SPOT THE REVERSAL

Most of us have seen it happen. When abusers are exposed, they switch the script and rewrite the narrative to make themselves the hurt ones. 

The example I’ll use here is the racist offender who works to convince their victim and any observors that they deserved the abuse somehow; that it’s the victim’s fault.

This tendency is documented widely and known academically as DARVO, introduced by Dr. Jennifer Freyd in 1997: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender is a three step behaviour that is classical and typical of an abuser.

DARVO is an incredibly effective tactic used by most racists and their supporters.  But it’s possible to spot it.  Here are the signs.

Denial:  Even if the proof of their racism is explicit, the abuser will either refuse to acknowledge it happened, or will minimise it.  “You’re being crazy.”  “How can you think that about me?”  “I’d never say something like that.”  “Can’t you take a joke?”

Here’s the wild thing: even when we have the proof in our hands, because we don’t like to take sides, the moment the abuser denies it, the easiest place to go is to “hear both sides of the story.”

The minute the abuser has you believing that their side of the story is just as valid as the victim’s, you’ve taken the first step down a rabbit hole of misinformation and deception.

Attack:  Now that you’re doubting the victim’s story, the racist can start tearing away at the foundations of support for the victim.  “As if you’ve never made a mistake before! Take a look at yourself.” 

This builds on our preference to believe that bad things don’t happen to good people. So, the victim can’t be perfect and they must have done something to deserve being abused.

The final step is to reverse victim and offender:  Now that the abuser has us potentially believing them, they flip the switch and start talking about themselves as the victim. “I’m being attacked.”  “This is a witch hunt!”  “I am hurt.”

Racists have been known, when challenged over their abuse, to burst into tears. 

As a society, we hate to believe that bad things can happen to people who don’t deserve it because that opens up the frightening possibility that it could happen to us.  So, we are predisposed to believe the abuser’s point of view and we are more likely to question or challenge the victim; ‘What did you do to deserve this?’  ‘What do you hope to achieve by talking about this?’ 

The thing is, innocent people don’t use these DARVO techniques. They’ll deny a false accusation, sure, but not in this over-exaggerated pattern of reversing the attack.

The three steps of DARVO are correlated, meaning that when a racist or their supporters do one, they tend to do all of them.   The good news is that it’s easy to spot it in the news and in real life and to call it out. 

APPEAL UNDERPINS SOVEREIGNTY

Te Mana o Te Wai Hapū Integration Roopu are a collective of sovereign hapū within Ngāti Kahu who are most affected by the unsustainable overflow of high nutrient discharge levels coming from the Taipā Wastewater Plant which is owned and operated by the Far North District Council. 

In 2009, FNDC applied to the Northland Regional Council for a renewal of its discharge consents, which it was already in breach of. 

The hapū response was swift, loud and clear – the treatment regime is not sufficiently cleaning the wastewater of nutrients (especially phosphates), so find better treatment options and stop discharging into our waterways.  

After an initial period of cooperation, hapū kōrero and engagement with the FNDC ceased for several years due to differences of opinion about the selection process of treatment options.  So, the hapū and their supporters got on with finding and testing the options themselves.

Having found a cheaper and more effective alternative in electrocoagulation (EC), the hapū worked over the past three years with individuals and roopu from the community of Maheatai/Taipā, as well as Te Rūnanga-ā-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu, to help FNDC implement that alternative into the TWWP.  But all they met with was resistance.

Finally, In June this year, after a decade of delays, independent environment commissioners held a hearing into the FNDC’s application to renew its consents.  To the dismay of the hapū, in spite of the evidence, the consents were granted to the FNDC by the Northland Regional Council. 

There are no conditions in the consents granted that provide any opportunities to explore the EC option that the hapū and their supporters have already investigated and tested.  Instead, the consents indicate that they will have to restart exploring the options’ process altogether.  It seems to be a case of ‘business as usual.’

Te Mana o Te Wai Hapū Integration Group, Far North Envirolab Ltd, Clean Waters to the Sea Tokarau Moana Charitable Trust, Te Pokapu Tiaki Taiao O Te Tai Tokerau Trust (Far North Environment Centre) and Te Rūnanga-ā-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu are now appealing through the courts to have the three interim resource consents quashed until immediate action is taken to stop the unsustainable levels of nutrients from contaminating their waterways. 

In the lead up to the recently concluded local body elections, the current Mayor-elect and at least three of the Councilors-elect attended information hui on the EC system and showed interest in it.  Now, they need to obtain genuine understanding of the science behind it. 

If the latest iteration of FNDC continues to be obstructive, there are viable alternatives for the hapū and their supporters.  To that end, the FNDC also need to comprehend the role and standing of the hapū whose sovereignty is underpinned by both the appeal and the alternatives. 

PRIORITISING PUNISHMENT

In 2018, the removal from serving prisoner of the human right to vote was found by the Supreme Court to breach the Bill of Rights 1990 and just last week, it was also found by the Waitangi Tribunal to be in serious breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Dr Bronwyn Hayward (Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Canterbury): “Voting isn’t just choosing somebody to represent you. it’s actually being part of a society and being able to participate and give something to it and be heard.“

Ex-Inmate 1: “The night before [the 2011 election] we were all getting ready and we were all like, ‘Yeah! We’re voting tomorrow.’ The next morning … we got told, ‘You are not voting.’  I could see the hurt and the pain; … that we were not worthy of anything. How can that be? I know I did a crime, but I wanted to be part of the change.”

Professor Jack Vowles (Professor of Comparative Politics, Victoria University of Wellington): “From a moral point of view you can make the case, ‘These are bad people, they shouldn’t vote.’ But what you’re doing is … making them feel even more apart from society, and potentially making it somewhat more difficult to rehabilitate them when they leave prison.”

Richard François (Human rights barrister): “We are actually talking about a fundamental right which is guaranteed under the Bill of Rights: Every New Zealand citizen who is of or over the age of 18 years: has the right to vote in genuine periodic elections of members of the House of Representatives (Section 12, Bill of Rights Act, 1990).”

Ex-Inmate 2: “I made a mistake. I acted in a way that was wrong. But that’s not who I am as a person.  I was there wanting to get back on track and do the right thing. And one of the first obstacles I come up against … is that I am prevented from being able to vote, from having a say.  I’m being rendered voiceless.“

Tanya Sawicki-Mead: “It it was your brother, or your sister, or your mum who had hurt someone and had ended up in the system, what would you want to happen to them? It wouldn’t be to punish them further. It would be about diverting them out of the system, giving them a chance at a better life, helping them to see where things had gone wrong.”

Awatea: “I get the idea that … you have incarceration or confinement in order to protect the public. But I don’t understand how preventing an incarcerated person from voting is a form of public protection?”

In November 2018, following the Supreme Court’s ruling, Justice Minister Andrew Little said the matter was “Not that much of a priority“.  We have yet to see how the government will respond to this latest judicial finding.  Will it move to strike out a pernicious, populist and pointless law?  Or will it continue to prioritise punishment?