Opposition to vaccination in New Zealand, as well as frustration with ongoing pandemic restrictions, is fueling a small but vocal protest movement inspired in part by American disinformation and far-right ideologies.
are visible among the crowds. Sam Brett, a student at the University of Canterbury who attended recent protests for his doctoral research, said they felt like a “miniature, New Zealand version of a Trump rally.”
“Maori identity, symbols, history, culture, narratives and specific individuals are being appropriated by white-supremacist accounts and actors, especially on Telegram,” an app that can serve as an alternative social media platform, allowing greater anonymity and less stringent community rules than sites like Twitter.
In its statement, the tribe singled out Brian Tamaki, an anti-lockdown firebrand who leads a group called the Freedom and Rights Coalition, saying it had been alerted that he planned to teach the haka to protesters for future performances. Maori tribes are all the more frustrated because they are less likely to be vaccinated than other New Zealanders and have beenHone Harawira, a Maori rights advocate and former lawmaker, said he respected people’s right to protest, but “not when that protest endangers the health and well-being of our whanau,” a Maori-language word for family and community.
Paul Buchanan, an Auckland-based security analyst and former consultant to U.S. intelligence services, said he was concerned by the “importation of U.S.-style populist rhetoric” into New Zealand’s anti-vaccination movement, characterizing it as “tinged with violence and vulgar, dehumanizing disrespect for political and social opponents.”“When you reduce the quality of discourse down to street-fighting level,” he said, it can raise the risk of violence.
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