Taking the Law into Tribal Hands

A couple of years ago, I spent a month on a self-driving tour of Mexico. That country has a well-deserved reputation of being one of the most lawless nations on Earth. Mexico's murder rate, at around 25 per 100,000 of population per annum, is five times that of the United States and about thirty-five times that of New Zealand. There are entire regions of the country to which the warrant of the law does not extend or where the police are so corrupt they cannot be relied upon to enforce the law. When we were there, the Mexican president imposed federal police control over the state of Veracruz, sacking the entire state police force because it could not be trusted to uphold the rule of law, and since then the same has been done in Acapulco.

One of characteristics of a lawless Mexico is the prevalence of irregular enforcement of order (however those enforcing the "order" choose to define it). We got used to being stopped at unlawful roadblocks, often multiple times on a journey and on several occasions blockading entire cities. Many of these roadblocks were set up for the simple purpose of extorting money from hapless road users (particularly tourists like us - I think that rental cars in Mexico have special licence plates just to facilitate this). Others were established as protest actions in support of labour disputes or native land grievances. In most cases we weren't in any physical danger so long as we complied with their demands, but in one remote area of the country we were advised by Mexican Army patrols (the only legitimate authority in the area) not to stop for roadblocks under any circumstances if we could possibly avoid it. We were literally in fear for our lives.

I was reminded of my experiences in Mexico when I read about the "checkpoints" established by Maori tribal groups supposedly to stop the spread of Covid-19 to their areas. What makes these illegal roadblocks much worse is that they appear to have the support of local police and the New Zealand Government has refused to condemn them, which makes our country potentially as corrupt and as dangerous as Mexico. Of course, if I was to set up a roadblock at the end of my street, the police would be around to remove it and to arrest me as soon as you could say "rule of law".

We have seen the encroachment of special rights for Maori into New Zealand law for several decades, ever since Justice Cooke handed down his ruling in a 1987 Court of Appeal case relating to the sale of state-owned enterprises, which said that the Crown was obligated to act as if it were in a "partnership" with Maori tribes. This, of course, implied that Maori tribal authorities were equivalent to the Crown, with all the sovereign rights of an independent government. The problems with this are manifold, not the least being who defines what is a Maori tribal authority and whom do they represent? It is certainly not a recipe for universal, democratic, liberal government.

I have written before about how I believe legitimate political sovereignty derives solely from individual sovereignty, and therefore why I support the aspiration of any group of people for self-determination. If a distinct group in New Zealand, whether they are Maori or not, wish to establish a form of self-government, then that is their right. I also believe we all have an interest in ensuring all human beings enjoy the basic individual rights (of which the American Declaration of Independence remains the best definition with "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"), and as long as these rights are respected within the self-governing territory, then there is no reason for any external party to interfere with that self-government. What is intolerable is having two standards of law, or greater or lesser rights, based on ethnicity within the same jurisdiction. That is racism, pure and simple.

I will not submit to an illegal, racist, tribal authority that is trying to stop me going about my lawful business in this country. If I am confronted by an unlawful roadblock, I will act precisely as I was advised to do in that similarly lawless area of Mexico and I advise all law-abiding New Zealanders to do the same - keep your foot flat to the floor and keep going, no matter what.

[Hat-tips to Michael Coote at NZCPR and Bob Edlin at Point of Order.]

The chaos of US immigration and border control

Late last year I transited through San Francisco airport on my way home from Mexico. The Mexican border officials, like the New Zealand ones, are courteous and good-humoured, characteristics that are all the more remarkable in view of the problems that nation has with drug trafficking and its own illegal immigration from Central America. When we got to San Francisco the experience was entirely different, notable by the belligerence and downright petulance of the US border officials.

The behaviour of the young, female immigration officer who processed us was like something out of Monty Python, as she huffed and tutted and otherwise behaved as if we were most-wanted criminals trying to sneak into her country. My wife made the mistake of putting her passport on the counter about two inches from the spot indicated by this American version of a Maoist Red Guard, whereupon she picked up the offending document and slammed it down on the correct spot. More of this infantile behaviour followed but we kept our composure and responded with politeness, knowing that had we given her the slightest excuse we would have been detained and probably missed our connecting flight.

President Trump's ill-conceived restrictions on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim nations has just added to the awful experience of crossing the US border. The experience of a French holocaust historian, Henry Rousso, who was detained for more than ten hours and nearly deported because an immigration official did not know the law, is just another example of the chaos that reigns at the US borders. Some good may come out of this case as we can expect the French to retaliate - when the Americans started mistreating transit passengers in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 by holding them in cramped, non-air-conditioned rooms (something I personally experienced), the French singled out Americans for similar treatment at their borders - and the US soon changed their practices.

