Holding Up Half the Sky

A few weeks ago, Jacob Zuma was named the new head of the African National Congress. This is part of a larger struggle in South Africa against the policies of the ANC, which has been carrying out a neo-liberal agenda ever since it gained power. Zuma is the left-wing candidate; Zuma's supporters sang Lethu Mshini Wami (bring me my machine gun). I haven't read much discussion of this on the blogs I read, which surprised me. I don't know enough about South African politics to offer any analysis of the ANC. But I wanted to comment on the discussion of Zuma's election, or the lack of it. There's definitely been more attention among the socialist blogs I read than the feminist blogs, and the analysis is a little bit like the paragraph above. From Lenin's Tomb:

Zuma is far from the ideal man to lead such a fight, burdened as he is with corruption charges over bribes from a French arms company, and he is actually doing his best to present his policies as pro-business. He is in all probability an opportunist who has harnessed a unique chance based on the unrest. However, the fact that he has successfully channelled the energy of this revolt into a leadership bid which may lead to him taking power in the ANC (but not the country) is itself significant. And however disappointing Zuma is likely to be (Chavez, he ain't - even Chavez isn't always Chavez), the very fact of ousting the wretched Mbeki may give further confidence to the already insurgent working class.

There's something missing from these stories. Zuma is a rapist. He was acquitted - they always are. But in 2005 he raped 31 year old woman who was a friend of the family. I wrote about the trial last year:

The trial sounds hideous, and familiar. She was put on trial and her sexual history, including other times she had been raped, was put into evidence. When Zuma took the stand he argued that she consented by wearing a knee-length skirt and complaining that she didn't have a boyfriend: "She had never in the past come to my house dressed in a skirt. Including times when I was living in Pretoria. When she came to me in a skirt after those talks I referred to earlier on, well, it told me something."

This has been treated as a side-note by many different people. From AP Zuma was acquitted of rape last year, but could still face bribery charges in a multimillion-dollar arms deal. From WSWS "Zuma was sacked from office as deputy president by Mbeki and then faced a further trial on rape charges last year, in which he was acquitted."

Maybe it's just that the New Zealand left has developed some clarity on these issues, but if a powerful man is accused of rape and is acquitted that doesn't mean he's not a rapist. It means he is a rapist.

The inability to call a rapist a rapist displays an indifference to rape as a political issue. When asked in 1999, 1 in 3 Johannesburg women said they had been raped in the last year - they deserve more than one line in an analysis of the political meaning of Zuma's victory.

Merry Xmas, prison is over

I didn't watch Outrageous Fortune when it was first on. I've been catching up on DVD ever since watching the second episode. Last night I watched the Christmas special, and so I've watched everything out on DVD.

But I almost couldn't watch it - because the first ten minutes are about Cheryl's boyfriend Wayne trying to get out on bail. Partly because it was wrong. They showed Wayne using a cellphone in front of a guard at court - it doesn't work like that. Plus, Wayne would be in Auckland Central Remand Prison and I know what visiting at A-CRAP is like(I even know the prison nickname) and it's not like that.

But actually I was just upset. One day I may be able to hear stories about bail and let them be stories, but at the moment they resonate like an electric shock and take me straight back there.

Now it doesn't take much. The media reports they have every year about how they spend $4 a day feeding prisoners, and that on Christmas Day prisoners will get a mince pie dusted with icing sugar. They don't tell you that there'll be no visits on Christmas Day, because it's a public holiday. Tuesday was a visiting day for my friends every prison they were in.

Or this post, that I got from debitage:

I sat outside that cheerily bedecked detention center on a bird shit stained bench while I told a five year old that neither Santa nor God nor any of the other deities in a child's pantheon could bring his daddy home from Christmas. Daddy will be spending his fourth Christmas in immigration detention, a sentence 400% percent longer than any he served for a criminal conviction.

The child bawled. His mom hugged him and whispered endearments to him in her native language, although the son is a bilingual U.S. citizen. But then she had to send the son away to play under an ailing tree, because I needed to interrogate her about horrors she and her husband had faced in their native country. Part of the joy of litigating an asylum claim is that you have to grill everyone involved until they have PTSD from reliving their experiences. But if I'm not ruthless, the judges and government attorneys will confuse and humiliate them. Even if I do prepare them, a little of that happens anyway.

