The peasant’s revolt, or more accurately, brave young women’s public protests currently underway against their respective authoritarian regimes in Iran and now China, are sadly doomed for opposing reasons.
With Xi Jinping it will be ended in China by the despotic President’s underlying pragmaticism which will see him relax the ludicrous attempted crushing of Covid by locking everyone up idiocy. It’s not analogous to Hong Kong 3 years back which simply saw the territory brought into the central government’s administrative fold.
We’re well familiar with that here with Jacinda’s daily broadcast to our slavishly subservient public which authoritarian nonsense was based on her assurance she was going to eliminate the virus. In my view that woefully meek submission was the most shameful episode in New Zealand’s history. Today, finally adopting the pragmatic Swedish live with it model, it’s silence from Jacinda.
In Iran the courageous protesting women are fighting supernaturalist fanatics in the form of unelected mystics who believe they have a duty to control female behaviour because Allah said so. The only way they can be beaten is not by protest, but by guns, specifically shooting the brain-dead soldiers currently happy to shoot the protesters.
History repeatedly shows, seemingly daily today in Africa, that soldiers are only effective if no-one shoots back, but when that occurs, they break speed records running away. In the post-war years the only conspicuous exception was Vietnam.
But who will arm the Iranian women? The nation with the greatest interest in doing so is surely Israel to eliminate its greatest threat, the Iranian fanatics openly asserting their goal being to eliminate Israel. Currently the Israelis have concentrated on successfully knocking off Iran’s nuclear scientists, but sooner or later some will survive and complete building nuclear weapons.
At the root of all of these universal troubles, be it the ill-fated, ill-considered Jacinda Joan of Arc fantasy, or authoritarianism world-wide, lies the craving by some people to order others about.
6 Comments
In my wildest imaginations I never saw the 1984 labour government morphing into this totalitarian minded group of “ne’er do anthing” numpties so keen to order us about.
I truly think that their policies are desgned to feed their own personal inferiorities.
I had a math teacher in the 5th form, Mr Mathison from memory, who stated there was no such thing as an inferiority complex, if you felt inferior you were.
ardern’s government is certainly inferior to any previous government in New Zealand.
Yes Sir Bob, so true about the courageous women of Iran, and Russia, and China. They protest against actual evil in the knowledge that this activism may kill them.
Unlike our shrieking mobs of environmental ‘warriors’ who know damn well there will be no consequences for their actions.
About Sweden and lockdowns. Yes we’re now following the Swedish model (and I like the idea of a Swedish Model as much as the next man – but I digress). Back to covid; our 2020 lockdown occurred when we were 100% unvaccinated, we didn’t even know if a vaccine was coming, and we also didn’t know what the mortality/infection rate of the virus would be. I thought at the time it was the right thing to do.
Sweden; population 10M, didn’t lockdown and 21000 people died. NZ did lockdown and lost 2100. So Sweden’s per capita death rate is 5 times ours. Or 8000 people are alive who would have been dead (if we’d followed that lovely Swedish Model).
I still think the 2020 lockdown was correct.
PS has anyone else noted how hot Finland’s PM is? Goddammit she’s like a Swedish Model.
You need to wait a little as NZ is experienciong a slow but steady number of fatalities related to Covid. The final caomparison based upon ‘excess deaths’ as per recent WHO studies may well tell a very different story.
Yes, good point Michael, I note 58 deaths last week alone and infection rate climbing. There are plenty more fatalities to come for NZ. So yes, we will probably need a historical perspective, say 10 years from now, to gain a full understanding of what’s happened.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
Richard, appreciate your perspective, but I’m not sure you can make a direct comparison on lives “saved” like that. I was undergoing cancer treatment at the time and the lockdown had a big impact on access to healthcare. I am only one of many and I have no doubt that there was significant collateral damage then and will be much more to come in terms of reduced preventative care, particularly with now entrenched longer wait times. You could reasonably argue that there was a need for action to prevent the spike in demand in care from covid but they didn’t seem to make any great progress in preparing facilities with the time it bought.
I guess you have to balance the measures to get the greatest overall benefit. I think the Swedish system overall will look pretty good. Would be nice if the Government would allow a full enquiry into the response so we could plan better in the future. I agree with Sir Bob’s suggestion the public were too accepting of authoritarian overreach into actual accepted civil rights (not the made-up ones).
Gavin, See my comments in my reply to Michael. But I’ll just add;
a 10 year review of the pandemic and the various responses to it will be valuable. I think it’s too early now for a review. The pandemic itself isn’t over and certainly the ecomic impact of the many and varied national responses can’t yet be quantified.
The WHO will probably do a definitive review eventually but they may not include economic and effects such as those you refer to in our health system. The IMF may eventually cover that.
Anyway best wishes for your own health journey Gavin. Hope it goes well.