Source: Asia Pacific Report
COMMENTARY: By Saige England
I cast my vote. Did it today. And I resisted the temptation to dance around the voting floor yelling the rebel yell.
I restrained myself. Just. Do we need change? Hell yeah.
I came home and played and danced. My election play list goes like this:
First up Donovan’s “It Must Be The Season of The Witch”.
- READ MORE: Do Palestinians in Gaza expect anything to change after Israel’s election on Tuesday?
- Other Gaza genocide reports
- Other NZ election reports
Because I know my own power and I want you to know your power. The power to change. To cast a spell. Voting is your rebel yell.
Then I played Zu Asche, Zu Staub:
The reason? It is the theme tune from Babylon Berlin a neo-noir series set in the latter years of the Weimar republic. The multi award-winning programme features a young woman who yearns to be a reporter (my former self), and a heroin-addicted detective during the rise to power of the fascist regime in Germany — featuring real street scenes.
The shocking aspect is that the emergence of a fascist regime was slippery and barely noticeable. Sound familiar. Sounds like now? Sounds like something to watch and watch out for? Yes.
Genocidal dictators
Oh, it is so so easy for the world to fall into the hands of genocidal dictators.
And then I turned to Psycho Killer because I resist normal.
Because as a young woman I fell, I developed reactive depression. And it was hard getting back up. And I don’t want life to be that hard for other young people who don’t fit. Who won’t fit. Why the hell should they?
My advice to them is not to run away but to demonstrate rebellion by voting against this rotten coalition.
Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer’ reminds me that I loathe “normal” because to me “normal” means conforming in a society is so abnormal it celebrates the strong and punishes the vulnerable.
It also reminds me that I want people like me to live. To be able to live. To feel accepted. To not be shunted to the margins.
And that led me to Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”.
“And when you’re out there, out there, well I was out of touch. Well it wasn’t because I didn’t know enough. I just knew too much.”
I just knew too much.
Criminal Coalition
We know what this criminal Coalition has done. We know. And we can’t look back.
I’ve written these last years about the injustices, about the vile support for a horrendous genocide by our leaders who defy the United Nations by refusing to call a genocide a genocide.
I’ve been deemed the enemy of this state but at least I’m alive. If I was in Gaza I would have had a target on my press vest. For reporting the truth. I stand by those fallen colleagues. More than 260 journalists — women and men, mothers, fathers, killed for reporting the truth. Unlike most of our media.
I was only pepper sprayed and banned from my own Town Hall and ghosted on social media.
But I am the proud member of Free Palestine — a political party that was formed by Christchurch schoolteacher Paul Hopkinson to push other parties to do the right thing. To stand against a genocide.
That is what the Free Palestine Party represents — the do the right thing party. And the Green Party and Labour Party responded.
The Free Palestine Party is the only party that came out with a reel “Don’t vote for us” presented by party member and candidate, Will Alexander.
In forming the party the members met with the people of Gaza, people speaking from tents. People returned to the desert. People who have lost people.
Party faced pushback
Before its launch, the party has received pushback from those who think it is very Jewish to support a genocide. I have news for them. It is not Jewish to support a genocide. It is Zionist and fascist.
The campaign launch was threatened with disruption. The launch went ahead.
Acclaimed Ngāi Tahu poet Ariana Tikao read her poignant distressing poems about Gaza, from her pukapuka, “Pepeha Portal”.
Beads of war a rosary
turning round and round
between his finger and thumb
touching each one as
it circulates like oxygen
in blood evidence of atrocity
lay on the floor
on the whenua
in the red red rock at Ōnawe
like stains on the body bags
in Gaza gagging my throat
as they carry her away
without ceremony I see
the dead in the eyes of
the bereft:
“ka mate au i taku tangata”
The party launch was a feel good launch of people doing the right thing for Palestine. And at last other parties have responded. But not this Coalition. A coalition complicit in pushing down and out.
My final song on my playlist is Macklemore’s “The Free Palestine Song” which means, as he says, equality for all.
He has also written and performed: “Hind’s Hall” — Hind Rami Iyad Rajab is the five-year- old Palestinian girl who cowered in a car, crying — crying that she was scared.
Force of genociders
That five-year-old girl was killed by the IDF — the offensive force, the force of genociders. That mercenary military force also killed six members of Hind’s family and two paramedics coming to her rescue.
She is one of more than 22,000 children killed by the IDF. At least 77,036 people have been killed in Gaza, the West Bank, and related operations since October 7, 2023, according to data reported by the Gaza Health Ministry and Israeli Foreign Ministry up to August 2026.
At least 1208 total deaths have been recorded in the West Bank, which includes over 254 children. The Zionist state has also invaded Lebanon, killing more than 4000 people have been killed. Oh and the Zionist state is playing team tag with the US, it has its eyes on the prize of the Pacific.
More than its eyes — its hands and feet and guns.
And is it any wonder that this Coalition plays team tag with toxic leaders? It values the value of stripping the environment. Mining. Draining the sea bed.
The planet is crying. Our land is beautiful and it will bleed if this continues. It is bleeding now.
As Macklemore says in “Free Palestine”:
“The word genocide is such a point of contention for some, that it’s more hurtful than seeing dead babies being pulled out of the crumbled cement and the dust.
“Comparative suffering leads to the lie there’s a them and an us. It’s a lie. We don’t own this earth,’ he says.
“We are just guests here, my love.”
Banned, but alive
And he was banned. Canned. But he’s alive. And this government, our New Zealand government, has joined all the toxic governments of this cruel world who won’t call a genocide a genocide.
I call down this coalition of cruelty.
I’ve seen it punch down on people with disabilities.
I’ve seen it try to evaporate the Waitangi Tribunal — the means for redress for Māori who lost land and forests and mahinga kai, Māori who were pushed to the margins.
Māori incarcerated.
Colonisation is a cruel system. This coalition is oppressing some to support others. Māori deserve a real and fair chance.
Ditto Pasifika.
Ditto all people queuing for jobs. All the people being ghosted when they apply for jobs.
All the broken lives and broken hearts.
I’ve seen the coalition push people who are on the margins off the margins and over the edge.
I’ve seen our politicians blame everyone but themselves for this mess.
Does that make me crazy? Probably. But I’m glad. I’m proud.
My right to vote
And I’ve exercised my right to vote. A right I have thanks to women like my three times grandmother and two times grandmother voting for a law change on the suffrage petition.
Thank you to all the many women who stood up for the right for women to vote.
And thank you to all the people of the past who stood up for the right of all people to vote — not just the toffs but the common people but the people of the land.
I don’t like to tell people what to do.
I like people to educate themselves.
But I’ve also seen the cons, the lies, the way narratives get skewed.
This Coalition has been undemocratic, pushing people down and out, making it more — not less — difficult for voters to vote.
Change for good
So I’m calling it. Vote this cruel coalition out.
We need a change for good.
We need to heed the call of our beloved land and waters.
We need to take responsibility for ourselves and all vulnerable people.
Liberty and Responsibility.
If you heed the rebel call at all you will vote this year.
Exercise that right. Prove that they can’t pull the wool over your eyes anymore.
Prove you know too much. Vote them out.
Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.