Election 2017: Of Leaks And Lies

The ‘Conspiratorial turn’ in NZ politics…?

Boy band 'The Internet Party' perform 'Moment of Truth', from their album Election 2017

The 2014 NZ parliamentary election was swathed in a conspiratorial haze. Not long out from the election, leading NZ investigative journalist Nicky Hager published Dirty Politics, a book exposing the nasty and cynical behind-the-scenes workings of the John Key-led National Party machine, as operated by figures such as blogger Cameron Slater and Minister Judith Collins. Hager’s public service to NZers in revealing the moral rot within the National party, along with its wider implications for NZ democracy, was rewarded with a police raid on his house (due to his use of hacked e-mails from the likes of Slater as primary sources), and a historic 47% vote  for John Key’s 3^rd term National government. The Dirty Politics furore coalesced with the anti-National electioneering of the upstart Internet Party. Founded by German-NZ internet billionaire Kim Dotcom as a challenge to National (and no doubt as a personal response to National allowing US authorities to stage a ridiculously over-the-top SWAT raid on Dotcom’s Helensville mansion in 2011 over claims his net empire was fostering online piracy), the Internet Party staged an explicitly conspiracist public event at the Auckland Town Hall as part of its election campaign. The ‘Moment of Truth’ revealed the purportedly ‘true’ nature and extent of NZs involvement in the international 5 Eyes intelligence network. The Orwellian spectre of democratic human rights being violated by intensive online monitoring and gathering of personal data, in the service of an democratically unaccountable Western intelligence apparatus, was gravely reinforced by whistleblowers like journalist Glenn Greenwald and former US intelligence operative Edward Snowden (via video-link from his Russian sanctuary). Dotcom’s chutzpah in taking on the NZ political establishment in this way was rewarded with an abysmal voter turnout for the Internet Party, and a historic 47% vote  for John Key’s 3^rd term National government.

                The prospect that the 2014 election may have led to a ‘conspiratorial turn’ embedding itself in NZ electoral politics was one that lurked in the shadows of the recently undertaken (Sept 23) 2017 general election. There were direct parallels with 2014: Nicky Hager released Hit And Run, a new expose into dodgy doings within the corridors of power, and another high-profile millionaire, investor Gareth Morgan, formed his own political party – TOP, The Opportunities Party - with the aim of shaking up the NZ political establishment. However, neither of these translated into electoral conspiracising. Hit And Run indicted the NZ military establishment for covering up NZ Defence force involvement in civilian deaths in Afghanistan, but wasn’t Dirty Politics redux. TOP presented a resolutely ‘rational’ policy approach to NZ society that precluded any dramatic appeals to conspiracism (as befitted the public persona of Mr Dotcom): notwithstanding, this failed to get TOP over the 5% threshold required to participate in government under the NZ MMP system. Overall, the conspiratorial ‘dirty politics’ narrative of the 2014 election was replaced in 2017 by a narrative of revival and survival: the revival of the Labour Party under the leadership of Jacinda Ardern, and the survival of small parties such as the Greens (in the wake of Green co-leader Metiria Turei’s resignation due to a scandal over her youthful welfare indiscretions), and NZ First (in relation to voters switching to more traditional Labour-National axis). 

Election 2017: the ‘leak’

                Nevertheless, there were still plenty of dirty politics on display in the 2017 election campaign, in the form of the National Party’s use of two key weapons in the arsenal of modern Machiavellianism: the leak and the lie. Both of these stratagems have significant conspiratorial connotations. ‘Leaking’ refers to the informal and illegal publicising of information that is normally kept private for specific political ends. For conspiracy theorists, leaks are generally perceived as good in that they reveal the inner workings of political and corporate power that are normally kept hidden from ordinary citizens; this is augmented by the fact that the person doing the leaking is usually a ‘whistleblower’, someone working within institutions of power who feels a moral compunction to make the public aware of what’s really going on. In a realpolitik context, Edward Snowden and Wikileaks are prime contemporary exemplars of such ‘positive leaking’, in that their revelations were intended to strengthen democracy by making the public aware of abuses of power in modern democratic states. ‘Leaks’ have also been integral to the vast domains of fringe conspiracism, from the likes of ‘disgruntled NASA employee reveals the truth about the Moon landings cover-up’ YouTube videos, to anti-Semitic conspiracist claims that the notorious ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ was a genuine leaked document from a secret meeting held by Zionist globalists. 

