the morning to coincide with games in the United Kingdom. I'm sure the political-business ties are many and numerous between the hospitality industry, alcohol companies, Sky TV, and the National Party. But would I, along with many others, be a killjoy by pointing this out? No, because it just seems so bizarre that this event gets such special treatment—and inevitably this is just the result of our socially destructive hyper-masculine, drinking, homophobic, rape culture. Will the roastbusters team be out during the world cup picking up drunk and vulnerable women? Why this event and not any other? Why do we need to drink to be a part of, or enjoy sport? Surely the unhealthy habits of binge drinking seem oxymoronic to the athleticism of rugby? This is obviously a complex relationship—again, a relationship of convenience—that runs deep and what I've mentioned is just food, or should I say drink, for thought.

This other week's farcical political sideshow was the dreaded flag referendum. Apologists for the referendum often suggest the $26 million spend is a drop in the bucket; welfare costs billions. Never mind that gutting the modern welfare state would be turning back the clock to the social Darwinism of Victorian Britain. However, Key was unequivocal in his reluctance to spend $9 million on the citizens' initiated referendum on the partial sale of important public assets. I'm sure the Taxpayer's Union had a collective moan at the money spent on the referendum whose result was arrogantly ignored. You'd think a referendum initiated by the people would set a democratic percent and warrant somewhat more budget attention. But this shinning example of direct democracy didn't suit the ideologically blindfolded agenda of a cynical and fundamentally anti-democratic government. Again, a relationship of convenience. Apologists will chime that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have a collective say in the future of our nation. But this horribly misses the mark. There was largely collective disgust or apathy when selection panel released its top forty flag choice, which was repeated again more vehemently with this week's release of the final four. It's quite clearly a politically motivated distraction and carefully planned money waster when the Prime Minister's pet flag appears in the top four. It might to interesting to follow any ties Kyle Lockwood has to the National Party and the Prime Minister. Again, the Rugby-Industrial Complex rears its head again when three of the four final designs feature the silver fern. Which is why I find it so perplexing that the NZRU is threatening legal action regarding the silver fern. Perhaps there will be some golden handshake for the boys at the NZRU courtesy of the tax payers. The National Government is not exactly averse to hook-ups for the boys.

As John Oliver has shown, the entire process has descended into internationally embarrassing farcical levels. Given most public opinion polls, people don't want this political pet project shoved down their throats. But no, the fruitcake-of-a sideshow must go on because it's democratic. Also, how exactly is having a say in the primary symbolic representation of our nation having a say in its future? It's akin to spending more time worrying about what colour tie to wear at a job interview than rehearsing answers to questions one might be potentially asked. One is quite clearly more relevant to your future economic outcomes than the other. We can have a politically sanctioned say in jingoistic semiotics, but how dare we have a say in the fundamental structures of political economy. It's the scraps of democracy left over for the masses from meal of the political and economic elites.

Finally, I move on to this week's equally farcical, but tragic event: the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Europe and the Middle East, and the New Zealand Government's morally vacuous response to it. They haven't lost their moral compass, no, they just threw it on the ground and stomped on it. There is a vicious hypocrisy appearing when earlier this year Key verbally insulted Andrew Little's carefully considered stance on sending New Zealand troops to Iraq by telling him to "get some guts". Despite our pittance contribution that could very well be ineffectual given the massive corruption in the Iraqi military and the surrender-inducing tactics of ISIL, Key insisted it was our moral duty, which was later revised to the payment for being part of the club—the FVEY alliance. How can we have this sycophantic behaviour but turn a blind eye to the other, inconvenience of the war—refugees? But the rugby mentality runs deep: it is more righteous to go to war, fight, and die than deal with the consequences. I can understand the response to criticism of such a woeful quota. Taking refugees does require money and infrastructure. But surely the quota could be doubled all for the cost of a flag-referendum? It is almost soul crushing nihilism that this government will rush to support legislation to extend public drinking hours for the Rugby-Industrial Complex but will not rush to support legislation for our moral duty to humanity. The same could be said for the $11 million paid to a disgruntled Saudi businessman; the same theocratic kingdom that has carried out hundreds of brutal public executions this year alone. There is some something horribly askew when we can throw money away at some quixotic sheep-deal in a nation that is not discernibly different from ISIL. The National Government had the audacity to claim that although they disagree with their human rights record, the Saudi judicial system is legislatively sanctioned and therefore legitimate. This is possibly one the most weakly ignorant arguments to grovel to a nation whose judicial system is medieval. The Third Reich in Germany from 1933 to 1945 was legislatively sanctioned as was the Final Solution at the Wansee Conference in 1942. The refugees from war-torn Europe were accommodated in New Zealand including our Prime Minister's mother. Imagine if New Zealand had not opened its doors. Also, we are not talking about immigration, we are talking about people fleeing for their lives. Surely when the morality of life or death is involved the initial concern is more pressing and the financial considerations become secondary. But the National Party does not think like this: its moral concerns are subjugated to the market, the primary moral reality. This is most certainly obvious when it comes to workplace health and safety legislation; that horrible red tape that actually stops people losing life and limb is not morally more important than letting the market do its invisible hand thing. As a myriad of commentators have already said, its time this government got some guts.

