Blackballing Pedophiles

Recent events involving public naming and attacking of pedophiles and alleged pedophiles show an increasing anxiety and fear amongst the community but what are these fears really about, who benefits from their promotion and are they grounded in fact?

In the last month there have been two incidents involving the subject of pedophilia which have gained national attention in the media.

The first involved a man who had been released from jail after serving a sentence for sexual offences against children. He moved to Blackball on the west coast of the South Island. The name of the town (also famous for previous trade union militancy) proved to be prophetic. The police wrote to the local schools warning that this man might be a threat to local children. News soon got out to the local community and some of the citizens decided on some good old vigilante activity. The media of course played its usual role of shit stirring and helping the hysteria along. The cops seemed to play their usual game as well, calling on citizens to act responsibly whilst not doing a lot to stop any action taken against the man in question. Eventually he decided to cut his losses and flee from the town, rightly fearing for his life.

There use to be a principle (albeit largely fictional) that once a person had served there time they should be allowed to have a chance to get on with their life. But even the pretense of this principle seems to have gone out the window when it comes to certain offences.

Statistics show that sexual offenders have one of the lowest rates of re-offending of people who go to prison. You wouldn’t know that from the way the media and police carry on. If they are to be believed then every sex offender is a walking time bomb ready to grab the nearest child.

When burglars, car thieves and drug dealers are released from prison the media and cops aren’t out there warning the community (nor should they be). But a special case is made for sex offenders.

The other important fact to remember about sex offenders is that most sexual abuse occurs within the family. The stranger offender is relativity rare.

The other incident which has occurred more recently was an anonymous leaflet sent out in the Wellington suburb of Whitby where it was alleged a person living in an IHC home was a sex offender. There was no foundation to this spineless attack and even the cops circulated a letter saying the rumour was untrue. What was interesting was that when the local police commander was interviewed he said that people have to be careful with such leaflets and allegations. We can take it from that the cops think it is OK as long as you have a real sex-offender!

This sort of incident would not have happened ten years ago. Is this happening now because there are so many more sex attacks on children by people? No, the rates of these types of offences have remained mercifully low.

The media were, or course, quick to wring their hands and display a great concern about people taking matters in to their own hands. The irony is that they are part of the whole problem. They are quick to stir the pot when it suits them.

The case of the person in the IHC home illustrates how quick some people are to jump to conclusions and then feel they have the right to make allegations and even go further by distributing their poison.

How have we got to this point in 2005? Surely in these rational times one would have thought that such witch hunt tactics would garner no or little support. But the reality is we do not live in rational times. We live in a time when there is much fear and uncertainty.

The term witch hunt comes from the famous witch trials of Salem in 17th century America. Here innocent people were accused of being witches by people who had their own agendas (land grabbing, jilted lovers etc.) The wonderful play The Crucible by Arthur Miller is both powerful in it’s depiction of the mass hysteria of that time and making the historical parallel to a contemporary witch hunt. Miller’s play was a carefully crafted metaphor for the McCarthy communist witch hunts of the 50s and 60s.

These two witch hunts are just two examples (perhaps the best known) but there are countless other examples of such panic attacks. At the same time McCarthy was hunting for communists there was a huge gay moral panic in Idaho in the United States which resulted from the abduction and rape of two boys. Gay men in that town were rounded up and sent to mental institutions. In his book Sex-crime Panic – A journey to the paranoid heart of the 1950s” Neil Miller paints a picture of a community in the grip of panic and fear.

We could go on and on with examples of such panics and witch hunts. In our own time it is not just pedophiles and alleged pedophiles who are the target of witch hunting. We can’t forget it is election year and so it’s time to have a go at immigrants again. Winston Peters and Rodney Hyde are particularly good at finding a potential terrorist lurking behind every tree or at the very least some overstayer who is going to take the job off a hard working kiwi bloke or blokess.

And it isn’t just Act and New Zealand First who push this poison. National has jumped on the bandwagon and the Labour government fearing a public backlash has joined the heartless brigade.

Who really benefits from these sorts of witch hunts and are the public really just a bunch of pitch fork waving yokels who will be roused to attack their neighbour on the mere suspicion of them being an illegal immigrant or pedophile?

Fortunately there are many people (perhaps the silent majority) who are not sucked into this sort of panic. Not long ago a man was released from prison and ended up working in a library in Christchurch. The media tried to work up a story, but when they interviewed people on the streets, the reaction was “well, he’s done his time and he should be given a chance.” The story died – score resulting – common sense1 – Media sensationalism – Nil!

Even the recent events in Blackball where the media assured us the Whole community seemed to be united against this person was not all black and white. A public meeting called to voice concerns was attended by about 50 people. Blackball is small but not that small.

