Nexus 24 2015

NEXUS MAGAZINE Left vs. Right
RETROSPECTIVE LEFT VS RIGHT
In their last chance to sway readers one way or the other, Left vs Right recap the highlights and lowlights of 2015’s political landscape.
LEFT – MAUI
RIGHT – MATAU
When reviewing the year so far, from the perspective of what has been written
in this side of this feature, it’s impossible to ignore the influence of having a
third term National government in power. That amount of time spent in power,
coupled with a highly popular figurehead and lilliputian support parties at
the table, has coloured the kind of — usually negative — developments I have
written about.
From sucking up to the Great Powers with the mini-militarism of the now
seemingly forgotten Taji deployment and “get some guts”, to the calculated
rollbacks of workplace safety, workers rights and public ownership. The toxic
combination of staying-power and hegemony, coupled with the knowledge
that — despite all indications of opposition weakness — it can’t last forever, has
emboldened the government to act on its ideological bread and butter while
the going is good.
At the parliamentary level, and prior to the sudden recent surge in left electoral
movements, the same has been true for the rest of the Anglophone world, with
right-wing governments pushing their agendas hard.
Despite all this, the news has been far from all bad, the recently finalised
TPP ‘free trade’ deal and its Transatlantic cousin the TTIP have awoken an
international network of protest groups and ordinary citizens who have been
politicised, which will undoubtedly lead to productive troublemaking down the
line. A similar process on an even deeper level can be seen in Europe where the
vicious containment and neutering of parliamentary answers to austerity and
financial crisis like Syriza have only created a strengthened strain of popular
organisation and protest which will probably prove much more difficult for
entrenched power to grapple with when the next wave of dissent comes.
The surprise campaigns of Bernie Sanders in the US and especially Jeremy Corbyn
in the UK are the shadow of that looming discontent with business as usual.
Despite major wins for the right on trade, work, the environment and virtually
everything else, it’s the sense that we’re still living in the time of movements,
protest and experimentation that the Great Recession has opened up, and have
yet to see where it will take us, that most stands out about 2015 so far.
Despite a year of doom and gloom, right wing parties have proven incredibly
resilient around the world. The National party had an altogether average year,
with very few meaningful policy wins. The TPP might have been signed, but it’s
not the trade bonanza that had been hoped, and it doesn’t appear to be the
harbinger of the apocalypse that was promised by every left winger (minus
Helen Clark and Barack Obama inconveniently enough).
Locally, the Labour party have continued their tradition of doing very little,
with New Zealand First and the Green Party dominating as the real voices of
opposition. Aside from bungling around the whole housing crisis and selling out
the unions that they used to represent, Labour haven’t really had any new jobs,
although channelling Don Brash’s campaign recently (condemning National’s
priorities as flags & and pandas, while Labour focuses on jobs) was a nice touch.
As is fast becoming tradition, Australia decided they were a bit sick of their
current Prime Minister, so Tony Abbott got the boot, with the more reasonable
Malcolm Turnbull mounting a successful leadership challenge. The brutal
Australian asylum centres (child abuse and widespread suicide anyone?), were
widely praised in parts of the world as the Syrian Refugee Crisis hit a high point
and countries including Denmark looked at stopping the speed of this mass
migration. As is typical, New Zealand continued its proud tradition of avoiding
the issue altogether — although (hypocritically) we cared a bit about it when
it involved our own citizens. All people are created equally, unless they aren’t
like us apparently.
In the UK the Tories won an election (by a landslide) that they were supposed
to lose. Always suckers for punishment, the UK Labour party decided to help
ensure David Cameron wins the next election, with the appointment of far
left MP Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the opposition. Like Bernie Sanders, the
democratic socialist who is whipping up support across America, Corbyn is a
member of the far left. The policies they promise are excellent — free healthcare,
jobs for all and a generous welfare state — excellent ideas, but very expensive
(although this is a convenient detail that is often excluded).
2016 will be one to watch. Right now the key to success appears to be hands of
government, without the radical changes that the left are so sure we need. It’s
going to be interesting to see how this develops.
8 N.24 / V.47 SUMMER