This is just scratching the surface of the beat-your-head-against-a-wall train wreak that is not just a third term National Government, no this is something truly spectacular, a third term Key government. A government run by ideological obsessive free-market fanatics that paint themselves as politically pragmatic with their Crosby-Textor spin-doctors. But in time the paint wears thin, and eventually the people will see the shoddy woodwork below. The social and culture rhetoric might be centre-right, but the fundamental structures of political economy are on a death-march to the far-right, surely, but slowly, where money talks, and morals walk.

———————————————————————————————————————— "... we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace." —W. M. Hicks.

Terrorism, Free speech, and the Hypocrisy of Western Media

I can't think of a more epitomic institution of free speech than a university. They are are not called the conscience of society for nothing. Anybody who has spent a decent length of time amongst academia knows that pretty much anything can be said, and it’s more often than not elucidated in such a way that it makes Patrick Gower’s opinion pieces sound like school boy name calling. As I look through my social media feeds on what is possibly the most fervent of Christian feast days I see next to nothing regarding a terrorist attack at a university in Garissa, Kenya that has at the time of writing this claimed 147 lives (including 4 assailants). There are a few token headlines at the usual corporate media institutions, but alas, there is very little semblance of condemnation, sympathy, solidarity, criticism, or even the typical anti-Muslim sentiment (The New Zealand Herald's top story is a championing of some wealthy narcissist putting the neo-colonial boot into local Māori because her profit trumps the exploitation of their land, while the Kenyan story falls faster than an anchor in water)[1]. To Western media, and the hegemony of European political consciousness, this is just as usual for Africa as flatulence in the wind. For an attack on such a prominent institution of free speech, there seems to be deafening lack of it. There is, and never will be a "Mimi ni Garissa"[2] for the 143 pinko student nobodies in some far flung corner of that homogeneous continent called Africa.

Cast your mind back to January 7th of this year—it may seem like a distant memory but it was a mere 3 months ago—to the horrific attack on the journalists at the forgettable excuse of a satirical tabloid (it does not deserve a prestigious description) Charlie Hebdo by al Qaeda in Yemen, not anti-Muslim flavour-of-the-month the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant.[3] Anyone is who is not within the manifold of fundamentalist Islamic organisations can agree the attack was horrific and should be condemned. However, as pointed out by a myriad of commentators, this should come with the caveat that any act of violence regardless of religion, race, state, or non-state actor, should be equally condemned. What followed was the fire stoking of Eurocentrism, nationalism, fascism, and racism all under the excusal banner of free speech. Marches with millions of people attracted leaders from across the world all to condemn terrorism and advocate free speech.[4] Social media had a wet dream, both left and right of the political spectrum, shouting loudly "Je suis Charlie".[5] I was one of the very few who refused to get caught up in the emotionally tinged implicit cultural superiority of the campaign. I'm not a fan of religious extremism or religion in general, but the vitriol Charlie Hebdo publishes was the crass vacuous rubbish that appeals to red-neck racists who champion democracy (despite not knowing or understanding what it is), but are open to spreading that "democracy" by bloody prolonged wars in far flung corners of the world they know nothing about. Terrorism is a very complex phenomenon that requires a difficult conversation with the Muslim world rather than just pointing fingers, putting up walls, and bombing.

