Dixie Maria Carlton
Best selling author, award-winning business person, and global publishing specialist.
“It’s in the Rules – don’t sweat, and don’t drink your water!”
This was my experience in MIQ last week. While exercising, on the rooftop carpark at the Crowne Plaza, Auckland, such are ‘the rules’ that common sense is no longer applicable, and any discretion for circumstances strictly forbidden. All in the name of safety. The ability for security guards and managers to remain straight-faced while enforcing these rules speaks volumes as to the level of fear and control currently running amok here.
Dissent, division, fear and frustration. That’s what has greeted me on my return to New Zealand. This is not the Aotearoa of my upbringing; it is not what I left only a handful of years ago. This was however not a great surprise to me, as I’d been watching the news, the ‘’leadership pressies’’ and following what was going on in NZ via social media channels. To date, I’m aware of at least six groups online each with a dedicated purpose of:
- Helping grounded kiwis get home, and legally oppose various laws and mandates
- Helping Kiwis to navigate the various health and wellbeing options available to us
- Supporting our calls for Freedom and Unity
- Supporting our stays in MIQ and helping those arriving or wanting to, to navigate ‘the Lottery’
- Supporting and encouraging non-discrimination of Kiwis and standing against the Vaccine Mandates
As well as some sizeable regional groups supporting Pro-Choice. There are also a great many ungrouped conversations on Linked In.
As someone who has been on the outside of this country, and had to navigate “The MIQ Lottery” and now having endured that experience with all its obvious flaws, I’ve made a point of ensuring my time in the last few months has been spent keeping abreast of the various conversation angles. I’ve watched this country march on parliament, read open letters to the Prime Minister, and participated in many discussions with medical, legal, science, and health experts across a variety of relative topics.
The two things I’ve come to realise, however, is that:
1) We are having so many online conversations and debates, that we end up still feeling like part of a minority of frustrated voices.
2) We the dissenters are NOT a minority.
I also see quite clearly from the perspective of a returning Kiwi, that we are a nation of three ‘tribes’. One is firmly in favour of keeping everyone out and having everyone vaccinated, including children, because they are the most fearful of catching Covid. Another is firmly of the opinion that everything that is Covid related is wrong, unjust, and mismanaged. Among these are also a few fringe conspiracy theorists who would also like to have us all believe in some pretty extreme ideas, but it is interesting to note that some of those extreme ideas from a year ago, are no longer being discredited.
There is another Tribe of Kiwis here, and that encompasses a growing majority of people – of all colours, history, social position, and age – who are vaccinated due to pressure (and in many cases regretful of that) and opposed to or fearful of the booster shots. This tribe also includes unvaccinated who have good reasons for declining the vaccinations being pushed out to us all.
Collectively this tribe has in common, the utter frustration and fear of what is seen as tyrannical overbearing leadership. This tribe needs to assert our freedom of choice in how we work, live, and take care of ourselves; rights that are currently being undermined in ways previously unimaginable.
The issue of so many people all having conversations online is that there is a level of stealth and secrecy to that. Names are used, and we’re increasingly familiar with some of the common conversationalists and the leaderships emerging through their positions, but still, the conversations are stifled by our not really knowing each other. We’re therefore not seeing the bigger picture through our keyboards and screens.
It’s time we got some of our online conversations also happening offline. With our friends, with our neighbours, and with strangers too. It’s time we stopped hiding behind what might be a rejection of an idea or a need to vent, and sat down to ‘break bread together’. Because that’s what Kiwis do.
We have always talked in our groups, with our whanau, on maraes, and in offices. We stand in line at the bank or medical waiting rooms and strike up conversations with strangers. When we are united on a topic, it’s easy to do this. But not when we’re afraid of each other, masked up and no longer making eye contact with each other.
This needs to change.
We need to see that we are not a minority of online questioners, whiners, or debaters. Let’s come out from behind our computer screens and start having real conversations WITH each other.
This is the idea behind The Great Kiwi Picnic. The first one is scheduled for Sunday evening, the Second of January at every beach, park, and lakeside.
Just as we once all pulled our Red Sox on as a nation to support Sir Peter Blake, it’s now time to pull on our Green T-shirts and turn up and invite conversations to happen in real time, face to face.
Only by our being no longer afraid to talk with each other about what we see as fundamentally questionable and untenable, will we be able to see the size of our tribe. To gain some perspective about our not being a minority. To also start to understand each other’s views on some of these things. And most of all, to take charge over what we as a United Tribe really want for our future, regardless of our colour, histories, ages and disparate backgrounds.
