I’m not a particular fan of Golriz Ghahraman, at times she’s a bit of a loose unit in ways that tend to get excused by the left. But she brings useful experience to the Green caucus and parliament and is an experienced MP.
She is also an MP who is subjected to some of the worst misogyny and racism from the reactionaries who appear to delight in attacking a political opponent who is also female and brown. This is still a huge issue for women online and in public life, and the abuse compounds for women of colour. Sometimes it’s blatant, other times it’s hard to tease out from the surrounding political abuse, but I think we can take it as a given that it will be happening now, that its wrong and that New Zealand society has an increasing problem of misogyny and racism.
I also believe that it is intentional beyond the inherent racism and misogyny, because it is a potent political tool. At the most obvious level it makes becoming an MP unattractive for many people who would bring more diverse perspectives to parliament and upset the patriarchal hegemony. Or it makes it harder for existing MPs to do their job, or stay in politics.
Yesterday it was reported that Ghahraman has been accused of shoplifting, and the Greens have stood her down from all portfolio responsibilities until this is resolved. I don’t have much to say about that, mostly because we know hardly any details.
Meanwhile, we can glean some things about the political context.
For instance, the RNZ link above is a reprint from the NZ Herald, and includes this paragraph,
According to sources, Ghahraman is understood to have been accused of shoplifting during the festive season from exclusive boutique clothing store Scottie’s Boutique in the electorate of fellow Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick.
There is no explanation for why the electorate of the alleged offence has relevance, nor the relevance of it being the electorate of Ghahraman’s MP colleague. Are we supposed to take an implication here? I don’t think there is an implication, but my brain did automatically go there when I first read it. Funny that.
The writer of the original piece at NZH is Philip Crump, who happens to be the founder and editor of NewsTalkZB Plus (or whatever alphabet soup they’re using currently). I wonder if there is an implication to be made from that? Feel free to consider if there is an actual connection rather than just an absurd, meaning-free political slur. Here’s his substack if you want to see if he is politically biased to the right or against the Greens.
Nick of @StrayDogNZ on twitter has pointed out the connections between the original blogger of the shoplifting story, Marc Spring, and Dirty Politics key player [link] Cameron Slater,
Whatever the outcome of the shoplifting story is, the blogger responsible for ‘breaking’ the story sure has it out for Golriz. He’s been pushing for her to leave NZ since last year. This has the Whale Oil stink of dirty politics all over it.
…
And sure enough, Marc Spring and Whale Oil’s Cameron Slater go way back. This Golriz story is Dirty Politics 2.0
Lprent has written about Dirty Politics here at The Standard in the past, here’s Marc Spring’s tag for posts that include him. The post Whale Oil – the book is particular pertinent here.
Is this Dirty Politics? At this stage, who knows. I’m not aware of any NACTF government involvement, nor of a connection between Crump and Spring. Maybe they acted off their own bat, it’s certainly possible that someone involved in the shoplifting allegation contacted Spring and that is all there is to it. Nasty pol rather than Dirty Politics itself. Likewise, there are journalists willing to skew the narrative because of personal politics or clickbait.
But given the history, why would we assume that there isn’t something else going on? One of the features of Dirty Politics is the two tracks, the background one that the public doesn’t know about, and the foreground one that we do.
Dirty Politics since its inceptions has been well orchestrated and caused serious problems for individuals and New Zealand’s political culture and society generally. It has undermined trust in the political process, and this too in my opinion is intentional. Less trust equates to more chaos, and the new right are adept at manipulating that towards reactionary rather than democratic politics. That empowers the right and often leaves the left struggling to makes sense of what the fuck is going on.
Time will tell here, but I hope that whatever the truth about the allegations, Ghahraman and the Greens are able to work through this unscathed and with due process.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress