Domicile Terrorisme Aotearoa

As the dust settles, it is clear that the unrest is far from over. Wikipedia has detailed and thorough coverage which is currently the best starting point for exploring the issue, as grandstanding and confusion still permeates most other avenues of coverage. Personally, I'm glad that the Dominion Post did choose to publish the leaked phone-tap information. Maybe it was a cynical ploy to sell more newspapers, but it is so important to have public verification of just how serious the threats were. I would rather that the public - who will form opinions based on whatever information is available - has the best possible information with which to form their opinions. We live in an information saturated society, so it seems preposterous to me that we still cling to such outmoded and archaic legal ideals. The idea of a "fair trial" is farcical at best in this situation which has no prior historical precedent in the courts, and where it's clear that there are drastic gaps in the legality of the police approach. It's obvious that the wanna-be terrorists screwed up badly and the police screwed up badly. It's not about right and wrong, or taking sides. Nobody is in the right here. But at least the police did something before it got any worse. Why should the public be kept in the dark because of petty legal incoherence? We are neither the United States nor Britain, and we can afford to approach things differently.

The worrying precedent is of course the divide and conquer approach being taken by the police and state towards these activist groups. New Zealand is a small country. Everyone here knows each other (even I vaguely know, and have spent time with several of those arrested). To the extent that the firearms charges date back to 2006, and are obscure at best, completely unfounded at worst - the terrorism raids seem to have been used as an extended method of shutting down the activist community as a whole. The links to 128 Abel Smith Street are incredibly tenuous, but definitely fit with a pattern of police exaggerating the situation to rouse up popular support. Some of those arrested were obviously going too far - but the direct knowledge and complicity of various other suspects is incredibly dubious. We still don't have enough information to know for certain. I just find it impossible to believe that all of these people arrested were actually intending to go to war against the government. But hopefully the raids do knock some sense into the insular and deluded activist community, who on the one hand are doing really great things with the bicycle workshops and community gardens, but on the other, perpetuate a ridiculously fatalist and simplistic conception of society and capitalism. Essentially, it seems a lot of these activists believe they are the only ones who understand what capitalism really is, and are thus afflicted with massive confirmation bias when it comes to observing and understanding complex social issues and market interactions. I want to see these people continue their positive community involvement, but I would also like to see them approach social reforms with much more open minded and positive attitudes. Yes, we are surely choking the world with concrete and carbon. But we need to eradicate this notion of overthrowing capitalism with it's own tools, and focus on reforming and evolving capitalism if we want to stand any chance of surviving the next hundred years on this planet. Attacking the massive coercive power of the state with nothing more than a vague sense of righteousness is simply a doomed approach. Of course, the ultimate irony is that the most effective route towards the destruction of capitalism actually seems to be through deterritorializing and de-emphasising ethnicity. Quite the opposite of the solidarity and sovereignty rhetoric preached by the activists. Outside the Tūhoe community, even Māori identity itself is diffuse and schizophrenic.

In the case of the anti-terror raids, I suspect a certain amount of naievity is to blame. Idealistic suckers got in over their heads and didn't grasp the severity of the situation quickly enough. But here's something to note: as soon as you pick up a gun, you have immediately struck out of the peace movement. Even if you're "not intending" to do anything. Even if you think you're just going to blow up "targets" like Waihopai, and not take human casualties. Wrong. Blowing up buildings will inevitably lead to people being killed. There is no way you can reconcile this approach with peace activism.

One thing is certain. If the accused were actually terrorists, they were totally bumbling and incompetent. Anyone who runs around with a cellphone making baldfaced threats to national security and thinks they have any degree of privacy is a ridiculous fool. It couldn't get much more amateur than this.