I believe Winston is saying here that there are some leaks that can't be resolved by duct tape or incontinence pants...

However, the leaking of information can just as easily be used by those in positions of power to sabotage those perceived to be rivals or threats. In the case of the 2017 election, the ‘leak’ stratagem was used as a means of besmirching the political reputation of Winston Peters, leader of the NZ First party. Near the end of August, someone leaked to media outlets a story that Peters had been overpaid in terms of his NZ government superannuation entitlement (aka pension), over several years.  While a fairly minor scandal on a prima facie level, the accusation was embedded with layers of connotation that were obviously intended to damage Peters’ credibility as NZs leading populist politician, and champion of superannuitant voters. To try and sum up these connotations in words: “Winston Peters presents himself as the voice of the people, calling out corruption and favouritism in the NZ government. But these overpayments show that Peters is feeding at the taxpayers trough just like those other politicians he criticises. Therefore he is a hypocrite, untrustworthy and mendacious, and should not be the recipient of your votes”. 

Peters response was first, to enter damage control mode and downplay the nature of the overpayment problem – something easily done, since the problem appears to have been a systems error rather than any personal finagling – and, second, to go on the offensive against those who may have had a political motive for leaking his personal information. The prime suspects were, unsurprisingly, officials in the governing National Party. Not only were they the only ones likely to be able to access private information collected by a state agency, but they also has good reason to politically kneecap Peters’ as an election-year rival: NZ First’s support base being perceived as largely conservative voters, who would likely vote National if NZ First was no longer a viable political option. In the end, the stratagem was ineffectual, probably because the ‘crime’ that was leaked was of such a relatively trivial nature that it was easily addressed (Peters was upfront about repaying the overpayment) and therefore failed to really tarnish Peters’ credibility and charisma, both of which have been developed and maintained over many decades.

Election 2017: the ‘lie’

National’s initial assumption that the 2017 election would be a cakewalk into a fourth term, because of the unpopularity of the opposition Labour Party under the leadership of Andrew Little, was thwarted at the eleventh hour by Little’s shock resignation at the start of August in favour of deputy leader Jacinda Ardern. Despite the tight timeframe before the election, Ardern’s youthful charisma proved highly appealing to voters, with Labour rapidly shooting up in opinion polls to re-emerge as a genuine contender for the next government.  However, Ardern’s last-minute rise up the ranks also carried risk, in the sense that the electorate could perceive her (and the particular version of the Labour Party she represented) as politically inexperienced and therefore not ready to govern the country. 

                This situation impelled the National Party to whip out what might possibly be the oldest technique in the politics handbook: telling lies in order to damage the credibility of the opposition. Lying – in its many different shades and forms – is absolutely fundamental to both conspiratorial and mainstream views of politics. For conspiracy theorists, politics is not so much about ‘governing a social system on behalf of the collective interests of the populace’, as ‘official systems of untruth designed to uphold the power interests of specific groups within a population’. In other words, politics, by its very nature, is the art of lying in order to create, gain and preserve political power. By comparison, the ostensible majority of the populace who share a more mainstream view of politics appear to adhere to the more cynical/realist viewpoint that lying is endemic to the operations of modern democracies. While democracies are based upon noble ideals (e.g. transparency and accountability), attempts to implement these ideals in practice usually end up compromised by the messy forces of base reality – two of these forces being human psychology and the capitalist drive for profit (this perspective manifests as a collective ‘folk wisdom’ or truism in most democratic societies, as reflected in the kind of populist opinion polling that periodically rates the trustworthiness of politicians as on a par with bastions of probity such as used car salespeople and drug dealers). 

Nice infographic on the subject from the StopFake website. Read ahead, and then pick which category you think National's 'fiscal hole' strategy belongs to...

Despite their differences, both the conspiratorial and mainstream positions on the role of lying in politics outlined here outlined here recognise a variety of types and approaches of political lying. The two over-riding categories are misinformation (information that contains some truth, surrounded by a swathe of distortion in order to confuse opponents about how truthful and reliable it is) and disinformation (information that is almost totally made up as a means of confusing and stymying opponents). The negative political machinations of most politicians and political parties tend to revolve around misinformation, coupled with avoidance techniques like ‘passing the buck’ and ‘denial’, as outright disinformation can be seen to be politically dangerous in that, if it fails, the lie involved is exposed in a direct fashion that makes the ethical and moral failings of the liars clearly evident. 

