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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 25. No. 12. 1962

Directive Myths

Directive Myths

The overwhelming majority of New Zealanders are wage worker small farmers and businessmen, who do not enrich themselves by exploiting others' labour. Those who do—the owners of capital, and particularly the big monopolies, are in a small minority. But their economic power gives them control of the machinery of state which they use in order to maintain their sacred right of exploitation, and it is essentially for this task that the Brigadier and his Security Police are employed. When one considers that the decisive sections of New Zealand's economic resources are owned by foreign monopolies, it is indeed also pertinent to ask—just who is under foreign control? It is notable that when Dean Rusk cracks the whip, Mr Holyoake jumps, as in the matter of sending troops to Thailand during the Laos crisis. And when public pressure is mounting for increased trade with the socialist bloc and against U.S. nuclear tests in the Pacific, hey presto! the Security Police oblige with a spy scare. The 'directives" to New Zealand Communists "from none other than Lenin and Stalin themselves" of which the Brigadier speaks, are as mythical as the power of U.S. big business over the New Zealand Government is real; and the paraphernalia of McCarthyism, Security Police and all concomitant of that power.

Thus, when the Brigadier voices warnings about "Communist front representations" he borrows both favourite term and a favourite method of intimidation from Senator McCarthy. The object of this labelling is two-fold, as has been shown in the U.S.A. Firstly, it provides a legal basis for persecution of those who support the objectives of these organisations. Secondly and consequently, it thereby intimidates people from joining them, or even mentioning support for their aims. For then one becomes suspect, and the law of the suspect has no end—I am suspect, thou art suspect, he is suspect. If one struggles for higher wages, better conditions of work; if one supports the need for strong trade unions the right to homes, to economic security and a peaceful future—one is suspect; because, you see, these things are all advocated by Communists. The consequences for the suspect may well be the loss of his job through Security pressure on his employer. At a later stage, perhaps worse.