I'm not sure that I want the day to come when I can read that without physical pain. I want to hold on to the vivid reality of the prison system, because it's going to keep on being real whether or not I ignore it.

Napier & Newtown

I've done quite a bit of picketing this last week.

The first picket I went on was at Bunnings. Bunnings is a hardware chain, which has recently given their CEO a 61% pay increase to six million dollars. Many of the workers at Bunnings are on the minimum wage of $11.25 an hour. After months of negotiations the company offered a 0% wage increase for a six month term (their starting offer was 0% over a three year term). As if they were asking to be made fun of the company offered a monopoly set to each worker, to go along with the 0% pay increase.



The Newtown Bunnings picket was a short picket - just an hour. There are dozens of Bunnings stores across the country, and organising in retail is hard. These short pickets are just the beginning of the fight that'll be needed to get the company off zero.

But it was a great picket to be on - for most of the workers it was the first industrial action the power they had when they worked collectively was clear. You can see the backed up trucks when the workers stopped unloading them.

The other picket line I joined this week was at the Port of Napier. In terms of union history you couldn't get two more different workplaces than retail and the waterfront. On the waterfront they have a long, proud, history of union militancy, and everyone joins the union.*

The companies don't like this strength or this militancy, so they do try and break the unions. The latest attempt at the Port of Napier came when the Stevedoring (unloading containers) contract was given to a new company called ISO. I've written about contracting out earlier this year, during the Hospital lockout

Theoretically businesses, and government organisations, contract out services. They contract a company to clean, or to perform a certain task. But in reality they're contracting out employment.

Cleaning is a really good example of this. It's a low capital industry, and large cleaning companies don't get huge economies of scale. Companies get their printing done by a contract because they don't print enough to justify having the equipment sitting around all day. It takes about the same amount of equipment to clean a hospital whether the equipment is owned by Spotless or the Hospital, and neither of them can use the equipment elsewhere. In fact, by contracting out companies, and government organisations have to pay extra, to cover the profit that any cleaning company is going to make.

So why do hospitals (or businesses or anyone else) contract out their cleaning? Because they can use the tendering process to drive down the cost. To win tenders, and bid lower than other cleaning companies, the winning company has to either pay their workers less, or get their workers to do more cleaning in less time.

Contracting out is so effective, because everyone can claim that they're not responsible. The cleaning companies aren't responsible, because they can't afford to pay any more than they're given. The hospital that contracts out its cleaning isn't responsible because it's up to the sub-contractor how much money to pay.

It doesn't matter where you are, contracting out works in the same way. In this case ISO were planning to use non-union, non trained workers - so all the existing workers would lose their jobs.

So the union went on strike and called a picket and shut down the port. The picket started 6am Saturday and went 24 hours a day. Four of us drove from Wellington to Napier in my little car, and we were excited about it. By the time we got to Napier we were tooting at every sign that 'Port', and when we got to the picket we tooted got mad.



The picket was well set up, with tents, a generator, a tv, lights, a barbecue, a portaloo, signs and chairs. The workers had been picketing a long time - some were exhausted. Those on the picket line, the men and women who work on the port, women whose husbands worked the port, and kids whose parents worked the port, were going strong. It was an honour to get to hang out with them and be part of their picket.

When we left on Friday morning it was looking good. The union had gone directly to the shipowners, and most of them agreed to use union labour. By the time we got back to Wellington they'd won. All the shipowners had agreed not to use the scabs, and the port was going to abide by that.



The shipowners didn't agree to this out of the goodness of their hearts - they're bosses themselves. They agreed because of international solidarity. During the dispute ships bypassed Napier port, even when the company had managed to bring in scab labour. If the ships had been loaded with scab labour there isn't a port in the world that would unload them. The International Transport Federation - the global union

The last few days have made me think about a story from the lockout last year:

The 7 year old daughter of a locked-out worker went to visit her grandmother (who worked in a nearby factory) during the grandmother's afternoon smoko. The little girl was standing on the pavement asking, and her grandmother asked what she was doing. She replied "I'm on strike, I'll wave at them and they'll toot at me, because they agree."

One thing these picket lines had in common was tooting. At Napier almost every car that drove past tooted - often not just once or twice, but continually as they drove past the picket line. The picket had been going for almost a week by the time we got there; the people of Napier had chosen a side.



