THEATRE may be edifying, entertaining or merely distracting. Mixed with politics, it can become propaganda. The latter two were on display in our district court's trial of Chester Borrows, charged with careless driving causing injury.
Mr Borrows recently made a point of the institutional bias in the criminal justice systembased on race. What he ought also to have acknowledged was bias based on class and privilege, as that too was on display.
Although he admitted causing the injury to Tracey Treadwell, the judge found him not guilty as charged and, outside the court, he seemed aggrieved he'd even been charged.
As a community, and in a crisis, we Kiwis are unfailingly generous of spirit. Put one of us behind the wheel, and a whole other side may come out.
Mr Borrows' oft-repeated claims of protester violence are just that: oft-repeated claims. The only violence on this occasion was in his actions, rationalised by his exaggerated fears. Missing were supporting facts.
Missing was basic physics. Force equals mass times velocity. A 2000kg car with passengers' masses adding 200kg, travelling 1-2 km/hr generates sufficient force to do significant damage to soft tissue of two women standing still in a public driveway.
Missing was any effort by two "fearful" parliamentarians asking the police to move the pedestrians or, indeed, their asking fellow citizens to move.
Missing was any evidence that Denise Lockett and Ms Treadwell were engaged in anything but a lawful protest. The police present saw no need to move them.
Missing was evidence that Mr Borrows sounded his horn in warning.
Missing in the incident and in the trial was any attention to the injury to the women other than acknowledgment that it was Mr Borrows who caused it. Paula Bennett claims she heard the sound, "Ow!" but did not know of anyone's injury. Unfortunately, that attitude is consistent with her chronic difficulty in appreciating the suffering or discomfort of anyone but herself. While Mr Borrows admitted he caused their injuries, he never voiced the slightest modicum of remorse. Chester never so much as whispered that he was sorry he'd hurt Ms Lockett or Ms Treadwell.
Defensive: MP Chester Borrows talks to media outside the Whanganui District Court after being found not guilty of careless driving causing injury. Photo/file
The overwrought presentation of these two MPs making a melodrama of their own fearfulness -- especially Ms Bennett's fears of dildos -- has resulted in the whole affair being trivialised. In fact, it was serious, in that the protest, necessary as it was, could have been prevented by the MPs.
The two women were protesting the TPP in the public path because the Government, contrary to promises -- promises expressly made by Mr Borrows -- did not provide any public consultation on the issue in Whanganui. Trade Minister Todd McClay met in private with the council and Chamber of Commerce. But all attempt at public debate was avoided. Hence the need for protest.
The damage done to the flesh of the victims was ignored, but so was the will of the people, and that damage is to all of us as citizens, no matter whether you agree with National's TPP or oppose it.
Mr Borrows' comments after the trial and in his column (Chronicle, May 12) appear to take issue with the right of citizens to seek redress of their grievances, continuing his concocted narrative of violent protest, rewriting history.
In his self-serving commentary, Mr Borrows shows no sympathy for the injury he admitted causing Ms Treadwell. He goes further to damage the democratic process with predictions that parliamentarians may become more isolated from citizen protest. It's not just tone deafness but arrogant elitism, mirroring his sniffing outside the courthouse at the very thought of his having been charged.
Apparently, in retiring, while you can take the boy out of the Beehive, you can't take the elitist Beehive out of the boy. Methinks in the case of his own protest, Mr Borrows has much to be humble about.
Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.
