Today, in Wellington, thousands of normal people peacefully protested the government’s COVID-19 policies.
The protest, reported by RNZ as having approximately 3000 protestors, was much larger, and filled Lambton Quay for 45 minutes, as the crowd marched to parliament.
Unlike previous COVID protests, this march missed the usual kooks and weirdos that has typified protests to date. Missing was the Trump supporter who is of no relevance to New Zealand, and the QANON believers identified with social media crazies. Flags were being flown, but they were New Zealand flags.
Apparently, this was a protest organised by Brian Tamaki, but that self-promoting evangelist was, thankfully, no where to be seen. Certainly, this crowd were not the black-shirt bunch of storm troopers he organised for the Man Up protest.
This group comprised normal people, and seemed a broad spectrum of New Zealand, from young to old. Included seemed a large number of Maoris, and quite a few of the banners identified the bearers as recently unemployed teachers and health care workers.
VACCINE MANDATES AND FREEDOM OF CHOICE
The messages from the crowd were essentially three:
- Vaccine mandates are divisive.
- COVID vaccinations are an individual’s choice and to be coerced into being vaccinated by the mandates is an issue of personal freedom.
- Labour must go
While it’s rare for the masses to spontaneously throw “We love you!” marches for the government of the day, point three above seems par for the course.
The other two issues seem difficult to deny. The mandates ARE devisive, by design. They are deliberately meant to exclude non-passport carrying persons from daily life.
They are deliberately created to shame and humiliate people who chose not to be vaccinated. And they legitimise monitoring and control for those who are vaccinated.
I have never seen a more legitimate cause to protest then the loss of freedom and choice in a democratic society.