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: slander
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 […]
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 […]
The success and failure of Harry Holland’s campaign against conscription
The initial purpose of the anti-German campaign following the sinking of the Lusitania was to boost flagging recruitment to the army. After an initial burst of enthusiasm, recruitment had dwindled […]
The liberal censors extend their reach
The self-appointed liberal censors have struck again in New Zealand. Emboldened by their success in no-platforming the visiting Canadian rightists Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern, and then disrupting a campus […]
Arbitration or Mobilisation: the Battle of Broken Hill begins
Tenth part of Harry Holland and the early labour movement in Australia and New Zealand The ore miners at the Barrier were central to the Australian economy and thus wielded […]
The death of the revolution in China and its re-birth – told in a brilliant new novel
The generation of workers and peasants who made the Chinese revolution in the course of the bitter fight against Japanese occupation in the 1940s has largely passed away. So have […]
How to defend democratic rights and political space – case study of a political victory
Renée Gerlich is a feminist and blogger living in Wellington, New Zealand. She holds that New Zealand was wrong for decriminalising pimps and punters along with prostituted persons in the […]
“Trans women are women” – Identity politics takes aim at women’s emancipation
It’s worth reminding ourselves that once, not so long ago, there was a mass movement for women’s rights – a social and political movement, led by women, that mobilised people […]
A communist at large 