Newtown Bunnings is on a busy intersection and there was constant tooting. There are lots of unionised work places in Newtown; the buses and delivery vans all tooted as they went past and so did heaps of cars. It was raining really hard so the placards wouldn't have been that visible and the negotiations at Bunnings aen't exactly common knowledge. But it didn't matter, the people who tooted supported the picket line because they support unions.

The belief that unions don't have that much support is reasonably common. When the AA technicians were on strike even the delegate agreed with Mary Wilson that drivers would be pissed off. But when workers do go on strike, or are locked-out, then the toots and donations tell a completely different story.

In terms of union power there's not a huge amount of difference between an hour picket that delays some trucks being unloaded and day six of a picket that shuts down a port. But it's possible - making the union at Bunnings strong so the workers don't just get pay rises, but protect their jobs and change the working conditions. No workplaces, not even the waterfront start strongly union. It's hard, but it's possible.

* That long proud history involves a lot of losing - but at least they fought.

Just the year? How about the decade?

Louise Nicholas was named New Zealander of the year by the New Zealand Herald. It's a great article, and it shows how far the media has moved on this.

Media outlets were always willing to have a buck each way on this story. The coverage during the trial last year was sensationalist and more sympathetic towards the rapists than critical of them. The media were perfectly willing to give Brad Shipton's brother, and airtime to trash Louise Nicholas. Even now Clint Rickards gets huge coverage for his interview with Willie Jackson.

The media has also given space to Louise Nicholas's supporters, particularly after the suppression orders were broken (which was ridiculous - because the media sure knew all the suppressed information).

As time has gone on Louise Nicholas and her supporters have got more airtime, and the rapists' supporters have got less. Partly that's because as the trials have ended Louise Nicholas has been able to speak for herself. But I think it's mostly because Louise Nicholas's story resonates.

Many people, far too many people, believe Louise Nicholas story, because of personal experience. But the resonance in Louise Nicholas's story goes further. I've heard radio hosts, on shows like Nine to Noon, expressing surprise at the unanimous support for Louise Nicholas. The media sympathy for Louise Nicholas is a result of the huge support she had, not the other way round.

So I congratulate the New Zealand Herald for getting at least one thing right this year. But it's not the New Zealand Herald that gives me hope, but the people who read the Herald. There's a lot of work to do, to create a world where Louise Nicholas's . But the response to Louise Nicholas suggests that there are people who want that work done, which is start.

It is not known if any of the defendents were from Jupiter

I've decided to publish some of the drafts, even though I didn't have the energy to finish them at the time. I'll be catching up for a while I think

One of the things that astonished me about the media coverage was the utter banality of it, and the inability for the media to have any information not handed to them in a press release. One of the government's lines was that most of those arrested on October 15 weren't even Maori. The minister of Maori affairs claimed that just four were Maori, and two were Ngai Tūhoe.

This is ridiculous nonsense. There were 17 people arrested on 15 October; 12 of them are Maori.

At the end of the first week, newspaper articles on the government's claims would still say, 'the ethnicity of those arrested is not known'. By that stage everyone had appeared in court. While that might not have informed journalists of the whakapapa of each of the defendants, it'd give them a fair idea of the possibility that more than four of the defendants were Maori.

This was supposed to be the biggest story of the year, and they couldn't even be bothered doing the most basic research.

A question...

One of the things I haven't worked out about my politics is what I think about prison guards. At Arohata the guards were mostly older Maori and Pacific Island women. When I visited the guards told us that we weren't allowed to be hug our friends too much, because the guards had been told off by their bosses for being too lenient the day before.

Don't get my wrong guards, and the absolute power they have over prisoners, have driven me to exhaustion, and they can do far worse to those inside. But they are workers, and reasonably well unionised ones. So driving out to prison one day, the question became, would I support a corrections strike?

On one level the answer is of course, I support any strike, and I would. But after the last few weeks I immediately started thinking about the effects of a strike in the prisons. When they're short staffed in prison they respond by locking prisoners down for longer and cutting back on activities which increase the need for guards, like visits.

I know I absolutely would not support a strike which restricted visiting and increased lock-down, if my friends were in prison. Hell, I hated Labour Day while they were in jail, because we couldn't visit. Knowing that can I say that I'd support those tactics when it's not my friends being effected?

