Worzels world: Murdering an ideal

 

It’s been a funny old week already and it’s only just begun. Two whales – a mother humpback and a calf – died over on Bailey’s beach. There were many volunteers who tried to save them and there were updates on the radio every hour. The volunteers tried very hard but almost inevitably the stranded whales succumbed to their predicament. Many grieved, it was all very sad. 

Whilst this natural drama played out at the beach, down in the city freedom of speech was being murdered, strangled by foolish and ignorant people. There were no volunteers trying to save it and what media coverage there was focused on personalities involved rather than liberty lost. There appeared to be little sign of sadness at its passing. 

The mayor of Auckland Phil Goff had initiated the attack with a punch in the guts. He banned two internationally respected Canadians – modern day philosopher Stefan Molyneux, and Lauren Southern, an attractive young investigative journalist – from using any public venue to deliver a lecture warning of ‘The Dangers of Multiculturalism’. The media were quick to jump on the bandwagon and the pair were branded as ‘white supremacists’, ‘right wing extremists‘, and purveyors of ‘hate speech’. A notable omission from any of these reports though were any examples that might support these allegations.

We have, over the years, had many and various visitors from abroad who come to push an agenda whilst making a quick buck doing so. After it was shown that Tony Blair (along with George Bush) had perpetrated a lie of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and was shown to be responsible for tens of thousands of needless deaths, he was still welcomed here to speak. If you could afford the outrageous ticket price you could hear this man, whom many still maintain is an unprosecuted war criminal, deliver an after dinner speech.

I did some research on Molyneux and Southern to ascertain just how bad they really were. Unlike Bush, Blair, Obama or the Clintons neither have played any role in the military conquest of any nation. Indeed I could find no evidence that they were in any way what the corporate media had accused them of being. Perhaps this is part of the problem. They are raising issues that should be raised by mainstream media but which are not. This tends to shine a spotlight on the deficiencies of modern media and adds further credence to the accusations of their disseminating ‘fake news’. 

Southern’s recent documentary on the sad plight of rural South Africa called ’Farmlands’ is very well produced and researched. I recommend it. An ex-pat South African testified that it is very close to the truth. Of course ‘in times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act’ said George Orwell.

Neither of these two visitors to our shores have in any of their work propagated views any more radical than those I regularly expouse in this column. I am surprised no one has tried to ban me from expressing them. I am however a seventh generation New Zealander, imbued with the culture of my country. My views are based on logic, reason and common sense – they are not so easily dismissed by tagging with ridiculous unfounded labels. I felt sad that forces of willful ignorance and a we-know-what’s-best-for-everybody-style of censorship triumphed in this my country, especially as New Zealand has a long and distinguished history of freedom of expression and tolerance of non mainstream views. We were, after all, the first nation in the world to give women the vote. We stood united to ban not discussion or ideas but nuclear weapons and genetically engineered material from our shores. Have we suddenly taken to being fearful of speech?

Given our long experience of working together as a bicultural nation, which has presented many problems along the way, it might well have been timely to engage in a rational discussion on the possible ‘problems of multiculturalism’. Sadly that opportunity was lost with the demise of freedom of speech. I quote Stefan Molyneux explaining the reason for his proposed lecture: “The purpose is to get people to ask questions. The purpose is to get people to break out of their conditioning. The purpose is to get people to start thinking by any means necessary without violence.” 
Get New Zealanders to think eh? What do you reckon are the chances?

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“The purpose is to get people to ask questions. The purpose is to get people to break out of their conditioning. The purpose is to get people to start thinking by any means necessary without violence.”
- Stefan Molyneux