The remarkable nature of the National Party’s use of lies in the 2017 election was that they went for outright disinformation in the form of a ‘big lie’. This was the claim that the Labour Party’s budget plan for the policies they would implement in government was majorly flawed, and that there was a massive shortfall between Labour’s promises and the actual monies available in the government’s coffers – what National’s electoral crew like Steven Joyce popularised in soundbite terms as a ‘fiscal hole’. Despite being almost immediately discredited by economists and other pundits who bothered to actually check Labour’s numbers, the National Party undertook a corollary of the ‘big lie’ approach:   persistent reinforcement of the lie in the hope that repetition would eventually grant it some legitimacy with the public. Although the lie may have been clearly debunked, the straight-faced repetition of it by Prime Minister Bill English and finance minister Joyce, alongside more legitimate attacks on the nature of Labour’s taxation plans (such as a possible water tax on farmers), appeared to succeed in reinforcing National’s message – that the Labour Party was indeed dangerously inexperienced in the realities of economic management – to a substantial number of voters. Jacinda Ardern and Labour’s popularity plummeted by several points in the week or so building up to the election, in which National achieved the remarkable result of around 44% of the vote (adjusted for special votes received after election day polling), Labour trailing well back on 37% (figures rounded). 

2 National Party ministers can't be wrong...

                However, this result proved to be a Pyrrhic victory for National, as, after several weeks of post-election talks, the NZ First party – which held the balance of power in terms of forming a coalition to govern the country – opted to throw its hand in with Labour (and the Greens in a supporting role outside of coalition), providing the NZ left with a historic and unexpected outcome.  In a touch of poetic justice, commentators speculated that one of the factors influencing NZ First’s decision was Winston Peters’ ire over the superannuation story ‘leak' - an event that has marked one of his first major political actions as a member of the new government. 

Reptilian Shapshifter Comix

A few months back I contributed the following comic strip, based on David Icke's most famous contribution to global pop culture, to the annual NZ comics anthology Bristle, edited by Wellington-based Brett Willis (this years anthology has recently been released - should be available at a good NZ comic shoppe near you...)

Who Are The Conspiracy Theorists In Your Neighbourhood #1: Forbidden History by John Dudley Aldworth, Part 2

NZ pseudo-history and Christian fundamentalism

Alongside these attempts to legitimate the standard NZ pseudo-history trope of Maori as ‘genocidal cannibals’ from an ostensibly ‘Maori’ perspective, the other main area in which Forbidden History can be interpreted as making an ‘original’ contribution to the NZ pseudo-history sub-genre is in Aldworth’s application of a fundamentalist Christian gloss to the overall mythology. Doutre’s influential designation of the original tangata whenua as not just Europeans, but Celtic Europeans, tapped in to Neo-Nazi themes of Aryan/Celtic supremacy (Doutre’s affiliations with such ideology being successfully outed by Scott Hamilton in his Scoop discussion). Aldworth’s designation of the original tangata whenua as Celtic Europeans, who were really descendants of the Phoenicians and other Caucasian peoples of the biblical Mediterranean, suggests an agenda linked less to Neo-Nazi racism than to racism of the fundamentalist Christian variety, in which white-skinned Europeans are identified with the spiritual goodness of Christianity and dark-skinned non-Europeans are manifestations of evil paganism. That this is indeed the case is apparent from Aldworth’s theorising as to why the Maori were genocidally and anthropophagically inclined: “The important question to ask is: what made Maori go that way? Answer: the Maori nature and character shaped by their chosen religious beliefs, a worship of dark spiritual forces that inculcated hate, treachery, cruelty, fear and bloodlust in those that worshipped them.” (p. 112). 