There are many people like those mentioned above in Christchurch who take the view that people should be treated as humans and given a chance. What stops these people speaking out more often is the fear that people will label them as pedophile sympathizers or worse still pedophiles themselves. This fear is well grounded. In Salem those who tried to stop the witch hunts found themselves labeled as witches themselves, likewise in McCarthyist America if you thought red-baiting was wrong then your politics were suspect.

The real agenda of the new right in pushing hysteria on these issues is to divert people away from the real enemy, the capitalist system. The abuse of children is a product of a system that founds itself on the exploitation of people. It is this system which keeps the bourgeois family alive, where family life is a source of gender oppression and repression of the rights of children. It is capitalism that leads to the abuse of children, be it sexual, physical or emotional. There will be no end to the suffering of children until there is an end to capitalism.

As Marxists we must consistently identify the real enemy and speak out against these witch hunts at every opportunity. We must also strive to point out that the real enemy is the capitalist system which is the real cause of exploitation whether it is against children or adults.

From Class Struggle 61 May-June 2005

THE HYPOCRISY OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

What do the following state actions have in common?

The Commissioner for children calls for an inquiry into child prostitution.

Govt sets up the Police Complaints Authority to investigate complaints against the police.

Govt passes a Bill of Rights to protect the rights of people.

Govt funds organisations that go into schools to warn our young people about the dangers of drugs.

Govt passes a law to prosecute people who have sex with children overseas.

All of the above are examples of the state legislating for morality to supposedly ban or overcome the causes of antisocial behaviour and establish and defend social or political rights – otherwise known as ‘political correctness’.

The reality is that such acts of state moralism are more often than not hollow and meaningless and do nothing to change and improve our lives and conditions. In fact, they are often worse than doing nothing at all since they give us the impression that we have achieved something and that our lives will somehow be enriched by these acts. Meanwhile they provide are a cover for the immorality of capitalist society.

Of course, we do not oppose official state actions in defence of individual and social rights as the far right Libertarianz do. They think that these rights automatically occur in the marketplace, and do not need to be defended by any political action.

We on the other hand know that the state supports a system that oppresses workers and suppresses their rights so that they can be exploited. So we have no illusions that the state can be part of the solution when it is part of the problem.

We think that such rights can only be defended by the working class because it has an interest in defending these rights to enable it to overthrow the root cause of oppression, capitalist society.

Let’s take a tour through the above examples of official political correctness and demythologise them.

1. Child Prostitution

Due to the media highlighting of a couple of incidents recently the commissioner for children, Roger McClay, has called for an investigation into the rise of child prostitution. The desired outcome will be taking measures to combat the rise in child prostitution.

What rank hypocrisy! Roger McClay was a member of a National Government that slashed benefits, introduced the Employment Contracts Act and introduced market rents for State Housing tenants. Those are just three examples of the sorts of right wing policies that McClay and his mates introduced in the 90s that had a devastating impact on the lives of working people. Poverty increased, people couldn’t afford to pay their rent, and making ends meet has continued to be a daily struggle for thousands of New Zealanders.

The impact has inevitably filtered through to the young of this country, whose employment futures continue to be bleak. If child prostitution is on the increase then the inquiry McClay wants should point the finger right back at the perpetrators of poverty which leads to young people selling themselves for sex. The politicians like McClay and their Big business friends who wanted to have tax cuts and legislation that enabled them to better exploit their workers. That’s where the blame lies.

Of course, that’s not going to happen, such an inquiry will probably recommend more funding for the police and other symbolic actions designed to make us feel like that something is being done. The reality is nothing will change, at least for the better. As the gap between rich and poor grows, child prostitution will continue to grow.

2. Police Complaints Authority

The Labour Government of 1984-90 introduced The Police Complaints Authority to oversee complaints against the Police. The idea was that the Authority would be independent and would be able to investigate complaints against the police in an impartial way. One of the incidents that gave rise to this was the battening of the "Clowns" during the Springbok Tour of 1981. In the end the "Clowns" had to resort to civil action to get any sort of justice.

Yet, the Police Complaints Authority has been an utter failure on just about every front! Complaints are mainly investigated by other policeman, sometimes not even removed from the complaint. One notable case involved a policeman investigating a complaint about a search on which he was present. Currently the PCA has not yet reported on the Police Inquiry which cleared the killer of Steven Wallace more than a year after his death (see separate story).

The findings of the Authority are almost always in favour of the police and when they aren’t the penalties dished out to errant policemen and women are little more than a slap over the wrist with a wet bus ticket. Anti-crime Minister Phil Goff recently revamped the PCA to replace police investigators with retired police investigators as if this will make it more ‘independent’ of the Police.

Many lawyers now tell their clients not to bother pursuing a complaint to the authority. There have even been cases where people have again had to resort to legal action to get a decent resolution. The irony of this is that it is exactly what the PCA was supposed to put an end to.

3. The Bill of Rights

The Bill of Rights was passed by The Labour Government of 1984-90. It was intended to enshrine the basic rights of people from political interference.

