Why I Choose Not To Support The Freedom Convoy

So I was invited to join the Freedom 2022 Convoy on Facebook.  This invite came from someone who is not an antivaxxer.  They are a kind and caring person.  They are whanau and I love them.

There is a reason they sent it to me.  I have expressed discomfort around vaccine passports and mandates.  Like many liberal folk it feels wrong to discriminate against people based on their beliefs.  Like Te Pati Māori I am in favour of a more equitable response to the pandemic and I have voiced this position.

And I believe in the power of protest. 

I shouted 'We are the 99%' among thousands of other voices in the march back in 2012.  On request, I held a workshop at the Occupy site on meeting nutritional needs for specialised diets at low cost*.  Consequently, I met many of the people occupying those tents beside the square.  And what I saw there is not so different than what I am seeing with the current occupation on parliamentary grounds:

Me at the Occupy march 2012                     

Division.

I saw a large group of diverse people with different reasons for being there.  I saw leaders struggling to get people to listen to them.  As the water pipes under the grounds at Aotea crumbled, so did my faith in the occupation.  While people 'just like me' were there, there were also people piggybacking on the cause for ulterior aims - political, anti-authoritarian - and some were honestly just there to party.  They had no reason to listen to the genuine people asking them to be respectful or even reasonable.

While this Convoy is not so different in that respect, the groups piggybacking this protest are.  The religious right are there.  White supremacist groups are there.  Steve Bannon's ideologies and those who follow them are there.  Of course there are well meaning, kind hearted people there as well.  Tangata whenua groups are also understandably there.  Just like at Occupy there are people there who are 'just like me'**.  But these people stand alongside dangerous and hurtful groups.  Groups who have had no problem attempting to take rights away from others - gay people, indigenous peoples and women*** just to name a few.

And the convoy this attempts to emulate isn't so rosy either.  On February 14th at the Freedom Convoy in Canada, guns have been seized as a group sets to defend the trucker blockade.  

One of several Trump flags being flown in The Freedom Convoy

Also protesting alongside good hearted folk and gun toting right wing extremists are the kind of folk I encounter at work on the daily.  People who are just upset that their lives have had to change.  Whilst on the door ensuring folk sign in I have been called a 'bitch' and a 'cunt' among other choice things.  Just my existence at the door has resulted in unsolicited racist tirades regarding coronavirus and its spread.  Complaints about mask wearing from folk who seldom need to wear them are my constant companion.

And my workplace is not vaccine passported.

I've heard much worse from people working in places that are.  I've heard of physical threats, of violent acts, of racial attacks.  Of police having to be called for the safety of staff and customers.  Of being rammed by shopping trolleys.  This is first hand information - staff at my gym and family members have experienced this.

And we are not government officials.  We are just regular folks doing our jobs.

Another stellar sign from the Freedom Convoy            

I'd hate to be an MP right now.

In November 2021, all MP's were granted more home security to manage increasing threats over vaccinations.  Just a month ago, leaflets threatening to 'eradicate' Jacinda Ardern were delivered to households in Kerikeri.  And at the Freedom Convoy someone given a megaphone threatened violence against not only politicians, but journalists, academics and health care workers. 

I can understand entirely why no politicians - even those who disagree with the mandates - have any interest in engaging with the protesters.

I cannot support a group which tolerates threats of violence.

And I cannot support a movement which presents themselves as choiceless.  There are consequences for every choice we make.  Like 1 in 5 New Zealanders I have tattoos.  As a consequence I need to wear long sleeves so they are covered in my workplace.  My Mum is a vegetarian.  As a consequence she needs to actively manage her iron and B12 levels.  Schools keep childrens immunisation records on file.  This is so that those who aren't immunised are kept home from school to be safe in the case of a measles epidemic.  This has been the case since 1995.  There are consequences for every choice we make.

Aligning yourself with groups who have actually been choiceless is misleading and wrong.

Chantelle Baker has been providing livestreams from the protest side of the fence since she arrived on parliament grounds.  Just a small FYI - her father is the former leader of the New Conservatives, so her feeds are certainly not the unbiased 'truth' so many purport them to be.  In light of media commentary on dissent between groups she posted this founder message on her Facebook feed.

So the true focus of the Freedom Convoy is to protest the mandates.  They are not an anti-vax or anti-government group.  The 'freedoms' being fought for here are simple:  Freedom from wearing masks, freedom from contact tracing, freedom from isolating when exposed to covid or when symptomatic, freedom from number restrictions on events.  And freedom for vaccination status not to impact vocation.