Aldworth elaborates upon this premise by undertaking some ‘analysis’ of Maori mythology to come to the jaw-droppingly racist conclusion that Maori are, literally, ‘demonic’, being descended from the Nephilim, the fallen angels of biblical lore (p.116). However, salvation was at hand in the form of those British missionaries who brought Christianity to Maoridom and changed barbarism to civilization: “It was through the preaching of the gospel Maori first realised their worst mistake, that of worshipping devils of darkness rather than the god of light and love” (p.150). These explicitly Christian elements in what is ostensibly an ‘objective, evidential’ study of NZs secret past suggest that Aldworth is conceptualising the NZ pseudo-history mythos as some kind of literalised fundamentalist allegory, in which a paradisiacal golden age of Christian civilization in NZ (the Patupaiarehe and Waitaha) ‘falls’ to the forces of evil (pagan Maoridom) before undergoing redemption in the form of the Christianising power of British colonialism. Outside of the Christian trappings, this last point also reaffirms one of the key tropes of Pakeha racism (as mentioned in the ‘weaponised narratives’ section above): that Maori society was prevented from destroying itself through constant inter-tribal warfare by the peace, order and progress of British colonialism. The taking of Maori land by the British in violation of the Treaty of Waitangi is not a historical injustice that Pakeha should feel guilty about and atone for through political systems such as the Treaty Settlements, but a moral act of Christian righteousness that was necessary to save Maori from themselves. Aldworth’s thesis takes this theme of Pakeha justification one mythological step further by asserting that British colonisation was actually returning NZ to its natural order of Christian-based civilization, as established by the Patupaiarehe and Waitaha. 

80s goth-rock big in Maoridom then, eh John?

Forbidden History and NZ politics

As the above discussion indicates, Forbidden History can therefore be taken as a ‘notable’ addition to the NZ pseudo-history sub-genre thanks to its extremism (Maori as responsible for ‘the great genocide’ of NZ history), chutzpah (its attempts to legitimate such racist confabulations from an ostensibly Maori POV), and bizarreness (Maori as literal ‘fallen angels’?).  Such a summary is particularly interesting to consider in relation to the featured endorsements for the book by public figures associated with NZ right-wing political parties. The back cover includes quotes from Hamilton City Councillor Garry Mallett, who is also well-known for his involvement with the ACT party (“A really good read. A compelling book), and former NZ first MP Doug Woolerton  (“ A fascinating read that adds to our short history”). Woolerton further provides the book with a two-page foreword that supports the book’s overall conspiratorial view of official NZ history: “This book will challenge the reader and lead to more questions being asked of our institutions, including our Government. The New Zealand Establishment, be they scientific, legal or political like things to be nice and tidy and squared away so they are not questioned” (sic) (p. 8). 

It’s not particularly difficult to see why both NZ First and ACT (extrapolating from Mallett’s affiliations) are sympathetic to the NZ pseudo-history mythos. NZ First has successfully branded itself as the political party of Pakeha populism. Its main support base are older voters (60+) who grew up in a post-war NZ in which Pakeha/colonial worldviews were the norm, and who are possibly reacting against the perceived decline of Pakeha racial and social power due to Maori empowerment through forces such as the Treaty Settlement process (along with more contemporary social changes linked with globalisation, such as increased immigration from China).  NZ pseudo-history offers a historical narrative, backed up by purported ‘evidence’, that legitimates and affirms Pakeha identity as the dominant, ‘natural’ basis of NZ society (the ‘One New Zealand’ and ‘Hobson’s Choice’ movements being more explicit variations on this basic theme). The ACT party’s libertarian ideology – limited government and quasi-religious adherence to the deeply Anglo-Saxon economics of free market capitalism – is not particularly resonant with pro-Maori state policies around Treaty settlements and the increasing normalisation of a Maori worldview that differs from the current economic-materialist paradigms of Western society.  

Alleged face of a Phoenician or Celtic king carved into a Northland cliff. Y'all might want to look up 'simulacra' on Wikipedia, pseudo-history dudes...

