Posts Tagged ‘Tim Selwyn’
Having been reminded of this excellent neologism by Dolan at Just Left, it’s occurred to me that a similar affliction can be seen among the denizens of the NZ blogosphere. Now, there are certain wings of that ‘sphere which are well-known for their wingnuttery and general tendency to fly off the handle, and those I won’t dwell upon. But in the past week or so I’ve seen a couple of examples from sources of which I’d expect a bit more. First, and most egregious, Tim Selwyn’s rabid attack on Christopher Pryde, the NZ lawyer who has taken the post of Fijian Attorney-General. I can’t excerpt most of it, but here’s one of the politer sections:
Perhaps Tim’s purpose is to try and finesse a gag lawsuit. Not to criticise the fundamental point Tim is making – that Pryde is an opportunistic illegal-dictatorship-supporting hack, a discredit to his profession and his country – but the degree of invective here is simply over the top. The point would have been better made in more measured tones; as it stands, the personal attacks detract from the real reasons for condemning him, and make Pryde look like the victim of a character assassination attempt. Second, The Standard’s response to the offensive and moronic smear ‘Nanny State’ with an even more offensive and moronic smear, the ‘Stepfather State’ characterised as distant, violent, self-indulgent and misogynistic, which originated in a comment on Colin Espiner’s blog:
This resulted in the commentariat falling over themselves to invent yet more offensive and moronic characterisations in a bizarre competition to see which side could be more bigoted. Worst offender, the usually-sensible vto:
What the hell? L Does New Zealand have Political Prisoners?![]() Anita’s thread on the failures of the 5th Labour government got me to thinking about the criminalisation of political dissent during its tenure. That in turn got me to wonder about whether there have been politically-motivated incarcerations in recent (since 1995) times. I can think of three, but since I am a relatively new immigrant (currently in economic exile of sorts) and new to the intimacies of New Zealand political life, I am not sure if there have been others. Ahmed Zaoui was clearly a political prisoner. He posed no threat to anyone, much less the security of NZ. Yet he was incarcerated for over two years, including one year in solitary, because of what he represented–the face of political Islam that was not a lapdog of Western (read in this case French) interests. Right wing troglodytes and bigots may not like it, but he committed no crime in NZ and he never committed an act of violence against anyone, anywhere. Yet the Labour government saw fit to violate his civil rights in order to curry favour with the French and look good in the war on terror (at least in the eyes of the US, Australia and the UK). Shame on Richard Woods (SIS director general at the time), Lianne Dalziel (Immigration Minister at the time), and Helen Clark for orchestrating this farce–remember “lie in unision?” Praise Allah for Deborah Manning, Rodney Harrison and Richard McLeod for speaking truth to that abuse of power.(Note to retrogrades: Allah means God so chill on the pro-terrorist accusations). Tim Selwyn spent more than year in stir having been found guilty of sedition. Read the rest of this entry » |