Unfortunately for many Americans, these antics aren't confined to the border. United States Customs and Border Protection operates checkpoints as much as 100 miles inland of the border, which is a bit of pain for the residents of towns such as Arivaca in Arizona, who are subject to CBP checks every time they drive to work or drop their children off at school. These officers habitually exceed their authority and are very fond of using tasers on innocent American citizens who question their unconstitutional actions.

The attitude of bureaucrats always reflects the political environment in which they operate. A belligerent government allows belligerent bureaucrats to thrive. Give those bureaucrats too much power and they inevitably abuse it. If their power over you is absolute, such as is the case of US border officials in deciding whether you may pass or be detained, they will abuse it absolutely. It doesn't seem to matter to them whether they follow the law or not and no one in authority appears to be ready to hold them to account. I have experienced similar abuses here in New Zealand with council officials who have almost unlimited powers under the awful Resource Management Act.

Update: While writing this I read a post on Not PC's blog on the very same subject.

Update 2: It appears Trump is about to modify his hardline stance on immigration with reports today that he is looking to implement a "broad immigration overhaul that would grant legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants who have not committed serious crimes." Perhaps the blowhard president is learning on the job and realising that the policies he campaigned on are neither practical nor in America's interests. If he really wants to 'make America great again' he would do well to start by reigning in his Red Guards at the border.

Mexico has lessons for New Zealand

I recently spent a month travelling around Mexico. It is not a country we hear a great deal about here in New Zealand but recently it has been in the news because of Donald Trump's campaign promise to build a border wall and make the Mexicans pay for it (although, interestingly, the US presidential election seemed to be of far less importance in the Mexican media than the outcome of the baseball World Series, which was being contested north of the border about the same time).

Mexico is a beautiful country with a hugely rich history and far more diverse geography and demography than most people would imagine. The Mexican people are warm and friendly, once you overcome their initial reserve, and they appear to enjoy life far more than the overly serious and officious Americans north of the border. However, Mexico is a basket case politically, economically and socially, which is why so many Mexicans want to join their numerous cousins in the USA.

Mexicans, like Maori, still tend to blame their people's ills on colonialism but they perhaps have a greater justification in doing so than those descended from the first New Zealanders. The Spanish conquistadors had few of the qualms of the British colonisers in New Zealand, seizing all the land, enslaving the entire indigenous population and setting up a feudal society that various revolutions since have never entirely overcome. The consequences of this is that Mexico today is a country that is still to some extent at war with itself. 

The conflict in the country is seen in several areas. Firstly, there is the well-known drug violence, which is mainly confined to the northern regions that border the United States. The drug violence is all the worse because of the extensive corruption in the local police forces that not only turn a blind eye to much of the violence but actually participate in some of the worst of it (such as the massacre of 43 students in Guerrero in 2014). Then there is the political violence, like the recent kidnapping and torture of a priest in Veracruz, which seems to be a constant if low-level threat particularly in the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas. And finally there is the less overtly violent, but nevertheless intimidatory, protest actions that regularly disrupt life in all the major cities in Mexico - such as barricading all the exits from a city and demanding money from drivers to let them past (which I personally experienced on several occasions).

Tribalism plays a significant part in Mexico's political and social conflict. Ethnic groups such as the Nahuatl, Yucatec and Zapotec all have their particular grievances, usually about land and the preservation of language and culture. Like Maori, they choose to focus on their differences rather than on commonalities of shared national heritage, individual rights and the benefits of living in a modern, pluralistic society. Many of their historical complaints may be justified but collective grievances and identity group politics are only likely to hold people back and ultimately economic and social advancement always comes down to individual aspirations and responsibility.

Mexico seemed to be on a track to economic prosperity and real democracy in the latter decades of the 20th Century after hundreds of years of autocracy and one-party rule, but progress has stalled in the last twenty years and the lack of investment in infrastructure such as roads, schools and hospitals is obvious to anyone visiting the country. Undoubtedly the country's long dalliance with socialism is a significant cause of this decay, with even the state-owned oil monopoly, Pemex, unable to maintain investment in new exploration and extraction methods.

There are some lessons in Mexico for New Zealand, which has been encouraging the grievances of Maori for the last forty years in a seemingly endless series of Treaty of Waitangi claims and settlements. The strength of modern Western democracies is in their unity and common humanity, not in tribal differences. Universal rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of one's own interests and equality before law are the keys to freedom and prosperity. Tribalism and the inevitable grievances that arise from identity politics are obstacles not the solution.