In defence of rednecks and freedom of expression
A haka by the Hurricanes Poua rugby team before the opening round of the Super Rugby Aupiki competition has drawn condemnation. Dolores Janiewski defends the team’s right to express themselves.
The headline of my piece is not a criticism of the Hurricanes Poua haka on March 2, which referenced a “redneck Government”. Women playing a challenging sport should be able to express their views without being denounced by male politicians.
Because I am a product of a ‘redneck’ Florida town, however, I think the original meaning of ‘redneck’ has been lost in translation. It was originally a class slur to shame poor whites who worked in the fields. Sunburn differentiated them from wealthier whites for whom they might have to work.
A more accurate term the Poua might have used to describe the current Government is ‘Richwhite’, after the donor of $100,000 to ACT. It is David Seymour and Christopher Luxon who seek to stigmatise poor people using more modern forms of class slurs.
The news report that Professor Joanna Kidman is involved in talks over her tweet (Uni in discussions with professor after implying Govt were ‘death cult’, March 6) suggests that freedom of expression for academics is also under attack.
According to legislation, academics have the responsibility to serve as “critic and conscience of society”. The law does not say that academics are confined to “speak out on issues related to their area of expertise” so there should be no effort to silence Kidman by yet another male politician claiming that she’s been guilty of “extremism”. Academic freedom should be defended.
Of course, it’s not only women who’ve faced attacks from ministers of the coalition Government. Seymour has also attacked Benedict Collins for smiling as he reported the news about Luxon’s receipt of a subsidy for his Wellington apartment.
Somehow Seymour feels no compunction as a minister about attacking a journalist working for a stateowned enterprise, as though he has no responsibility for defending freedom of the press at a time when the media are facing enormous difficulties.
Still more concerning are the claims made by the Minister of Justice, Paul Goldsmith, that he has no responsibility to protect freedom of expression or freedom of association when it concerns marginalised groups who form gangs.
Yet, in November 2022, Goldsmith condemned Labour’s hate speech legislation as a violation of freedom of expression. Perhaps the word ‘irony’ might be used to describe Goldsmith, or is it more accurate to refer to ‘hypocrisy’ or ‘authoritarianism’?
As a historian I have learned about the undermining of democratic freedoms, eloquently encapsulated in a 1946 quote from German pastor Martin Niemöller, who became an outspoken critic of Hitler’s interference in the church and spent years imprisoned: “First they came for the socialists and I do not speak out – because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”
In the USA historians are being subjected to laws about what they can teach and the most vulnerable are censoring themselves, including in Florida. Here we have lost many academics and journalists and public servants are losing their jobs. Who then will speak “truth to power”?
As Louis Brandeis, an admirable Supreme Court justice, wrote in 1927, “Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.”
Perhaps Goldsmith, Seymour, and the other ministers who attack journalists, academics, and rugby players should study history before trampling on other people’s rights to speak, perform a haka, or choose an emblem of belonging.
The law does not say that academics are confined to “speak out on issues related to their area of expertise” so there should be no effort to silence Kidman by yet another male politician claiming that she’s been guilty of “extremism”. Academic freedom should be defended.
Dolores Janiewski
Dolores Janiewski teaches US History at Victoria University of Wellington, Te Herenga Waka, and is currently working on a project about reactionary Americanism. She has also recently published on the Christian Right in New Zealand.