“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche makes his remark about the abyss (in Beyond Good and Evil) just after cautioning the reader that someone who fights monsters risks becoming a monster himself.
Trevor Mallard has convinced himself that the protestors are monsters, out to get him and other MPs. The evidence is thin and ignores all the other times protestors have made grandiose statements regarding how they feel about politicians. After all, no one said a thing when this was done against National MPs.
What Nietzsche is saying is that you’re going to get really good at ferreting out the nasty parts of life, wherever they might be hiding, and you’ll uncover one hitherto unrecognised injustice after another: first racism, then structural racism, then elitism, then heteronormativism, ableism, lookism, microagressions, white supremacists, right-wingers, any one with a different opinion to yours…you get the picture. Eventually, you may get to the point where you can see nothing but monsters.
Someone who sees nothing but monsters can’t fail to develop an affinity with monsters. You may become the kind of monster known as a “moral saint”. Thinking you are righteous in your cause to slay the demons before you.
Nietzsche is talking about a void. Not a mirror. Whatever emptiness exists in the void is the core of you. If you have no moral core, the abyss will shine the brightest light on your emptiness. If you lack direction, the abyss will further distract you.
This is where Trevor Mallard finds himself now, with the abyss, and the “monsters” staring back at him.
His actions over the past few days have shown him to be evil, heartless, devoid of kindness, sadistic and, ultimately, unfit for public office. The abyss is about to swallow him.
And since we are talking about great minds, and conflict, the protestors are now approaching the end point in Mahatma Gandhi’s simple quote.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
When the Convoy began, the left-wing and the politicians ignored them. Then when it became apparent that they’d actually reach Wellington, in substantial numbers they started laughing at them. They created the #Clownvoy on Twitter and the politicians decided they’d ignore them too. Refusing to even meet them, much less speak to them was condescending, rude and ultimately futile. Now, under the evil tutelage of Trevor Mallard, Parliament is attacking them, sending in waves of brutal Police, turning on sprinklers and now deafening them with psychological torture in the form of never-ending loud horrible music.
And it has all failed to move them. In fact, despite nasty weather to accompany the nasty and vindictive Trevor Mallard, the numbers have grown and continue to grow.
The state has ignored them, it has laughed at them, the state has attacked…now they win.
The ridicule and scorn are now being heaped, not on the protesters, but rather it is now piling up on the politicians. It reminds me of Heath Ledger as William Thatcher tilting at the evil Rufus Sewell as Count Adhemar, the antagonist who is a wealthy, battle-hardened knight. It perfectly suits this situation. Mallard is the arrogant, battle-hardened politician and the protesters are William Thatcher, lowly folk the elites have scorned and mocked. The politicians have had a test of leadership and they have been weighed, they’ve been measured and they’ve been found wanting.
So now the protesters will win. The state has started building a wall between the elites in parliament and the peasants on the lawn.
When the regime has to build a wall to keep protesters at bay they have lost. When they need barricades to protect them they have lost the moral right to govern. Just as Muldoon used the Police riot squads to attack the protesters, so too has the state begun the same tactics against these protesters. Muldoon used large Jumbo bins to build walls, Trevor Mallard is using concrete and fencing.
And during all of this the tyrant Jacinda Ardern is conspicuous by her absence. Her silence is tacit approval of the evil deeds of Trevor Mallard. Her trademark “kindness” lays trampled beneath the muddy lawn of Parliament’s forecourt.
Her moral right to lead the country is over. She’s done. She must go. The buck stops at the top and the resignation of Trevor Mallard will not be enough to remove the spots of evil from her Lady MacBeth hands.
The best that the tyrant can now hope for is a tactical withdrawal and a negotiated peace. If she were smart she’d be calling up a treaty negotiator and arranging some sort of settlement. Because of Trevor Mallard’s evil deeds, she is now like a Scottish King, always negotiating from a position of weakness. But negotiate she must.
The protesters aren’t going anywhere. They cannot be moved. If a cyclone couldn’t move them, and 400 Police couldn’t move them, they won’t be moved unless the regime concedes.
All there is now for the regime is ignominious retreat and defeat. Labour’s little Napoleon, Trevor Mallard, has met his Waterloo on the muddy grass of Parliament’s forecourt. The Empire has collapsed under its own hubris. Historical analogies abound: with the running of the sprinklers Mallard created his own Agincourt, and the Knights of Parliament were humbled by the peasantry of New Zealand. The regime, like the French at Agincourt and Waterloo, died on a sodden piece of muddy grass.
But where were the opposition MPs and leadership? They too were weighed, they too were measured, and they too were found wanting. Christopher Luxon and David Seymour have also lost the moral right to govern. Their crime was cowardice. They should be sent white feathers. Instead of standing up for freedom, they cringed and stayed silent behind the oppressors. Their enthusiastic agreement with mandates caused this as much as the tyrant’s action did.
If a leader stands for nothing, then they will fall for anything. And fall they must. For they stand for nothing at all.
What needs to happen this week is what happened in times of old. There should be a meeting on the forecourt, in full view of opposing sides. Concessions and sacrifices must be made. Metaphorical heads must roll, starting with that of the Speaker.
To the victors go the spoils. The mandates must end. There was no justification for them when they were brought in, and there is no justification for them now.
This is done, the protesters have won, now we just need to sort out the paperwork.
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