A witch-hunt devastates the Auckland art world
If the artists responsible for the Mercy Pictures exhibition “People of Colour” were setting out to shock and provoke, they certainly succeeded. The show, which recently closed in Auckland, was […]
Category Archives: censorship
Toppling statues, censorship, and erasing history
The first brass head has toppled in New Zealand. On 12 June the Hamilton City Council removed a statue of… Hamilton! British naval Captain John Fane Charles Hamilton, veteran of […]
Arthur Thomas, the presumption of innocence, and the dangers of name suppression
If anyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence today, it is Arthur Allan Thomas. In 1971, and again at a re-trial in 1973, Thomas, a Waikato dairy farmer, was […]
Defend the right of women to meet and organise politically!
Massey University capitulates to the self-appointed censors – and another democratic institution slides towards the abyss In an extraordinary display of political cowardice, Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand, has […]
If this is how you propose to defend free speech, then freedom of speech is in grave danger
An open letter to Jan Thomas, Vice-chancellor of Massey University. Massey University in Wellington is the venue for an event on 13 November called Feminism 2020, organised by Speak Up […]
The Holodomor in Ukraine and the obfuscations of “Mr Jones”
Few countries in the world suffered more than Ukraine in the twentieth century. One of the nations of the Soviet Union favoured with fertile soils and bountiful agriculture, geography made […]
Land, labour, and epidemic diseases – two articles on capitalist penetration of the Pacific
When the deadly epidemic of influenza swept the world in the months following the end of the Great War of 1914-18, the toll it took in the Pacific Islands was […]
An early New Zealand rightist movement built on religious hatreds
While Alliance of Labour leader Arthur Cook lent his support to the Communist Party, another leader of the Alliance of Labour, its President Matthew Joseph Mack, was embracing a different […]
Facing the misogynist character of the Christchurch terror attack
What is the connection between the shocking terrorist crime committed in Christchurch a week ago by an individual sociopathic thug, and the social psychosis of contemporary capitalist society? Since the thug was clearly acting in accord with his […]
Shockwaves of the October revolution reach New Zealand
In March 1917, just as the New Zealand military campaign in Europe was getting bogged down both militarily and politically, a popular uprising overthrew the czar of Russia. For three […]
A communist at large 