Offering simplistic solutions to complex problems

Lara Meyer

Opinion

How many countries can you think of which have far-right, nationalistic or, broadly speaking, populist leaders?

I can think of the following: Hungary, Italy, Russia, Venezuela, many countries in Africa, China, India, Japan, America, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Israel, Switzerland and now New Zealand.

The Oxford Dictionary defines populism as a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established “elite” groups. Those “elite” are often depicted to be the educated or wealthy groups in a society.

Populism is a way of describing leaders who use acts of cynicism and dishonesty to pit one group of citizens against another.

Such leaders offer very simplistic solutions to very complex problems.

They like to describe groups of people as being victimised or the underdog. They appeal to groups who want to preserve a particular way of life or social order thought to have existed in the distant past — often when men made all the decisions and women and people of colour knew their place.

Countries with populist leaders are quite often also very socially conservative, nationalistic, authoritarian, racist, homophobic, transphobic, chauvinistic and sometimes theocratic — church and state blur.

Which of the countries at the top of the page have not seen demonstrations involving a lot of violence? And no, our three-week covid protest two years ago was not a violent demonstration involving tens of thousands of people and mass deaths.

Many of the countries listed above have leaders who use capital punishment to silence dissenters. Some of them meddle with or suppress democratic elections. Some of the leaders use the military or police to exercise extreme force against citizens. Many of the leaders lie to the people through the use of propaganda in education settings, weaken state institutions in support of maintaining power, weaken the judiciary and murder their opposition. Leaders drive a wedge between groups of different races or faiths to divide and conquer.

I can’t think of any country with populist leaders that is a safe and healthy place to live.

The Indian leader Narendra Modi has pitted Hindus against Muslims and thousands of Indians have been murdered as a result.

There are mass shootings in the USA almost every week now, often driven by differences in religion, race or ideology.

I see David Seymour as a cynical populist because he is deliberately seeking to pit people against each other.

Seymour says he does not regard Te Tiriti as a partnership between Māori and the Crown. He has called for a discussion and a referendum about the principles of Te Tiriti.

Interestingly for someone so focused on Te Tiriti, he didn’t front up at Ratana or the recent Hui ā Motu where he could have pitched his ideas.

I don’t think for one moment that tinkering with Te Tiriti is going to lead to greater social cohesion or happiness for our citizens, so why is David Seymour pushing his agenda? I ask myself: “Who benefits from sowing division and stirring up trouble here?”

I think we need to watch our coalition Government closely because there are populists lurking in the Beehive now and I would hate to see our communities be further divided.