International Socialists

There have only been two "terrorist" attacks in New Zealand in the past 50 years. One was carried out by the secret service of a supposedly friendly state (France), the other the still unsolved 1984 Wellington Trades Hall bombing is widely suspected to have been the work of a right-wing nut. Surely New Zealand must be one of the "safest" countries in the world? (The Taleban, as we pointed out in our last issue, don't even know where this country is!)

 

The Labour/Alliance coalition have lost no time in using the US "War on Terror" as an excuse to attack democratic rights and beef up state powers at home whilst cosying up to the US regime. In a series of government press releases in late January it was revealed that over the next three years $29 million worth of funding for "anti-terrorist" activities is to be given to eight different government agencies. Over $11 million of this is to go to agencies dedicated to internal spying - the Security Intelligence Services (SIS) and GCSB.
 

Illegal surveillance

It has been well documented in the past that the SIS has carried out illegal surveillance and spying activities against protest and activist groups in New Zealand. The very same government that can't find the money to fund the claims of nurses and teachers is now somehow "discovering" $29 million to give to the SIS, the racist cops, customs and others! This is still more proof for workers, students, women, Mäori and all of us who are exploited by this rotten system that we can't put our faith in parliament and Labour and the Alliance. In the end their commitments are the same as National's: to spy on and attack democratic dissent in Aotearoa and to stay in the US's good books.

 

Jim Anderton made this point explicitly in a recent press release: "the Labour/Alliance coalition is planning some changes to legislation to provide more flexibility in sharing information with overseas law enforcement agencies." The CIA, one of America's most notorious "law enforcement agencies" has a long and bloody record of illegally involving itself in the suppression of dissident groups in South America, as well as funding and training right wing death squads for dictatorships like that of Pinochet in Chile.
 

"Terrorists"

For decades Nelson Mandela and the ANC were denounced as "terrorists" by the same people. In 1981 members of Muldoon's National Government described the anti-Springbok tour movement as "terrorist." Far from being in a position to lead a "war on terror," the United States is probably the worst terrorist state the modern world has known, as even a brief look at its history of assassinations, wars and support for bloodthirsty dictators would show. And yet Anderton and Clark seem all too keen to change the law to keep New Zealand on-side! A "war on terror" means a war on the democratic rights of Aotearoa's workers.

 

This war on democratic rights at home has already begun. At the first meeting of the Anti-Imperialist Coalition - a coalition of groups who oppose New Zealand's support for the US "war on terror" - two uniformed cops visited the meeting, wanting to find out about the coalition's members and planned activities. In early November the Pathfinder Press bookshop in Christchurch received phone calls and a visit from Christchurch Central Police Station's Paul O'Neill to convey "concern" about the "anti-American character" of the bookshop's window display.

 

The shop's display included anti-war and anti-imperialist slogans as well as an anti-war editorial. The cop timed his visit to coincide with a forum about New Zealand's role in the war being held at the bookstore. In Wellington early this year a man, Tahir Ali, was visited by the cops after writing a letter to The Evening Post suggesting that the SAS be disbanded because it was a waste of taxpayers' money. The detective who spoke to Mr Ali told him that the police routinely investigated people who expressed opinions against the government. After they came under widespread criticism, the police claimed that they had investigated Mr Ali because he had an "Arab sounding name" (he is in fact a Fijian Indian who has lived in this country since he was an infant).
 

Erode freedoms

None of these three blatant attacks on free speech were in response to formal complaints. Anyway, since when has writing a letter to the editor been a crime? Instead, they are part of a concerted effort on the part of the government and the cops to challenge and erode our democratic freedoms. The "war on terror" has provided the perfect opportunity for Labour and the Alliance to try and strengthen the power of the ruling class. The Terrorism Suppression Bill was already before parliament early last year. September 11 and its aftermath has given the government the confidence to go that bit further.

 

All of these events highlight a difference between revolutionaries like those of us in the International Socialist Organisation and those reformist parties - like the Greens and the Alliance - who see parliament as the "democratic" way for workers to win change. The state and parliament are not institutions that can be reformed or relied on to be neutral bodies in struggles between workers and their rulers. They are organs of class power - the power of the ruling class over the rest of us.

 

As the great German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg put it, "what parliamentarism expresses is capitalist society, that is to say, a society in which capitalist interests predominate. In this society, the representative institutions, democratic in form, are in content the instruments of the interests of the ruling class." Those police who try and intimidate dissenting groups are not just examples of "bad cops," although we should certainly protest their actions: they represent the logic of a system that needs an body like the cops to keep up the rule of the rich. And, even if they wanted to, Labour and the Alliance are in no position to challenge the world ruling class decision to launch an imperialist offensive - as George W. Bush himself made clear, governments are either with America or against it.

 

Again, Rosa Luxemburg anticipated much of this: "as soon as democracy shows the tendency to negate its class character and become transformed into an instrument of the real interests of the population, the democratic forms are sacrificed by the bourgeoisie and by its state representatives." The focus by the cops on anti-war activists and socialists is just a small taste of what we can expect from the ruling class in the form of attacks on workers if this conflict escalates.
 

Logic of the system

This is why slogans like "Justice Not Revenge" and calls for an international tribunal are misguided and doomed to failure. The Coalition's attacks on democratic rights are not some sort of aberration, they are part of the logic of this undemocratic system. We cannot rely on those who at the moment attack civil liberties to bring neutral "justice." To begin the movement against this war and to protect our freedoms we need to use them - to get out in the streets protesting, distributing dissenting pamphlets and leaflets and organising.

 

We need to organise in the unions to show to our workmates how attacks on democratic rights are attacks on workers' rights. Because, if we don't take on the Labour/Alliance government and fight against their attacks on democracy then we will give the ruling class the confidence to increase their assault. The history of this country proves how far they are prepared to go - check out the article on the 1951 lockout (when censors controlled all press) in Issue 7 of this magazine if you want proof.
 

New Cold War?

There is nothing George W. and his obedient allies in Wellington would like more than a new Cold War with "terrorism" standing in for "communism." But those who pessimistically assume this to be inevitable ignore the vastly different situation now than 50 years ago. Today there is enormous bitterness at two decades of declining living standards and attacks on social services. Ordinary people's trust in governments and institutions is far weaker than it was then.

 

We know the nightmare scenario the Bush gang wants to repeat. We need to organise to make sure they can't do it again.