MMP - MORE MANA IN POLITICS

In this last week before we go to the polls I have been thinking a lot about Naomi Wolf’s 2007 book, “The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot,” in which she lays out the rise of world-wide fascism in this century and the one before it.

Many people may think they don’t know what fascism is, but if you’re old enough to vote, you actually know it better than you may realise.

In simple terms, fascism is a political ideology based on strong leadership, stable government and the removal of human rights and personal freedoms from the citizenry.

Mussolini invented fascism in Italy during the 1920s. Ever since then, fascist leaders from Hitler to Bush have all followed the same ten steps he used to shift their free, open societies into closed fascist states; and all with the consent of their citizens.

Naomi Wolf identifies those ten steps as follows:

1. Invoke a terrifying enemy; it doesn’t matter whether it’s internal or external, as long as it’s terrifying.
2. Create or support secret prisons where torture takes place; preferably outside your borders.
3. Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to your citizens.
4. Set up an internal surveillance system.
5. Harass citizens' groups.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release; again, preferably outside your borders.
7. Target key individuals; academics, students, investigative journalists, activists.
8. Control the press.
9. Treat all political dissidents as traitors; recast dissent as treason and protest as terrorism.
10. Suspend the rule of law; remove habeus corpus (innocent until proven guilty) and due process (notice and opportunity to defend oneself).

Do you recognise these steps? You should, because New Zealand governments have advanced quite far down the checklist. We are not yet at the stage that the United States is with regard to human rights violations and suspension of the rule of law, but we’re getting there.

Fascist shifts don’t happen in a straight line of progression. Instead they happen as a series of tipping points (Malcolm Gladwell); here a little, there a little. And, as Wolf says, "When it reaches the point of no return – when democrcy can no longer heal itself – collapse happens real fast. When these tipping points start to come thick and fast, free societies close down very quickly."

As they prepare to go to the polls this Saturday, a number of people are asking me for advice about why they should vote for this person or that party.

In answer I give them the above checklist and tell them to ask themselves one simple question. Which party and which candidate is not following this check list?

Then vote for that party, their candidate and their policies.

And vote yes to keep MMP because it means More Mana in Politics.