Ultimately it's not my call, I'm not a Corrections worker (and will never be a Corrections worker) - and I do believe workers have a right to choose their own tactics. But I think I could only get on the picket line if Corrections were disrupting the prison intake in some way, if the number of prisoners were reduced. If the only effect of a theoretical strike were to further reduce prisoners freedoms then I don't think I could support it, and I didn't think I'd ever say that about any industry.

This is a question that only really troubles those who automatically support workers struggles and also believe in prison abolition (Asher? Byron?). But I know there are at least a few readers of those blog who share these positions. What do you think?

The next visit...

The week after I first visited Rimutaka, I visited Arohata - the women's prison. I'd gone to the prison half a dozen times already, to drop off books, letters, newspapers and visitors forms; I knew the prisons were different. At Arohata they weren't set up for supporters. At Rimutaka there were signs, forms and boxes for anything we might want to do. At Arohata they weren't as rigid, but after a week they wouldn't let us drop any more newspapers off, because they'd never seen this number of newspapers.

I got to Arohata half an hour early - just like I did at Rimutaka. When I rang the bell they told me that visiting didn't begin for half an hour and I'd have to wait outside. About ten minutes later another woman came, she was Maori and there to visit her mother. She'd come down from Palmerston North and we talked a little bit as we waited. I leaned against the fence, and she sat on the grass. She was pregnant, and needed to pee. I wanted to fight for her to get in and get a proper seat, but I'd already spent long enough in the prison system to know that it would just make me tired and get us nowhere.

Theoretically women prisoners on remand have much more visiting time than male prisoners on remand. Visiting time was in two hour blocks, rather than one hour blocks. All visiting time is cut into by the slowness of the prison system, but at the men's prisons they at least seemed to be expecting visitors. At the women's prisons they didn't even realise we were coming, until visiting time began.

As I said, from 12pm Monday 15 October to 4.01pm Thursday 8 November my happiest hours were spent prison visiting. While I was visiting I knew that they were really there, and that they were still them and fears that I couldn't even acknowledge dissipated.

But visiting at Arohata made me so sad, sad and angry, because the other female prisoners didn't seem to get visitors. The woman I'd waited on the grass with was the only other visitor the day I was there, and when other friends had visited the day before, none of the other remand prisoners at Arohata had got visits.

There are fewer remand prisoners at Arohata than there are at Rimutaka (18 vs 81 in the 2003 prison census). There are only three women's prisons in the country, so women as far away as Gisborne would be held in Wellington. But even taking the numbers into account there were five times as many visitors over two days at Rimutaka, than two days at Arohata.

I don't think that I can extrapolate out total support from two days of visiting, but there's other evidence that implies this is a pattern. Three times as many women as men had custody of children immediately before they were locked up (35.5% vs. 12.1%). For men, almost 80% of the children were looked after by their partner or ex-partner. Whereas for women less than 25% of children were looked after by their partner or ex-partner (full figures here. Instead it's immediately family, larger whanau or CYFS.

Women do the work when men go to prison, and when women go to prison there isn't necessarily anyone to fill the gap.

A feminist issue...

When I knocked on the door at 7.15 that morning Anura was still asleep. Anura, aka the frog, is two, and his godless father was in prison. It was the first day any of us could visit Thomas,* and I wanted him to be able to see his godless son.

The visit didn't start until 8.30, but Rimutaka prison is half an hour's drive from Wellington and I was told to get there half an hour early. So Anura's mother woke him up, and I strapped a grumpy, sleepy baby into his carseat. We talked about the visit on our way up, me and Anura. "We're going to visit Thomas" I said; "Yeah" he said". "He's in prison" I said; "Yeah" he said. But mostly I just drove.

I'd heard that you could take property (which is corrections lingo for stuff) into the prison while you were visiting. I had my bag of baby stuff in one arm and my bag of prisoner stuff in the other as we went from the visitor's carpark to the gatehouse. We were a little late, and he was walking really slowly so I slung him on my hip, with my two bags. "Takahe" said Anura - although actually it was a Pukeko.

