David Seymour and Me: part 4
The saga
When I first started writing the David Seymour and Me Saga, I thought I’d do it chronologically - start back in February of 2023 when ACT started their attacks on me. As I’ve written these pieces, I’ve danced around in time because creepy things keep happening.
In my last installment, I addressed Todd Stephenson - ACT’s spokesperson for Arts Heritage and Culture - and his threat to Creative New Zealand (and the funding of artists up and down Aotearoa).
My ‘map’ for this saga, was to go back to the death threat I received in February (immediately after ACT’s first attack via media), then to cover the complaints to the Race Relations Commission and the NZ Media Council by ACT’s acolytes in March, then ACT’s Official Information Act on me in June.
Oh, what a year 2023 was.
Recently, someone suggested I should not continue writing about this. Perhaps, I’m just stirring things up, making things worse. Wouldn’t it be better if I stopped writing about this and left it alone?
And my answer to that is a big Hell To The No!
Why? Because I will continue to speak my truth to power - despite threat, hate and judgement (from the outside) or my own fear (from the inside). When I stop speaking my truth to power, I am robbed of my voice. Without my voice I have no strength. Without strength, I have no hope.
The first time round, I had no platform from which to speak. Social media put me at too much risk - all the hateful comments and no way of screening them. A number of media outlets (that were previously happy to publish me) would not publish my response to ACT’s accusations. I was effectively silenced.
(Later on, The Big Idea, Pantograph Punch and Susana Leiataua on RNZ gave me a platform, which I am grateful to them for, but right at the time, there was nowhere safe for me to have the right of reply.).
This time I have a platform. It’s not a big one, I don’t have thousands of readers. ACT have money, power, and an extremely loud voice that forces it’s narrative onto the public via media all over the country. ACT’s has been the only narrative. The single booming voice proclaiming: Tusiata Avia is a hate-fueled racist who wants to kill white men and is being supported by Creative New Zealand to do so.
Great story. All the misogynistic racists rub their hands together with glee. People who know no better accept it as fact.
This time, I have a platform here. It’s not a big one but I have a voice. It’s not Aotearoa at large who can hear me but I get to respond to what happens in the moment. And I also get to use my own language - poetry.
***
Edict from the Self-appointed Arbiter of All Art Permitted in New Zealand
From now, till the end of days, all poems will be about landscape
not native landscape, no ‘ti kouka’ with their race-baiting leaves
or if this tree must be mentioned, it will be – from here on and forever more –
referred to as cabbage tree
not ‘kapeti’, but cabbage. CABBAGE.
From now, till the blonde Christ returns from the blue skies
all paintings will hark back to English pastoral scenes
such paintings will be set in New Zealand
I repeat, NEW ZEALAND
Not ‘Aotearoa’.
That word is next on the list of words for permanent extinction.
Art will be set in New Zealand but only in approved and appropriate landscapes
naked as the shorn indigenous sheep.
The sheep is now, and forever more, to be known as the indigenous animal of New Zealand
not the kiwi (note to self: rename the kiwi).
Music will be from the following categories:
Songs of praise to the approved political parties
(ACT, ACT and ACT)
Music that can prove a genealogy back to the motherland
(note to self: remove the word ‘whakapapa’)
Music the deputy prime minister can play at his rallies
(note to self: change that to Deputy Prime Minister of the Second Regime of the People’s Republic of New Zealand).
No other form of art will be permitted.
All art must undergo stringent tests to determine whether they are acceptable to the Arbiter of All Art
otherwise known as the Deputy Prime Minister of the Second Regime of the Greater New Zealand Reich.
Such tests will include, but not be limited to:
hog-tying of artists’ hands and feet
tossing of hog-tied artists into a lake or pond
artists who sink and drown will be pronounced approved artists.
Approved artist’s work will be shown in regime galleries
played on regime radio stations and websites
published, both online and in hard-copy, by regime-approved publishers.
End of edict.
Last year, I discussed THAT poem with my year 13 English students and I will do so again along with a discussion of all the rhetoric and commentary surrounding it. I will tell them, as I tell them with everything we discuss, that they do not need to like/agree with or even fully understand a text. They can hate it/dislike the strength of language, the powerful language and they can disagree with the themes. They can be challenged and they can choose to think it is racist. All of that is fine. They can even think it is not good poetry. However, what they cannot do is go down the path of trying to ban it or to silence the power of your truth. Death threats, ACT and others sending out hateful, spiteful, racist, bigoted and misogynistic tweets and posts have NO place in Aotearoa. We are not Nazis. As a teacher, a writer, a feminist woman and one who knows far too much about stupid people trying to knock down other people's beliefs and mahi, I will forever support you (unless you start advocating for kitten killing.)
Backing down to bullies rewards their bad behavior.......backing down to fascists creates complicity. Fuck that. Xxx ❤️