Many of these 'freedoms' are only lost for a very short period of time.  Many are granted at certain points during the current traffic light system.  And once we're out of the traffic light system - which is foreseeable as the pandemic runs its course - well, freedom returns.

Losing your job because of your beliefs is wrong.  But it is not the Holocaust.

I think the massive reaction is because many people perceive themselves to be experiencing discrimination for the first time.  Honestly, I struggle to view this as anything other than a protest for the privileged.  Yes, there are minority and underprivileged folk there as well, but some of the most vocal people in this protest are white and middle class.

I think many of these people are protesting because the threat of covid feels less real than unvaccinated Aunty Sally losing her midwifery practice.  Derek Broomhall, one of the co-organisers of the NZ Convoy, owns a roofing business in Invercargill.  The Southern DHB has seen just 296 cases since the start of the pandemic.  It's quite likely that Derek doesn't know anyone who has had Covid, even less so someone who has died from it.  It is far more likely that he does know people impacted by the imposed mandates if he isn't impacted by them himself****.  Like the majority of us, Derek has no experience with pandemics - nothing quite like this has occurred in his lifetime.  It is logical that for Derek the consequences of the mandates weigh more heavily than the consequences of the pandemic at this point.

              Yep.  That was our school.

But I am not Derek.  The DHB I live in has had the second highest number of cases we've seen during this pandemic - more than 10 times the cases in Southern.  I know people who've had Covid.  Not just friends overseas (although many of them also have) but family here in West Auckland.  We've had cases at our school, teachers family members have been hospitalised with it.  And a friend's eczema specialist died from it.  The mortality rates from overseas are very, very real to me.

Last year the death rate from Covid in the US was slightly more than 386,000.  As a percentage of the total population from that time that's 0.11%.  That might seem small.  But if we apply that to our own population from 2021 that would be the equivalent of us losing 5,634 peoples lives to Covid.

Instead we lost 26.

I am not totally comfortable with mandates and vaccine passports.  I believe that there must be fairer ways of managing things.  But I know politics are nothing if not complex.  There are consequences for every choice we make.

Yes, there are Trump banners there, but most signs at the protest look more like this.
Whether you support it or not, it's important to remember this.

Yes, Aunt Sally cannot practice midwifery any more.  But Nana Mary is still alive.  And Uncle Nick's chemo can continue because our health system isn't overwhelmed (yet).  It is hard to convince people of these invisible prevented deaths.  Especially when what they can see first hand is Aunt Sally's trauma.  This is the truly bittersweet pill of successful pandemic management.

But I see it.  I can do the math.  I can see the thousands of lives saved due to tight travel restrictions and lockdowns.  And even while I'm loath to say it I know it's unlikely we would have achieved our vaccination rates without the use of mandates and vaccine passports.

Numbers are something that have always brought me comfort.  The following are the numbers that have really cinched the choice for me.

In the UK, six out of ten people who died from Covid were disabled.
Worldwide, almost 50% of all those who died from covid were over 75.
The rates of mortality for immunocompromised people is over four times that of regular folk.
Here in Aotearoa, Māori are 2.5 times more likely than pakeha to be hospitalised due to Covid.

Unlike those who choose not to vaccinate, these people actually have no choice*****.  They have no choice over their health, their age or their whakapapa.  And they are far more likely than most of us to lose more than their freedom if we feel the full force of the pandemic.

I will continue to love and care for all of those important in my life regardless of their choices.  Whether they choose to vaccinate or not.  Whether they take covid seriously or not.  Whether they support this convoy or not.   Life, like politics, is not simple, but love and respect are.

But I choose not to support The Freedom Convoy.





* I was working at The Gluten Free Grocer at the time and often giving out advice to many on how to do this without having to buy all the expensive specialty foods.

** Except most of them aren't wearing masks.  Being in a large group of people without masks during a pandemic is definitely not my jam.  Makes it tricky to believe it's just about mandates when they do not seem to see themselves at any great risk from doing so.  Feels a little more like Covid denial to me...

*** I think 'Grab 'em by the pussy' says more than enough.  But to expand, there's also a lot of representatives there from The New Conservative Party who wanted to put single pregnant Mums into strangers households to 'help' them be good parents.  And repeal the abortion reform of course.

**** I think it's also much easier for people not faced with this who are already opposed to the current government to buy into conspiracy theories around covid.

***** I know there are some folk who fit this category who cannot get vaccinated due to health reasons.  This group is extremely small.  I do wish more were done to accommodate them but honestly, the majority of us getting vaccinated truly does keep them safer from the virus overall.  This blog is not written with these folk in mind but I am absolutely aware that they exist and that the current system is especially unfair on them.