However, Forbidden History is a particularly extreme version of the NZ pseudo-history mythos, in that it goes beyond the standard claims of ‘lost cities in the Waipoua forest’ to full-on historical revisionism, using the Holocaust as a template (‘the great genocide’), and Christian fundamentalist literalism (Patupaiarehe as descendants of Noah, Maori as descendants of the Nephilim). Presuming that Woolerton and Mallett both actually read the manuscript (instead of providing endorsements on the level of a matey shout-out for Aldworth), does this mean that they actually believe the ideas presented - ideas which, in their demonization of a particular ethnic group on the grounds of fundamentalist nationalism and religion, are essentially coming from the same place as the extreme far-right ideologies underpinning so much contemporary Western conspiracism? And if they do accept Aldworth’s arguments, are we meant to infer that similar beliefs are shared by at least a decent amount of NZ First voters? (leaving aside the ACT party on the grounds of its economic, rather than overtly racial, ideology, and miniscule level of public support). The answer, disturbingly, is a possible ‘yes’, if we can extrapolate from a July 2017 investigation by NZ Herald journalist Kirsty Johnston into the NZ ‘alt-right’ – the local version of the white nationalist ‘movement’ which rose to public prominence as a result of their support for Donald Trump in last year’s US presidential election. According to the article, the about of people involved in the NZ alt-right is very small (scores rather than thousands), but those involved expressed support for NZ First and its leader Winston Peters as the political party most amenable to their worldview (further discussion on the No Right Turn website reminded readers of the NZ National Front’s support for NZ First in prior elections). It would therefore seem likely that such folk would find the highly racist NZ pseudo-history presented in Forbidden History palatable to their ideological beliefs. 

NZ alt-right 'white identity' group that was the subject of controversy in March 2017. Note use of Celtic imagery to go with the neo-fascist slogan.

As a self-published book by a provincial author with little influence in NZ cultural circles, Forbidden History is unlikely to reach much of an audience. But it does provide an indication of some of the real ideological darkness implicit in the NZ pseudo-history mythos, and provides core bases for the mythos to be developed further along these lines.

Who Are The Conspiracy Theorists In Your Neighbourhood? #1: Forbidden History by John Dudley Aldworth - Part 1

Nice bit of eroded ignimbrite on the cover - sorry, I meant weathered statue of ancient Phoenician provenance

The starting point for this post was the following premise: given that every community will have members who adhere to some form of conspiracist belief (referring here to the more extreme/outre end of the conspiracy belief spectrum), there will be a least a few of these who are active local proselytisers of conspiracy theories through forms such as letters to the editor, posters, pamphlets, websites, and books.  Such a premise can certainly be validated in relation to the past and present activities of several locals in the small provincial city of Hamilton, New Zealand where I reside. This discussion will look at one of the most recent and egregious examples of community conspiracism in Hamilton: the 2016 tome Forbidden History, written by ex-Waikato Times journalist and Christian commentator John Dudley Aldworth. As is pretty typical, what I envisaged as a relatively concise single post ended up as a 5 page essay,  so for the purposes of online readability I’ve split it into two parts (twice the value eh?)

NZ Pseudo-History

As the title implies, Forbidden History is one of the latest contributions to New Zealand’s leading indigenous conspiracy subculture of ‘New Zealand pseudo-history’ (this appellation courtesy of NZ historian Scott Hamilton, who instigated a seminal discussion on this subculture for the Scoop book review site in 2008).  The claims made by such theorists may be summarised in the form of two key themes. Firstly, that the islands of New Zealand were discovered and, in some cases, settled by diverse peoples long before the Polynesian migrants who become the Maori. For the bulk of these theorists, these discoverers were white-skinned peoples from Europe and the Mediterranean. The second theme is that evidence for the veracity of pre-Maori settlement is being covered up by the NZ government, because it poses a challenge to the official history of Maori settlement and British colonisation that is integral to the existing nature of the Maori-Pakeha establishment: in particular, the historical fact that Maori were the tangata whenua or first people of New Zealand, a fact enshrined in NZ’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi. 

A potted cultural history of the subculture is necessary to provide context for a discussion of Aldworth’s book. Stories about pre-Maori discovery or habitation have been staples of NZ folklore for years. For instance, Robyn Jenkins’ popular book New Zealand Mysteries, published in 1973, has a chapter dealing with the purported evidence for such claims, such as the Tamil Bell and the buried wreck at Ruapuke Beach. Jenkins approach to these relics is a common-sense one, treating them as historical curiosities surrounded by layers of romantic confabulation.  The development of such folklore into an ideological tool of far-right Pakeha identity politics appears to be a response to the ‘Maori Renaissance’ that began in the 1990s. After years of activism, the NZ government in that decade initiated a Treaty Settlement program to address iwi grievances relating to historical land confiscations by the British in violation of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. This process of political and economic empowerment was complemented by more socially and culturally assertive forms of Maoridom, such as Te Reo education. Such empowerment challenged Pakeha complacency regarding their dominant status in NZ society, leading to reactionary manifestations of Pakeha identity politics in forms like the NZ pseudo-history subculture.  Martin Doutre’s Early Celtic New Zealand, published in 1998, can be considered the founding document of the subculture in terms of establishing its major tropes, which are: the existence of a utopian ‘white’ civilization in prehistoric NZ; barbaric Maori invaders who eradicated this civilization; archaeological ‘evidence’ for aforesaid civilization; and the conspiratorial suppression of this evidence by the Maori-Pakeha establishment. These core tropes have been reinforced, elaborated and disseminated by numerous pseudo-historians in the subsequent decades, notably self-styled Dargaville ‘archaeologist’ Noel Hilliam, and the editors of regional newspaper the Franklin E-Journal.