When we got to the gatehouse it was clear that I wouldn't be able to take anything in - everyone was putting everything they had into lockers. So I did too and we were the last to go through the metal detector. "One at a time" the guard said - so I sent the baby through first. Neither of us set off the metal detector - I'd worn my black pants rather than my jeans to make things easy. After searching my bag he let me take my nappies and a museli bar down to visiting. I wouldn't let Anura walk to visiting, but carried him instead - I wasn't going to cut into our hour.**

When we got there the guard made me go back and leave my bag in the entranceway. I could see everyone else hugging their prisoner, but I couldn't see Thomas. The guard told me that they would get him and I should sit down.

Visits at Rimutaka were in a prefab - bigger than the ones at school - but the same basic shape. In one corner was a small fenced in area - like it should have been for children to play in, but there were no toys.

Then Thomas was there in a bright orange Guantanamo bay jumpsuit and I was hugging him and he was OK. The next fifty minutes weren't how we'd normally talk, and not just because the guards would come over and tell him to put his feet on the floor. Although when Anura got bored (even a prison visit hour is a long time for a two year old) he came over and grabbed my face - just like he would have in any other conversation (although he's a better talker now so when I wasn't paying attention to him yesterday he just said "Stop Talking").

Prison visits are too short - they tell you it's over and you try and get one last hug, and say one last thing, and then another last hug, and then it really is over.

The prisoners were taken away and we were sent to the entrance way. They don't let you out of the visitors centre right away. While waiting in the I got a nappy from the bag they hadn't let me take in. Anura had needed changing for a while. I put my hand under his head as he lay down and changed his nappy just outside the door to the visitors centre - there was nowhere else.

Once they let us out we walked back to the gatehouse at two year old pace - he wouldn't be carried.

But in the end, my experience was as borrowed as the baby. When I was waiting to visit the following week,*** I noticed a woman who visited every day. Later she pointed me out to a friend - "She's with the terrorist" and glared at me. I don't know what her problem with me was, but I would think part of it is that I was so obviously there temporarily.

I saw people I knew when visiting, and I wasn't surprised to see them, although they were very surprised to see me. I don't belong to any of the groups whose existence is criminalised or for whom jail is a life hazard. I visited five times in four different prisons before I saw other pakeha visiting pakeha.

So I don't want to talk as if I know anything about having people you love in prison - because twenty-five days is nothing - people are on bail for months and are sentenced to years in prison. There are families and communities, poor and non-white families and communities, where people in prison isn't a horror or an aberration, but a fact of life.

I kept coming back to how much I had, when working to support people in prison. Most important was that there were heaps of us doing this together. I was in a good position for other reasons I had a car, I didn't have a job, I didn't have a child, English is my first language. While I love my friends who were arrested, their disappearance did not change the fabric of my life. I wasn't trying to live without their income, or what they did around the house.

Despite all this trying to support people in prison took everything I was able to give. Even prison visiting - which was the high point of my weeks - is work, doubly so if done with a two year old. The work of having people in prisons, and keeping families and communities functioning while they're away, is done by women. Female visitors outnumbered male visitors three or four to one. It was mothers, sisters, daughters, girlfriends and friends who were there, with or without kids, to do what needed to be done.

I'm not pointing out anything new when I say this makes prisons a feminist issue. The invisible work women do is even further from the public eye when it is to serve an institution designed to hide and conceal.

There are different ways of knowing. I've believed in prison abolition for years, but I believed it different on Tuesday 16 October when I stood outside barbed wire fences and thought about people on the other side. And I knew that prisons were a feminist issue when I changed a nappy at the entranceway to a prison visitors centre.

* I have a car, and in a crisis situation I like nothing better than I really long to-do list, so I'd gotten myself approved first.

** That's the guard's job

*** A visit that never happened - but the way the corrections department at times seems deliberately set up to make your life worse is a topic for another post.

Ha Ha

I've always said the best bit of any election is the assholes losing their jobs. I can't imagine any victory as sweet as John Howard losing his seat. It isn't confirmed, but his opponent has been ahead all night.

When the sun rises in Australia tomorrow, or a year from now,* It will be the same racist, capialist, misogynist country - run for many and not the few.

But can Winston losing his seat be our election present?

* I shouldn't rule out the possibility of radical social and political change in Australia in the next 12 months - but it seems unlikely enough

One down 10,499 to go...

At least according to Wikipedia.

Clint Rickards is a despicable man, but he is not the problem with the New Zealand police force. When you give people the power he had, some do abuse it, and the consequences of that abuse are devastating.

