The tale of Nobby and Big Fears
You’ve got to feel sorry for Kevin Malcolm, the bloke who staged a one-man protest by stropping out of a meeting last week.
Yes, the meeting was part of the Otago regional councillor’s actual role, and yes, the reason behind his lonely dissent was sad, but when a man is so triggered by something so innocuous he deserves our pity.
For Malcolm, the trigger was a karakia that shook him so much that he had to walk out of his ratepayer-funded job, later insisting the strop had nothing to do with another controversy that saw Kaipara’s mayor, Craig Jepson, ban the blessing late last year.
‘‘No,’’ said Malcolm, ‘‘this is me expressing my values that I have.’’
While the councillor went on to express those values in tired adages of ‘‘tick-box exercises’’ and ‘‘if you start doing it for one . . . where do you stop?’’, we all know what the real problem is. And though we certainly don’t condone it, we should be compassionate.
That’s because Malcolm and myriad others are struggling and failing to exist in a New Zealand they find unrecognisable.
Where once they could say what they like, or not say what they don’t like, these folks are now floundering in the wake of a world that’s moved on without them.
It’s frightening, perplexing and filled with PC potholes that never used to exist.
In my experience these are the people usually flushed out with a quick column reference to ‘‘Aotearoa’’; the ones who’ll email to say ‘‘IT’S NEW ZEALAND’’, forgetting they’ve sent it from their work accounts.
You know the type, and not only are they everywhere, but for some inexplicable reason they’ve been voted in.
‘‘No-one was listening anyway,’’ Malcolm said of the karakia, then disregarded the council’s partnership with mana whenua by equating the blessing as both preferential treatment for Māori and a big step backwards for everyone.
To be fair, he did say if something has to preface meetings it should be the national anthem sung in te reo and English.
Ultimately though, he preferred that the council revert to using what it did last term: nothing.
But while Malcolm wants councillors to keep their mouths closed at the beginning of meetings, another elected official should just keep his shut full stop.
Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark was also triggered last week, resulting in an N-word rampage he tried to pass off as a challenge about free speech and what’s acceptable in art.
Clark obviously already knows what’s not, having been angered by a poem depicting a group of brown girls planning to take violent revenge on Captain Cook and his descendants.
‘‘If that’s not hate speech in our country,’’ the mayor said, ‘‘I don’t know what is.’’
He does know what isn’t though, asserting his own use of the N-word is all right because he was quoting from artists’ work.
He also threw in the terms ‘‘queer’’ and ‘‘f... the bitch’’ for good measure.
Then, having stunned his Arts Foundation audience, and despite widespread backlash, Clark continued his slur spree, repeating the N-word another eight times in an interview and resolutely refusing to apologise.
‘‘Will I do the same thing again tomorrow? Absolutely. Should I apologise? Certainly not.’’
Ultimately it’s tough to feel anything much for people like Clark and Malcolm – a pair I now refer to as Nobby and Big Fears – but we should try.
Because as they stumble about, scared and confused, the resulting noise is only a last sad gasp of anguish at a world they no longer understand.
And that deserves pity.
This isn’t hate speech by the way. It’s kindness.