If there is one thing I dislike about New Zealand politicians, it is cultural cringe: a disease that is seemingly universal and invariably leads to embarrassing behaviour. The most obvious signs of this affliction is the feeling of ‘Big Time’, of having ‘Made It’. Unfortunately when a politician has this disease the rest of us look for the nearest desk to hide under, or even the nearest cliff to jump off.
Probably the worst example was David Cunliffe’s fundraising for his campaign to be Labour leader in 2013. His view, having – one presumes – followed American politics for years, was ‘Big guys fundraise!’ and so he fundraised in order to feel he was ‘big time’. It was all unnecessary: why would you need to spend money on a leadership election?
The worst aspect of politicians engaging in cultural cringe is the traditional bizarre obsession with New Zealand’s membership of the UN. The Prime Minister takes the podium of the General Assembly feeling incredibly humbled – ‘big time’ and ‘I’ve made it’ – and giving childish speeches nobody listens to. The nauseating part, for me anyway, is the notion that UN membership carries with it some sort of virtue.
It doesn’t. The UN is merely a forum for legitimising communist dictators, tyrants and mass murderers, oh and proving how ‘right on’ you are by being anti-Israel (can’t forget the antisemitism, right?). It is an appalling body, a true repository of wickedness and evil. That we are a member is a cause for national shame.
The latest evil sideshow was when Ardern turned up this week, mangled syntax and all, pretending she’s doing something worthwhile. Ardern spent the day endorsing murderers in Africa, tyrants starving their people in South America and demented human rights abusers everywhere. In her element, feeling ‘big time!’
If New Zealand were as virtuous as we pretend to be, we’d be pulling out of the UN by lunchtime; the speech by the PM would denounce the General Assembly and the entire concept of the body and we’d chart our own course rather than be buffeted by the latest fad of globalist insanity. We would call out mass murder, socialist food shortages, corruption and the absence of the rule of law and be done with it for good.
Even ACT and David Seymour guzzle this nonsense. At his meeting in Ashburton, about which I wrote recently, he defended the concept of silly electric cars and other ‘climate-change’ tosh on the infantile grounds of ‘we don’t want to hurt our international reputation’. As if any man with gumption would care what the UN malefactors think of us!
True virtue is calling out evil wherever it exists and whoever is undertaking it. True virtue is not hiding under the covers and tugging your forelock and worshipping at the Altar of Evil. National shame doesn’t begin to describe the long, long list of disgraceful things we have vigorously nodded our head in favour of at the UN over the last 77 years – and the resulting death toll. The sooner we leave, the better.