But what the police do in the course of their duties is almost as bad. It's not just the abusing of police power that we have to be afraid of, but the using of it. Last month's raids are a vivid example of the way police treat those they define as criminals, particularly poor and Maori or Pacific Island, but just a vivid example.

An introduction

I'm cross posting an update I wrote for Alas, a blog I write for with a largely American audience. I thought I'd post it here for people who read this blog from elsewhere

On October 15 the police raided over 60 houses throughout New Zealand. They arrested 16 people on jointly possessing a number of firearms, and one person on drugs charges. From the very first day the police were talking about charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

The raids were brutal, a 12 year old girl had a gun pointed at her head, and when her grandmother tried to comfort her (you can view the 12 year old's comments here. In Ruatoki, a they put a roadblock on the line where the land had been confiscated so many years ago, and anyone who went in and out had to have their photo taken by their car. When one house was raided, the children were locked in a shed for hours by the police while the search was being carried.

Four people were arrested in Wellington; three of those were friends of mine - people I loved. They didn't get bail; they went into the prison industrial complex. Suddenly prisons stopped being an abstract concept to me, and became a reality that I attempted to navigate while trying to visit the prisoners and get them books and money.

But we didn't, couldn't, just do prisoner support, we also needed to stand in solidarity of people who had been attacked, particularly Tūhoe, the iwi that had been targeted in these raids. The four weeks that followed was prisons and driving and meetings and court and protests and meetings and supporting each other and meetings and prisons and court and driving and hugs and tears and and anger and love.

At 4pm, Thursday 8 November almost four weeks after people had been arrested, the Solicitor General announced that no-one would be charged under the terrorism suppression act (these were the first charges ever attempted by the police under the Terrorism Suppression Act). The following day all my friends got bail, and all 16 defendents are now free

I don't think I could describe the sustained joy that started at 4.01 and continued for a week. They were released eleven days ago and I'm smiling right now, because they're out and I can see them whenever I want.

It's joy and a respite, but we've got so much work to do. All 16 are still facing charges under the Arms Act. The Terrorism Suppression Act - which allowed extensive bugging, has just been strengthened. While our friends are out of prisons, those vile instituations still stand, with far too many trapped inside. I still live in a colonised country, where demands for Tino Rangatiratanga and Mana Motuhake are ignored.

I couldn't write much. I was in too much of a whirlwind to know what to say. I'm looking forward to writing more regularly, but what's happened over the last 6 weeks has affected me, and will affect what I write.

I've been promising to write more about feminism in prisons for a while now. While my analysis hasn't changed much, your understanding changes as issues stop being abstract and distanced and become part of your reality, and the reality of those you love. So I imagine those posts will take a slightly different form than they might have two months ago, but will probably be stronger because of it. Most importantly, in the next few days (or weeks) I hope to write an introductory post that'll cover some of the very basic history of colonialism in NZ, and Maori resistance, that I can use a reference point if I want to write more on Alas. I've generally avoided cross-posting what little I do write on Alas, but I think writing about colonialism where I live has resonances beyond, so that I should do the background work to make what I write intelligible.

I can answer questions if people have any, it can be hard to write about what's going on here for another audience, but I think it's worth doing.

Media that don't suck (or suck less than normal)

There was a very good interview with Tuhoe Lambert on 60 Minutes tonight. You can see at least part of that interview here. He was incredibly staunch - particularly when talking about Te Mana Motuhake ō Tūhoe.

The other poweful part of the segment is that detailed the reality of the way people were treated during the raids. What happened to Tuhoe Lambert's whanua is not the worst story I have heard, but it disgusts me and fills me with rage. In a time of small mercies, one of the things that I am incredibly greatful for is that none of the people who were arrested by the armed offenders squad in Wellington were living with children. But in Maori dominated communites the police spread the net much further, so many many children were caught and had guns placed at their heads.

I also can't recommend Radio New Zealand's Te Ahi Kaa enough - although I've only just started to listen to them. There are so many Pakeha voices out there about this, and what Pakeha (including, or especially, me) need to is listen. Te Ahi Kaa is a great place to start

Evidence

The Dominion Post published articles based on the affadavit the police used to get the search warrant for the October 15 raids.

