Surviving the class war

Bill Ralston only just makes it through an Occupy protest with lunch and red wine.

Protesters outside SkyCity, photo Greg Bowker/NZH

With the obsessive joy of the Rugby World now a fading memory, I’ve been forced to find a new mania to fill the void and, fortunately, there’s the election campaign. I figured the respective party launches could be viewed as pool games and the televised debates as quarter, semi and finals. Labour kind of ruined the pool round by not actually having a launch, but I scrounged some tickets to John Key’s campaign opening at Sky City, an apt venue when you consider that governments rise and fall on the metaphorical roll of the dice.

As noon approached that Sunday, we wandered into the city and it occurred to me that in Federal St beside the Sky City auditorium was a rather good restaurant, run by chef Al Brown. Lunch first? Why not? The doors to the launch might open at 12 but John Key wasn’t speaking till 2.00pm. After all, at the RWC matches, it wasn’t uncommon to stop somewhere first for a bite and a drink on the way to the ground.

A minor problem was the loud demonstration of around 150 people blocking the entrance to the Depot, chanting “We are the 99%!” I had become adept at wedging my way through RWC crowds so we soon gained entry and a table from which we could watch the angry lumpen proletariat outside. Two carafes of wine and a large serving of brisket later, it occurred to me that I could just as easily follow Key’s opening through Twitter on my iPhone and, even better, our friend Cathy was inside the venue and could report back on the ambience. I txted her.

“Lol. Key’s well thru speech will be there soon,” she replied.
“No rush. We have wine.”

Seconds later she thirstily appeared, ordered a bottle of Moët and filled us in on the demonstrators who had snuck in and briefly interrupted Key’s speech: “Key said, ‘They didn’t have their own opening so they had to gatecrash this one.’ Not a bad ad-lib and the crowd lapped it up.”

My decision to cover the opening from the comfort of the restaurant and bar next door was vindicated; Twitter was abuzz with it all and Cathy provided a bit of colour describing inside the venue. I was ordering a third carafe of red when she suggested popping to the restaurant’s outdoor tables to get a closer look at the demonstration on the street. This proved not a bad idea until, waving her glass of Moët, she began chanting back at the yelling crowd, “We are the 1%.”

Luckily, the demonstrators on the pavement had their backs to us, facing a line of steely-eyed cops, and so this class-war provocation went largely unnoticed, except by a chap with a full-face moko who came over to me.
“Which side are you on, Bill?” he demanded.
“Um, having lunch?”
“I’ve just got out after doing 10 years in prison,” he added comfortingly. Mentally I began working out exactly what offence might earn you 10 years in the pokey and decided it would have to be some form of homicide.
“Go Goff!” I squeaked. He went away.

The majority of the demonstration seemed to come from the freedom campers in Aotea Square’s “Occupy Auckland” movement. “Whose street? It’s our street!” they yelled. It seems they had not only imported the cause from Occupy Wall Street but also the slogans, unless they were simply asserting their rights as ratepayers to Federal St. They could be in a bit of difficulty here as CNN has reported the Occupy Wall Street association has applied for trademarks to the name, variations on the “Occupy” theme and its slogans. Capitalism rears its ugly head in the midst of the uprising masses.

As they chanted the non-copyright “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at departing Cabinet ministers, waving regally from their BMWs, I scuttled back inside for another well-earned drink.

A few days later, as I watched the first TV debate, adjudicator Guyon Espiner raised the question of protests, asking Key and Goff what would get them walking down the street with a placard. Both men blathered something relatively inane, but it got me thinking.

Once upon a time I marched in protests. These were causes like the battle against apartheid, the Vietnam War, and French nuclear testing in the Pacific. The causes were worthy, principled, black-and-white, simple selfless questions of right and wrong.

By contrast, as befits this more modern era, the “Occupy” protests seem entirely self-interested. “Give me more money. Give me your money. You got it, gimme,” appears to be the raison d’être. I guess the only cause I’d carry a placard for now is to protect the right to protest, no matter how venal a protest might be.