Now contrast this ostentatious response to the luke-warm response to Anders Behring Breivik's vicious but equally calculated attack on members of the Norwegian Labour Party’s youth wing at an organised retreat on July 22nd 2011 that claimed 77 lives of equal moral worth. Breivik, being from one of those Viking countries, was as white as white could ever get. There was no global public out-cry over Caucasian extremism, or Protestant extremism, Christian extremism, Islamophobic extremism, Zionist extremism, anti-feminist extremism, patriarchal extremism, free-market extremism, or just general far-right extremism. Corporate media white-washed this event so much so, that if you quiz anyone on the street in the Anglo-Saxon nations now, chances are they couldn't recall this equally horrific event that claimed more lives that the Parisian attack (not that the number killed is the important issue under discussion). Why? Because Breivik didn’t fit into the Western narrative of “us versus them”, “Christians versus Muslims”, or “freedom versus hatred”. Conservative American political commentator Glenn Beck even had the atrocious audacity to compare the camp for aspiring progressive lawmakers to the Hitler Youth.[6]  There is something horribly askew in the media when a far-right political commentator implicitly sypathises with Anders Breivek by suggesting a moderate left-wing organisation is like the youth wing of a political party responsible for the Holocaust. Aside from a few well-attended local memorials by Norwegians, there were no global marches of millions, no conglomeration of heads-of-states in solidarity, no overt social media campaigns, and certainly no "Jeg er Arbeiderpartiet".[7]

In recent years Kenya has become more and more susceptible to terrorism, so today’s attack is not unexpected given Kenya’s proximity to the politically unstable Somalia, and in turn Yemen and the Arabian Peninsular. But suggesting some sort of concerted pan-Muslim attempt at expansion of a Sharia governed hegemonic sphere—especially in contrast to the surreptitious and often unwanted American hegemony reaching in all four corners of the globe—is an outlandish and downright naïve. The most recent terrorist attack in Kenya in recent years was the September 21st 2013 attack on a Westfield shopping mall, owned by Israeli interests, in Nairobi, and it is interesting to note to differences and similarities between that attack and today’s in relation to the media coverage. Both attacks were committed by al Qaeda affiliated al Shabaab, and both attacks were similar in their execution. The 2013 attack in contrast had some different, and striking ingredients: the attack was against Westerners, and Western capital. The reactions to the attack were swift and strong, and the Muslim narrative was all too apparent unlike Mr. Breivik’s political and religious affiliation. So today’s attack which appears to not involve Westerners or Western interests, deadlier than the Westfield attack and the Charlie Hebdo attack, has become drowned in a sea of trivial news items. Not one media institution is leaping to its feet to defend Kenyan academics’ or students’ rights for freedom of speech. The apathy expressed by the West will be just another predictably unfortunate aspect of the African continent. The self-righteous and conceited calls for freedom of speech after the Paris attacks have simmered down to a muttered freedom of sheep for the Kenyan students.

This attack falls just outside the narrative so is exempt to the usual fear mongering and scare tactics that accompany an attack on anything remotely European. Kenya’s terrorism and subsequent media reactions to it are a product of neo-colonialism. Kenya is just another helpless victim of Westernisation and expansion of Western markets manifested in shopping malls, and when those shopping malls are attacked, the attack resonates with Westminster and Washington. Never mind the lives of local Kenyans whether they are at a shopping mall or university, the West’s precious capital is under threat. To the West, the attack on Charlie Hebdo was not just an attack on freedom of speech, but an attack on an institution designed to create a particular narrative about the “Other”, and in turn justify a fear-driven war against this invisible Other. I find an attack on a university (regardless of whoever is on the campus, Western or non-Western) just as abhorrent as an attack on a shopping mall, tabloid newspaper, or youth camp, and they should tell the same story: that violence for political purposes is not morally justified. But the glaring differences in narratives portrayed by Western media institutions of the aforementioned terrorist attacks is intentional: Europe, America, freedom, democracy, capitalism, good; Africa, Middle East, Muslims, community, cosmopolitanism, academia, progressivism, bad.

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[1] http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11427447

[2] Swahili: I am Garissa [University College].

[3] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/14/us-france-shooting-aqap-idUSKBN0KN0VO20150114

[4] http://www.leparisien.fr/societe/en-direct-marche-republicaine-la-place-de-la-republique-noire-de-monde-11-01-2015-4437327.php

[5] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11331836/Je-Suis-Charlie-Vigils-held-around-the-world-after-Paris-terror-attack-in-pics.html?frame=3159654

[6] http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/07/26/glenn-beck-site-of-norway-massacre-sounds-like-the-hitler-youth/

[7] Norwegian: I am Labour [Party].

———————————————————————————————————————— "... we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace." —W. M. Hicks.