Yet, since 1984 more and more rights have been lost by people in this country despite the Bill of Rights. The Bill of rights has become a hollow meaningless bit of paper. Because it is not entrenched (needing a two third majority of Parliament to overturn it) other legislation can easy override it. Paul Swain is busy introducing some of the most draconian spying legislation that will give wide sweeping powers to the Police and Intelligence agencies to not only spy on data transfer but actually enter into people’s computers and retrieve information.

For the police it is business is usual. "What’s the Bill of Rights?" as far as they are concerned, it has made little or no difference to how they behave. They continue to trample on the rights of working people everyday.

An example of this is picketing where the right won by workers to picket against scabs taking their jobs is now outlawed by the ERA. This demonstrate that the state is interested in defending citizen rights only it they don’t interfere with the bosses’ right to make profits.

True, there have been a few victories attributed to the Bill of Rights, such as overturning some police practices or bureaucratic blunders, but they are few and far between, and occur more by accident than design.

The flip side of these victories is that they result in a reactionary cry from people like Greg O’Connor of the Police Association that we need to change the law to give more power to policemen! More power to the forces of state oppression, just what working people need!

Frighteningly, these suggestions fall on receptive ears in the Government such as the great right wing populist, Phil Goff, the supposed minister of Justice. The Bill of Rights can be overruled by any legislation to restrict rights.

A case of the above contempt for The Bill of Rights was the reaction to the Court of Appeal ruling that Internal Affairs had breached the Bill or Rights in ruling certain publications as indecent that dealt with the subject of paedophilia in a sympathetic way.

You couldn’t move for people clambering over each other to say what a travesty this was, including the media who went along for the ride. The fact was that people didn’t bother to read the court’s decision or ask what it was that had been ruled as not indecent. It wasn’t even child pornography. But why let the facts get in the way of truth.

4 Drug Education

The Government funds organisations like FADE to go into schools to warn children about the dangers of drugs promoting these programmes as if they will make a difference.

Who are they kidding! More and more young people are experimenting with drugs at younger and younger ages. Such drug education is not only a waste of time and money it is misleading. Studies done in the United States show that drug use is continuing to rise amongst young people despite these types of programmes, which are well established there.

The money could be spent, giving young people a better understanding of ALL drugs and encouraging them to use them more carefully, for example not mixing certain types of drugs because of the effect. But to do this we would have to own up to reality that our young people are taking drugs because they are alienated from the dull routine of capitalist life and that most drugs are pushed to make profits. So the state has to continue to pretend that the problem is one of ‘youth’ and only a certain class of drugs and that it can "win the war on drugs."

For example while this anti-drug hysteria is going on, the major legal drug has never had it so good as far as the law goes. Young people are exposed to Television advertising, lower drinking ages and alcohol in supermarkets. No wonder the Business Round Table called for the drinking age to be lowered to 16! It is also NOT an offence to give your children alcohol, regardless of what age they are.

5. Child sex tourism

Like many countries, NZ has passed a law that people can be prosecuted for having sex with children in other countries. This law is designed to curb the so-called "sex tourist" from going to countries like Thailand and having sex with children.

Yet so far not one person has been prosecuted under this law! The reality is that even where prosecutions have occurred in other countries, they have been few and far between. The task of presenting evidence and getting witnesses to such a trial are fraught with difficulties which would be evident to anyone with half a brain.

This sort of legislation is typical of the sort of hypocritical "feel-good" legislation popular these days. Such legislation changes nothing and achieves little for young people in countries such as Thailand. In these countries the authorities themselves often turn a blind eye to child prostitution or accept bribes in exchange for doing nothing.

More importantly, nothing will change in countries such as Thailand where poverty and child exploitation go hand and hand. If we were serious about dealing with child exploitation we would look at the root cause, the capitalist system and do something about that. But that would mean real changes and not meaningless gestures would have to happen.

A good start would be to help fund young people’s organisations that aim to unionise youth and fight oppression on every front. Such organisations do exist, but suffer from a lack of support and recognition by the media. In Pakistan young people have started to organise against bonded labour. Last year a 12-year boy who was a leader in the movement and himself a victim of bonded labour was murdered. His assassin has yet to be caught by a police force unwilling to pursue the case.

The case was never carried by the media. It has only ever been highlighted by Amnesty International. Perhaps a 12-year-old victim of bonded labour isn’t as newsworthy or juicy as a child prostitute story. And yet, this young person was trying to do something to change the system that gives rise to such inequalities.

It is the duty of working people everywhere to reject short term, opportunistic approaches to the problems legislated by the state and look at the broader picture.

Exploitation and the disillusionment of young people are a direct result of the capitalist system. Until we deal with that there can be no real progress at dealing with the problems that we face. We must challenge the hypocrisy of politically correct moralism wherever we see it and use it as an opportunity to put forward a programme that will bring real, not imaginary change.

For Our morals not theirs!

From Class Struggle No 39 June-July 2001