If the Dominion Post was actually interested in a debate over whether or not the raids were justified on the basis of the evidence they could have published the entire affadavit on Stuff. The fact that they did not do this, instead found some cherry-picked pull quotes, demonstrates that they're not actually interested in informed debate, but selling newspapers.

I'm well aware that I don't have any right to object to others publishing information that may prejudice a defendents right to a fair trial.

But what I do object to is that the information presented to gain a search warrants is referred to as 'the evidence' - and there's an argument that there's some overwhelming right to know it. The police have stolen bits of my friends, and many others, for over a year.* They arranged what they'd taken and gave it to the Manakau District Court. The Dominion Post then took what they'd arranged and rearranged it and put it on the front page of the paper.

The entire debate over these documents, is based on the idea that they are 'the evidence' about what happened in the Urewera. I reject that idea, and not just because I know the people. I think there are far more important, accurate and revealing sources about the defendents and their actions (even Jamie Lockett) than what the police have stolen from them. The powerful tell stories about the powerless all the time - a basic part of trying to create a better world is ignoring those stories in favour of the stories the powerless tell about themselves.

* Just for the record I have no idea if any of the quotes the Dominion Post highlighted came from anyone I know.

Another day supporting terorrists

On Monday 15 October I sat in court and heard that my friends were being remanded with consent for days. I was appalled and distraught that they were going to be in jail for that long.

Today has been one of the best days I've had since that Monday, simply because I got to see Val, Em & a 23 year old musician.* In court today we got to show them we love them, we got to be solid with them. Now when someone asks you how you are it isn't to be compared with what life had been, but with our reality now. Seeing them is an automatic ten on my new scale.

PS In other news, I thought the only things that could make me happy involved the words 'bail'. But Joss Whedon having a new TV show comes pretty damn close.

* I sound just like the media, although hopefully not for long. One journalist said "he doesn't look like a terrorist" when my name-suppressed friend entered the dock. She wasn't the first person to say that. Maybe he'll run that as his defence 'I'm white, everyone knows I can't be a terrorist.'

Standing with terrorists

The police have asked the attorney general for permission to charge 3 of my friends, 4 acquaintances and 10 (or 9, or 11) others with terrorism.

I haven't really known how to write about these events. Partly this is because I haven't had time. But also because I can't seem to stick to the political point when thinking about these charges - I keep coming back to who the arrested people are. Most of the reasons I think the police charges are ridiculous isn't relevant to wider political debate about the issues. But I can't get my head away from the fact that some of those arrested wouldn't work together to design a poster.

I have a similar reaction to the Scoop profiles of the arrestees (see Omar Hamed and Rongomai Bailey). These profiles do a very good job of portraying the hard work that those accused of terrorism do, but they set my teeth on edge with their worthiness.

My friends who were arrested can be irritable, self-righteous, impulsive, pig-headed, judgemental, and throw about completely unfounded accusations of Stalinism. Yes, they've all done some really awesome political work, but I've been part of demos with all of them which were complete disasters. Once, one of them was on the megaphone at an anti-bypass demo and said "We're here today in solidarity with the people of Iraq. Oh Shit... Oh Well it's all connected."

There is a point in here, I think. I hated in the Ahmed Zaoui campaign that his worthiness was always a matter of debate. That he needed to be portrayed as a deeply spirtual man who wrote poetry in order to earn his freedom. We lose if we debate on those terms, because we make rights things we have to earn with perfection. Even though I know that some of those arrested are pretty fucking awesome, I don't think it's their awesomeness which means that they should be free, it's their humanity.

You'd think being a blogger who knows and loves 3/17ths of the story of the year would give you an inside running, but instead it makes it impossible to see them as the story of the year.

So instead, all I can say is that my solidarity for those arrested is not conditional. I stand with my friends, because I know they're human, not in spite of that. I stand with those I don't know, because I know they will have strengths and weaknesses just like those I love. Those arrested I don't like? I'll demand their release, and continue to dislike them just as before.

Postal addresses

I've been dealing with the prison system for two weeks now. I was saying that trying to support prisoners is like throwing myself against a brick wall, but I've decided that it is throwing myself against a brick wall.

I don't seem to have any surprise or anger left in me. Each difficulty, each frustration, each blockade in getting the prisoners their most basic entitlements. Incompetence or malice, it doesn't even matter any more (although mostly I don't think it's either, it's a systematic lack of concern for either prisoners and those on the outside who love them). The latest, which wouldn't be the top five most frustrating that I've come against today is about trying to write letters.