If it's self-published, it must be true...

The theories of Hilliam, and other prominent pseudo-historians such as Maxwell King, are restated in the latter chapters of Forbidden History as a complement to Aldworth’s main focus – his elaboration of the established pseudo-historical thesis that NZ was settled in prehistory by two main groups of people, the Patupaiarehe (also known as the Turehu) and the Waitaha.  Both of these groups were descendants of white-skinned Mediterranean peoples, notably the Phoenicians (Patupaiarehe) and the Egyptians (Waitaha). Both of these groups were also highly civilized and peace-loving, before being invaded and literally ‘eaten out of existence’ through cannibalistic genocide practiced by those Polynesian peoples who became the Maori.  As this precis suggests, this thesis reaffirms the core belief at the heart of the NZ pseudo-history subculture: that NZ was originally inhabited by civilized, morally superior white people from Europe, whose legacy was usurped and suppressed by barbaric, morally inferior brown people from Polynesia. It’s not too hard to see that the underlying cultural logic of this belief is one that inverts the historical realities of European colonialism in a way that provides emotional justification for Pakeha racism: white-skinned indigenes, living peacefully in their South Seas island paradise, find themselves colonised by brown aggressors, a process that results in most of the indigenes being killed, their lands forcibly taken, and their culture either appropriated or destroyed by the colonisers. In essence, the NZ pseudo-historians are constructing a mythic narrative in which white Europeans are actually the victims of Maori colonisation and oppression, rather than the other way round. 

Noel Hilliam and some typical evidence for pre-Maori settlement. Guess who didn't pass their 'geomorphology of volcanic rock 101' paper then...?

NZ pseudo-history as ‘weaponised narratives’

What makes Forbidden History a distinctive contribution to the subculture is Aldworth’s wilfully disingenuous approach in trying to present such an indubitably racist belief system as something possessing cultural validity from a Maori perspective. This approach has two main stages. The first stage consists of an introductory chapter entitled ‘A Plea to Maori People’, which is designed as a disclaimer against accusations of racism. This is clearly evident in the opening lines of the chapter: “This book is not against Maori people, nor written to stir up animosity against them ? (sic) That is not its purpose. Granted, some hard to swallow things are said about Maori slaughter of the earlier peoples of New Zealand and of themselves. But no more than Maori people themselves admit is true” (p 13). The fact that Aldworth then goes on to portray Maori as a race of (literally) demonic cannibals (as will be discussed in part 2 of this essay) implies that this disclaimer should be taken as an more elaborate example of the time-honoured Pakeha tradition of “I’m not racist, but…”, where the speaker expresses their respect for Maori before launching into some intensive criticism of Maori society and culture rooted in racist perspectives.

The second stage involves having the bulk of the book consist of the ‘true histories’ of the Patupaiarehe and Waitaha peoples as related by two surviving members of these peoples, Monica Matamua and George Connelly respectively (Matamua’s Patupaiarehe history is spread across chapters 2-12; Connelly’s Waitaha history chapters 14-15). Matamua’s fantastic testimony is ostensibly backed up by the ‘incontrovertible proof’ of DNA testing, that shows that Matamua possesses Mediterranean genes and ergo must be of Middle Eastern/European stock (the historical and biological complexities of human migration and related genetic exchange, that mean that just about all people alive on earth at the moment possess a polycultural DNA mix, is of course not addressed). These spokespeople proclaim themselves to be the repositories of this ‘forbidden’ historical knowledge, which has been passed on secretly for generations while both the remnants of the Patupaiarehe and Waitaha peoples were subsumed within Maoridom: a fate which explains why Matamua and Connelly are considered by the authorities to be Maori when they really aren’t at all. This set-up means that Aldworth can get away with presenting views that would be considered extremely racist if voiced by a Pakeha – ‘Maori were a bunch of cannibalistic savages who were on the verge of destroying themselves before the British arrived and brought salvation in the form of Western civilization’ – because he is presenting such views as deriving from Maori themselves (or, at the very least, a special ‘category’ of Maori). Therefore, if confronted by accusations of racism, Aldworth and his Pakeha milieu can deny responsibility: how can the book be racist if it is merely stating what Maori are saying about Maori? 

