Right Across the World: The Global Networking of the Far-Right and the Left Response by John Feffer

Author:John Feffer [Feffer, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780745341880
Goodreads: 57550093
Publisher: Pluto Press
Published: 2021-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

Meanwhile, the Ardern government has had to face other major problems, chief among them the coronavirus pandemic. Demonstrating the same kind of firmness, managerial competence, and empathy applied after the March 15 tragedy, the prime minister led a successful effort to radically reduce the infection rate far faster than her European or North American counterparts. In both cases—one a political epidemic, the other a medical pandemic—it showed zero tolerance by jailing right-wing extremists after March 15 and, during the first week of the COVID-19 lockdown, demoting the health minister, who blithely visited a beach.17

Although the COVID-19 response has been more top-down, both efforts received overwhelming domestic support. Ardern’s approval rating rose to 51 percent a month after the Christchurch killings and soared to 65 percent during the coronavirus crisis.18

According to Meng Foon, the New Zealand government also learned from its initial mistake of ignoring the threat of white extremism, and was determined to ensure that its response to the coronavirus was fully inclusive. As a result, the virus did not have a disproportionate impact on people of color so evident in the United States. “I don’t think any person of color has died of COVID-19,” he notes. “Only about 4 percent of the total of those who contracted COVID-19 are Maori and Pacific Islander.”

For Ikhlaq Kashkari, the key commonality has been the quality of the social response. He chokes up when he remembers how many people came out to support mosques in the days after the shootings. “People have gone out of their way to help each other as they did on March 15,” he says. “Our slogan here is: Stay home, stay safe, and be kind. Those three things explain it all.”

While other governments—Vietnam, South Korea, and Slovakia— responded successfully to the coronavirus pandemic, none did so after learning valuable lessons from a successful battle against the global epidemic of right-wing violence.

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