FIANZ and Antifa Attempt to Ban Lauren & Stefan Premanently

Dieuwe de Boer
Opinion

I've previously posted Lauren Southern coming to New Zealand, and I was going to write both about Stefan Molyneux in more detail later. But there has been fierce and violent opposition these last few days, which has led to the cancellation of the event. I will write about the cancellation in detail later, but below this paragraph you will find the original comments I made about the protests that led to Lauren and Stefan's appearance being cancelled. While a cancellation due to violent intimidation is only temporary, these groups have called for a permanent ban, which would make it impossible to bring either Lauren or Stefan to New Zealand in the future.

There was bound to be some opposition to these influential, and at times controversial, figures coming to speak here. Radio NZ reports:

Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux are best known for their far-right alternative views on everything from feminism, gender and immigration to Islam.

Scary stuff. They have opinions on things that differ from the opinions of the left. Emma Hatton had to use both "far-right" and "alternative" to describe their views, just to make sure you get that they're really scary.

New Zealand Federation of Islam Associations president Hazim Arafeh said it had written letters to the Immigration Minister, Minister for Ethnic Communities and the Human Rights Commission asking for Lauren Southern to be denied entry. [...]

"I don't think insulting Muslims comes under free speech, that's an abuse of freedom of speech.

"I'm talking on behalf of 50,000 to 60,000 Muslims in New Zealand who are going to face a very hard time by all the comments she is going to make."

This is an appaling display of fascism from the Islamic community in New Zealand. To say that simply insulting someone should be a crime that can have you banned from the country is equivalent to calling for an end freedom of speech.

I get that Muslims would be upset at her "Allah is gay" joke leaflets, because it's clear that Islam isn't too keen on all the LGBTQWERTY+ stuff. Welcome to the club. Bad news for Sheikh Arafeh though, since we don't have sharia law here (yet), that's not going to be enough reason to ban someone from a (still) free country. [After I wrote this, I was sadly proven wrong.]

A Muslim named Azad Khan started up a very sad petition, citing Lauren's blasphemy against Allah and her opposition to multi-culturalism as the reasons she should be denied entry by immigration. He couldn't even spell her name right and the grammar is so bad the letter is practically unreadable. I'd be pretty ashamed to sign that pathetic petition even if I agreed with it. Sad!

Newstalk ZB has some details on the Antifa group that is opposing the event.

An Auckland group is threatening to "confront" and "blockade" two controversial far-right and anti-Islam speakers if they are allowed entry to New Zealand. [...]

Auckland Peace Action has called on Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway to deny the pair entry to New Zealand.

Member Valerie Morse said the speakers were coming to New Zealand to "empower local racists and to encourage racist violence".

"They come to recruit people to their fascist ideology. [...]

"If they come here, we will confront them on the streets. If they come, we will blockade entry to their speaking venue."

You'd think it was a parody: a group called "Peace Action" is threatening, confronting, and blockading. In a complete lack of self-awareness they accuse Lauren and Stefan, who both frequently denounce violence and call for peaceful opposition, of encouraging race-based violence. Can anyone name any races that Lauren and Stefan want to encourage violence against? No, because you can add that to the list of things that have ever happened.

The only two fascist ideologies I can spot are those of Islam and Marxism.

There are two petitions out there calling for freedom of speech to be defended by both the cancelling venue Auckland Live and also Immigration NZ. Both seem unlikely to do so however.

About the author

Dieuwe de Boer

Editor of Right Minds NZ, columnist at The BFD, and Secretary General for the New Conservatives. Follow me on Telegram and Twitter. In addition to writing about conservative politics and reactionary thought, I like books, gardening, biking, tech, reformed theology, beauty, and tradition.