Paris Williams

Our task, should we choose to accept it, is to do our best to minimise that harm, to ensure that the cure (which presently consists predominantly of sowing fear, trauma and social division, and the rapidly dismantling our human rights and democracy) is not worse than the disease. One thing we know about human nature is that when we face a crisis head on, with open hearts and open minds, with ‘good-faith’ collaboration rather than ‘enemy-image’ animosity, wholesome solutions invariably emerge.

New Zealanders find themselves caught within a vicious dynamic—two heavily polarised threat responses, with each group seeing the ‘other’ as a selfish and threatening enemy that must somehow be neutralised, and with many members on each side feeling as though they are in a fight for their life.