Worzel
One of the good things about getting old, and there are many, is that history is no longer a subject in a book written by dead people. I am now old enough to have seen history in real-time and it is written in the book of my mind and my heart.
It was back in the 1980s when the political system of a nation half a world away became an issue for the people of New Zealand. That nation was South Africa and the system was called Apartheid.
Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning ‘separateness’ or ‘the state of being apart’. That separateness was imposed on a racial basis. Kiwis who had never known a racial divide took the moral high ground and condemned South Africa. The overwhelming majority of New Zealanders found the apartheid system reprehensible. United in our opposition to such unfairness we became deeply divided over what, if anything, should be done about it.
A Springbok tour brought out protesters by the thousands. It was, I think, the first time New Zealand Police were equipped in military-style riot gear. Matches were cancelled, bones were broken, heads were bashed. There was even a plane commandeered to fly over Eden Park and drop flour bombs. A waste of dough in my opinion. I was not a protester and maintained then as I do now that problems cannot be solved by isolating those who have them. I held the view that the best way to combat the errors of apartheid was to play the South Africans with a multi-racial team selected solely on merit and to beat them.
In accordance with historical precedent, rational discussion gave way to emotional reaction and New Zealand became as divided socially as South Africa ever was racially. Kiwis observed such excesses half a world away, and they became a topic of discussion at workplace smoko times and over after match beers. The newspapers were almost unanimous in their opposition to segregation. Where are these voices now that we are on the verge of even more insidious segregation in our own country?
In the course of time and for reasons which I defy anyone to adequately explain, South Africa abolished their politically sanctioned apartheid system. They prospered for a short time as a fledgling multi-racial country and most recently have become a complete basket case descending into chaos and anarchy. This as usual can be ascribed not to race but to selfish greed, lust for power and gross mismanagement.
We live in unprecedented times and, although I have often observed that the world, in general, is heading to Hell in a handcart, I am gobsmacked to see New Zealand, a mere forty years after that infamous Springbok tour, adopting its own form of apartheid.
Although the news media and government policy conspire to drum up a race-based animosity that doesn’t exist and never did, the New Zealand apartheid system is rather based upon individual freedom of choice.
By mid-December 2021 those who have chosen not to participate in the worldwide medical experiment will be officially denied basic human rights and segregated as second class citizens. When apartheid is officially sanctioned it’s obviously time to remove the officials.
In my small rural town, I have a friend who has chosen to take the Pfizer potion. I wish him all the best with that. I will defend any and everyone’s right to choose to do whatever they think best for themselves.
Over thirty years I have played rugby with and squash against this individual. We have worked together, played together, and argued a fair bit over a great many things. I am still the same man I was during those three decades, albeit with greyer hair, yet he now refuses to work and play with me and many others. If the product works what’s he worried about? We haven’t changed – but he has.
In the new apartheid healthy, happy hard-working people are losing their livelihoods. This never happened to blacks even in the worst excesses of the old South African system.
Throughout a long rugby career, I often pointed out to certain coaches what more successful coaches already knew: “Never change a winning team.” News reports tell us that an already run-down health system will buckle under the strain of a pandemic yet nurses are being forced out of their jobs and winning teams are being changed everywhere.
Volunteer services are being decimated as healthy, unmedicated individuals are being pushed out. Ex-pat New Zealanders wanting to return to the country of their birth are put on interminable waiting lists to be quarantined while MIQ facilities are full of immigrants being brought in to replace Kiwi workers forced from jobs due solely to exercising the freedom to choose their own medicine.
In a small country of 5 million souls, we have borders and special passports being issued to further enforce segregation. A class system based on what drugs people have taken has spawned a weird contrived madness called a traffic light system.
Just because the powers that ought not to be are trying to impose apartheid on the people doesn’t mean the people have to play along. Once again the old adage that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it holds true.
We may not be able to agree about whether or not we need the jab but surely we can all agree that one thing we don’t need nor want in New Zealand is a new apartheid.