Dedication


To those that come after me. To those living in the land of my birth in the years after my death. I speak to you so that you will know the truth of my time. I ask that you remember, and that you be better than us.

As I am writing this we are in the 19th month of the genocide in Gaza.

This is the culmination of a process started over a century ago, but it is the current crisis that prompts me now to speak.

For 19 months the leaders of my country have covered their eyes and plugged their ears.

The death count cannot be exactly known but it is vast. The desolation has not discriminated between young and old, fit and sickly, hopeful and despairing, infant, doctor, thief, baker, teacher or student. Many in our country have not known the full extent of what has happened. I only know a fraction of it.

Those in the halls of parliament have known every one of these 625 days. They have turned away. Their inaction has tainted our country and our history with complicity.

It is worth stating that I am not Palestinian. Before October 7th I am not sure if I had ever met a Palestinian. I am a 5th generation kiwi and there was a time when I was proud of that. I speak now in the desperate hope that there will come a time that, if I live to see it, I would feel that way again.

It has been said many times that one day everyone will always have been against this. I want you who come after to know that this was not the case.

Could we have stopped this from happening? The world together - of course; New Zealand on its own - unlikely. But we could have chosen not to turn away. As the destruction progressed and children starved and died we could have reached out a lifeline.

We could - for example - have taken refugees. We could have granted emergency visas to all those in Palestine who are family of citizens or residents and wish to flee. We did this for Ukraine. We still can. Even I - sitting well below the majority in our economy - know that while we may not have it all, we have enough for that.

I am sorry we have not left you a more worthy legacy. You needn’t forgive us, but please try to be better than us. You owe that to each other.

Democracy means that we the people must collectively bear the responsibility for this failure. However, power and accountability must come in equal measure, so I name for you our parliament. May their names be remembered. May their children and their children's children know that in this time and this place, these were the ones who turned away:

The Government

The Opposition

They have, as a body, embraced the lie that morality and empathy need not extend beyond our borders. They chose to fall silent when their duty demanded that they not. They chose to turn away. May their names never be said again in pride or reverence.

To the named Parliament

Maybe you think I have been unfair to you. Perhaps you are an opposition member and feel you have spoken out as much as was required of you. Perhaps you failed in your duty to be informed. Perhaps you are in the government and believe you have done your best to sway your party. Maybe you feel a travel ban on two ministers that had no intention of travelling here is a sufficient response.

From where I stand outside your bubble I see such sentiments as hollow. If you believe you have exhausted your options within parliamentary norms, then the value of those norms has been exhausted. But it is not for me to decide, you can stand by our actions in front of future generations.

19 months of inaction are already written into our nation's history, but what comes next is not. Granting emergency visas is an obvious and necessary next step. How we will get refugees to our shores from the situation we have left them in is a question many times more complicated than it would have been even a few short months ago. That is a cost of your negligence, and the least of its costs.

To those of you who will speak of financial cost I will say this: If this is how it must be, that those who cry for their lives must present their worth in terms of economics, then name for us your price. I do not have all that much but I am prepared to give. How much will you demand for every life so that it can be worth your time? I will do my best to raise it and I know that there are others who would do the same.

To my fellow Kiwi

Is this truly all we are? Can we not even agree that when children beg for their lives it is the duty of all those who hear to help, especially if others don't? We cannot pretend we have no part in it.

The new age has made us all neighbours. We have benefited from trade with those who do this. We have become enablers and collaborators. Will we now look around until we find someone who does less than us and tell ourselves that through them we can wash our hands?

I was raised to believe our country was one of values; our history one of virtues. Maybe you were too. I was told with pride about how we had led the world on woman’s suffrage, how we had opposed South Africa's Apartheid, how we fought on the side against genocide in World War 2.

How far we have fallen.

Now we look out only for ourselves. Now we use ignorance and powerlessness as our shields. We seek them out and pretend they absolve us. We know they don’t, but we’re good at avoiding inconvenient truths.

It is for you to ease your conscience, not me. You must decide what your conscience demands of you, but I do have a request:

I ask you to share this call. Make it so it must be heard, and so that if it is ignored, it cannot be forgotten. Let it be permanently and vividly inscribed into the history of the moment. Find any way you can to prevent the normal function of civil society until this call is heard. There is no civility in turning away. Be peaceful, but not quiet or conciliatory.

The time to act is now, while the ink is not yet dry; while there might yet be - against all odds - bells that still can ring.

Hutia te rito o te harakeke kei whea to kōmako e kō?

I am not claiming to be perfect, I am trying to be better. I have spoken bluntly only to beg to be proven wrong.

Afterword

It is worth remembering that there have been many kiwi doing what they can to get some sort of action to happen. If that is you, this isn’t really about you. This is about the rest of the country.

While I have chosen to focus here on the question of emergency visas, this is of course not the only type of action the government has ignored calls for. Sanctions, action through international courts, and diplomatic pressure have all been asked for and ignored. To date the only financial penalties the government has imposed have been against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). It is obvious that visas will not be enough, and that we must be careful to take refugees in a way that does not legitimise plans to permanently displace the population of the strip. Everything we can do now would have been more effective if they had been done sooner. This is the government's mess and they must now clean it up.

It might seem a bit presumptive of me to attribute our politician’s inaction entirely to a lack of caring. I wish this was an assumption, but it is a conclusion based on observation. In addition to noting just how difficult it would be to not be fully aware of the situation as a politician, I have taken it upon myself to try to engage with them as a citizen from an assumption of good faith. I have not been fully ignored, rather I have been greeted with a steady stream of disinterest, equivocation and buck-passing. It is staggering how even those with objective and direct political power will shrug and claim their hands are tied or squirm and twist in order to ignore even the most simple questions.

I will direct future readers to the outcome of the Petition of Muhammad Dahlan

If you are one of the people who hasn’t been fully aware of what is going on, it is not entirely your fault. Our media has done a truly awful job at keeping the population informed. At this point the sheer amount of information out there can seem overwhelming. I recommend the United Nations Regional Information Center as a good starting point for getting informed.

I apologise if I have come across as sanctimonious or meanspirited in this. My anger and disappointment is real. While I have tried to stay reasonable, and believe I have done so, there may be places I have failed and I am sorry about that.

This document may be updated from time to time. It also may not be. It is intended to capture a moment.

Free Free Palestine.