This set-up only works if the reader accepts that Matamua and Connelly are truthful, reliable testifiers, who are relating the ‘forbidden histories’ of their peoples in an attempt to draw awareness to past injustices. Outside of those details of these histories that strain credulity to the utmost, such as Matamua’s claims that her Patupaiarehe lineage can be traced back to “ an island in the Persian Gulf, offshore from present day Iran” at the time of the Persian Empire (p. 30), it is evident that the stories of both claimants reflect agendas pertaining to land ownership and the Treaty settlement process. Matamua’s testimony begins with a section in which she outlines how Tuwharetoa stole central North Island land belonging to the the Patupaiarehe, as identified with the iwi of Ngati Hinewai and Ngati Hotu, and sold it to the Crown (pp 22-29); while Connelly’s story includes the claims that the ‘royal bloodline of the Waitaha’ (of which he is (inevitably) one of the last descendants) were killed and oppressed by Ngapuhi in order to steal the ancestral Waitaha homelands on the Kaipara harbour (pp 173-178). The depiction of Tuwharetoa and Ngapuhi as land-stealing villains is taken to another level through both respondents emphasis on the horrific details of how these iwi literally exterminated their Patupaiarehe and Waitaha forebears: Matamua’s testimony, in particular, is replete with lurid details of Tuwharetoa massacres and cannibal feasts. Perhaps putting to use a journalistic penchant for race-baiting sensationalism gleaned from his overseas work experience as sub-editor for UK tabloid The Daily Mail, Aldworth cranks the ‘Maori barbarism’ angle up to the highest level of moral outrage by referring to the massacre of the Patupaiarehe as ‘the great genocide’ of NZ history, a historical crime comparable to the Holocaust (with Godwin’s Law making its inevitable appearance) (Chapters 8 & 9). 

Found this image linked to a blog called 'Treatygate' operated by prominent Pakeha racebaiter John Ansell. Who woulda thunk it?

A critical interpretation of all this testimony is that both Matamua and Connelly are constructing their own conspiratorial pseudo-histories within Maoridom as a means of demonising the more powerful iwi of Tuwharetoa and Ngapuhi, in order to stake moral claims to land ownership for their iwi under the Treaty settlement process. In other words, we have a culturally complex situation in which conspiratorial pseudo-histories are being constructed by iwi as ‘weaponised narratives’ as part of political machinations within Maoridom related to Treaty settlements, and are being picked up on by the likes of Aldworth because they can also serve as ‘weaponised narratives’ for use by racist Pakeha seeking to demean Maori empowerment as linked to the Treaty settlement process. Forbidden History works to the mutual benefit of both groups: Matamua and Connelly get their pseudo-histories (and their political agendas) publicised and validated in the epistemologically authoritative form of a book (written by a member of the Pakeha ‘establishment’, no less), while Aldworth is able to use Matamua and Connelly’s pseudo-histories to present his racist ideology in a more culturally ‘legitimate’ form. 

Part 1 to be continued...in Part 2!

Conspiracy Field Trip #1: It's Monck Time!

Although the last few posts have been about current affairs of some relevance to conspiracy studies – the Trump administration and Hager and Stephenson’s ‘Hit and Run’ book – I’ve also accrued a bit of a back catalogue of local conspiracy culture-related topics that I intended to write about. Time to get stuck into the first of these (too late for my self-imposed April deadline - oh well...)