I want to write letters to my arrested friends so they know that people love them and they are not alone. I want them to know about the solidarity they have received from around the world. I also need to let them know about practical things; in order to visit a prisoner in Auckland you have to write to them so they can book a visit. I've sent three letters to Auckland Central Remand Prison, all to the wrong addresses.

The address for Auckland Central Remand Prison in the Auckland phone book is 1 Lauder Rd, Mt Eden. The address for Auckland Central Remand Prison on the Corrections Website is PO Box 92625, Symonds Street, Auckland.

The actual postal address for Auckland Central Remand Prison is Private Bag 96925, Symonds Street, Auckland.

It should not be a challenge to write to friends and loved ones in prison. It should not require a toll call; postal address are not a state secret. But I'm beyond being angry or shocked - I'm just printing out extra copies of their letters, so I can send them again.

I'm beginning to wonder if there are agent provocoteurs in the police

Last week the police raided a Maori Women's refuge in Taupo looking for pot. They didn't find any but acted after a 'credible tip off'

Clint Rickards is still on the pay-roll and it's less than two weeks since they invaded Ruatoki.

You'd think that at least one police officer in Taupo would have considered the possibility that this wasn't going to help any.

Quasi Review: Against Freedom: The war on terrorism in everyday NZ life, by Valerie Morse

I wanted to review Valerie Morse's book Against Freedom: The war on terrorism in everyday NZ life. I'd been meaning to for a while, and the events of the last two weeks made it a pressing need. But I can't quite, everything that's happened is too close and too raw to write about the book in full. I have known Valerie Morse since shortly after the war and Afganistan. We disagree on many things politically, but she is my friend, and I care about her a lot. Instead of a review, here are some notes.

This book is a book that I should have read before now, and a book which predicts what happened. When talking about the terror raids she says:

Of course, the GCSB and the NZSIS are not pursuing every email that mentions the near universal desire to kill George W Bush. Rather, the agencies focus on identifiable and often vulnerable targets such as political dissidents and activists, minorities and migrant communities.

The book reads like, it is a polemic. But it's an important polemic about the costs of being part of 'the war on terror'.

I think my main criticism of the book is that it is a little opportunist. For example, she describes Ahmed Zaoui’s detention and the states that he was treated as a ‘common criminal’. ‘Common criminal’ is often synonymous with ‘poor person’. We should not be arguing that Ahmed Zaoui (or those arrested on October 15) should have special treated because they’re not really ‘criminals’ – we should be challenging what actions are designated as ‘criminal’. I’ll tell Val this herself, next time I see her; I’m fairly sure she’d agree with me.

Note for Comments: Comment moderation is still turned on, and I will block any comment that I know breaks suppression orders.

Saturay 27 October - take a stand

Saturday 27 October is a global day of action against the 'anti-terror' raids, and all that has followed. Please publicise these demonstrations.

Auckland: Demonstration Saturday Oct 27th at 12 noon meeting in Aotea Square.

Hamilton: Protest Sat 27th, meet 12 noon @ Garden Place.

Whanganui: Rally and march Saturday October 27th at 12 noon. Meet at the River Traders Market on Moutoa Quay (behind Taupo Quay).

Wellington: Protest Sat 27th, meet 12 noon @ Midland Park. Bring noisemakers and rage.

Christchurch: A solidarity rally and march will be held in Cathedral Square at 12noon on Saturday Oct 27th.

Melbourne, Australia: A solidarity demonstration will be held Saturday 27th in Federation Square, 12noon

No Bail

I sent the two words in the title in so many different text messages.

I really want to write about what's happened this week. But right now my friends are locked up and I miss and love them so much.

We sang Nga Iwi E as we waited for the prisoners to be taken out of court. Until I find my own words, this song is more than strong enough to stand in their place:

Nga iwi e, Nga iwi e
Kia Kotahi ra, Te Moana-nui-a-kiwa

E Tama Ma, E Tama Ma
Tama Tu, Tama Toa, Tama Ora

Wahine Ma, Wahine Ma
Maranga Mai, Maranga Mai, Kia Kaha

Kia mau ra, kia mau ra
Ki te mana motuhake me te aroha