On the evening of Monday the 8^th of April 2013 I was one of the hundred or so souls sitting in one of  the University of Waikato’s management school lecture theatres, listening to high profile UK global warming denier Lord Christopher Monckton ‘perform’ as part of his international ‘Climate of Freedom’ speaking tour. Monckton’s denialism is rooted in a standard-issue conspiracist worldview in which global warming is a ‘scam’, a system of political and economic control foisted upon the world by scientists and politicians who are implicated with sinister globalist/NWO agendas (Monckton wasn’t that prescriptive about what exactly these agendas entailed, but I was left with the impression is something in the general ballpark of a totalitarian system related to a communistic worldview).  The specious, pseudo-scientific nature of his arguments against global warming science have been extensively debunked and pilloried by scientists and critics, so my interest here is not in those areas, but rather some observations about the cultural dimensions of the event. To state in the vernacular: what was the vibe like? 

While the crowd was fairly diverse – I remember sitting next to a young Indian chap, and seeing a few women manning merchandise stands in the foyer – my overall impression of the audience was that it was dominated by middle-aged Pakeha men of the sort associated with an ACT Party convention or Federated Farmers meeting on the topic of water quality: rigid, Swanndri-clad slabs of ‘common-sense’, their ruddy cheeks and bullish visages barely containing their indignation for anything environmental that challenges the Pakeha capitalist status quo that has constituted the ‘right’ way of doing things in this country for the last century or so.   The hearty applause that such attendees gave to Monckton’s condemnation of the usual denialist villains – the UN, Agenda 21, Al Gore, liberal government bodies, climate scientists in general – provided affirmation of the populist ethos underlying the anti-environmentalism on display (an ethos that manifests in different forms according to the dominant resource industries of the countries involved: where denialism in the USA and Australia is centered around the oil and coal industries, in NZ it is rooted in dairy farming). 

A typical example of a Monckton slide: note complete lack of references for the sources of the data, lack of a key on the left axis to tell the reader what units of measurement are involved, and Monckton's heraldic crest displayed prominently centre right (cos it must be legit coming from a toff, yeah?)

This populist appeal was particularly interesting in relation to Monckton’s identity as a scion of the British class system.  Monckton’s publicity materials (interviews, PR bios, website blurbs) usually emphasise the details of his peerage and other class accoutrements in an implicit appeal to the ‘rule by your betters’ principle that was one of the defining features of British imperialism – that the upper classes innately possess intellectual and institutional authority in all subjects, outside of their obvious areas of expertise such as grouse-shooting, sherry-drinking, and inbreeding. A notable instance of this logic in operation during the talk was when Monckton asserted himself against a heckler’s dismissive comments by whipping out his certificate of membership in the Knights of Malta or similar upper-crust boys club, as if this verification of his aristocratic bona fides was sufficient in itself as a means of rebuttal. However, although NZ’s predominantly egalitarian social structures still contain lingering residues of colonial deference to the ‘mother country’, I felt that the crowd’s identification with Monckton was due less to his class status and more to the fact that his green-bashing message tapped into the Pakeha populism mentioned above. 

Gee, guess where you'll find this video? Clue: first letters start with Y and T...

Having previous familiarity with the denialist style, I found Monckton’s evidence and arguments too obviously meretricious and formulaic to generate the feelings of shock and indignation he would no doubt enjoy inducing in punters of liberal and environmentalist bent. Instead, my emotional responses were in the realm of pathos. There was something innately pathetic about Monckton and the event: a something reflected in the earnest way he brandished his credentials to the heckler like a schoolboy showing off his gold star for good work, a something reflected in the sloppy graphic design of his powerpoint slides, a something reflected in the crudely scanned covers of the home-burned DVDs of his lectures available in the lobby.  Upon reflection, this ‘something’ was the fact that this shabby, second-rate conspiracist spectacle was as much about Monckton sating his narcissistic desire for public attention as it was about preaching the gospel of denialism. In relation to this, my feelings of pathos were perhaps manifestations of the sense of sympathy engendered by some attention-seekers, whose brazen behaviour comes across as a means of fulfilling some deep-seated psychological need. In these respects the Monckton experience was probably a good case study in relation to research undertaken into the psychology of conspiracism, a verification of the thesis that conspiracy theory is often or as much an expression of personal psychology as it is political ideology or worldview. The degree of ‘sympathy for the Monckton’ that I felt should be taken as something specific to this event though: it’s hard to think of anyone feeling a twinge of pathos for conspiracist figures like David Irving. 

Title of this post a reference to the brilliant 1966 album ‘It’s Monk Time!’, by cult US garage-rockers The Monks.