By David Hines,
Davidhines5708@gmail.com Phone 027 325 1382
28 January 2025
Takapuna Methodists gave a warm reception to two protestors from PSN (The Palestine Solidarity Network at a Zoom meeting on Wednesday night, January 22 and several of us are planning to support them in their protest, maybe including a brass band!
Susan Vize told us one popular tactic of the protesters has been boycotting Obela hummus sales at supermarkets. The hummus was produced in factories in the West Bank on illegally occupied land. The protestors also put labels on the pots of hummus warning customers, and they also took hummus pots out of the supermarket fridges and put them on the wrong shelf so the hummus went bad and had to be thrown away.
Her husband Des said he can provide a list of all the banned products, and there is a cellphone app that scans supermarket labels and will identify those that support the Israeli war effor.
He said a lot of our media are biased about Palestine, following the example of the BBC. He recommended Al Jazeera as a source of accurate information about Palestine – which I do also. And I was impressed to find that Amnesty International is one of PSN’s partner organisations.
They have a reputation for accuracy and balance.
Susan said ASB is now being targeted, because its Kiwi Saver funds are funding ammunition that went to Gaza to kill women and children. The first rally I (David Hines) attended had placards that said “Talk to ASB today about how your KiwiSaver can invest in Israeli apartheid.
McDonalds has been attacked in Muslim countries in particular and have had something like a $7 billion reduction in their revenue. They have changed their strategy of giving free meals to Israeli soldiers.
Susan no longer buys L’Oreal products. “I think I was one of their biggest customers in New Zealand. We just don’t support them any more.
And she said the next one is SodaStream.
Susan said now that some Palestinians are returning to their villages which are full of rubble, and there are at least 11,000 people missing (in the rubble) so the number killed which has been 46,000 in early January will be close to 70,000.
“So this is the first time we’ve seen a genocide unfold live on TV in front of us.”
Another major part of their protest is writing letters to our politicians to stop supporting Israel, and to arrest their Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he ever visits New Zealand. He would then be put on trial for genocide. The United Nations International Court of Justice has said he should be prosecuted, but only two countries have taken that idea up.
I met Susan and Des at the Association of Rationalists and Humanists in Browns Bay and they invited me to join their rallies in Aotea Square. They meet every Saturday at 2pm. And when Susan asked if I’d also attend their strategy day last weekend I said yes. And I told the strategy group that one way I could help spread the word would be to have Des and Susan as the guest speakers for our Methodist “Zooming Newsies” discussion. So they did. (We meet on Zoom and discuss the news)
Susan said the strategy group was designed to bring protesters from the Halt All Racist Tours generation into partnership with the younger protestors who are carrying on the fight today. I was one of the Racist Tours generation and marched in several protests back in the 1980s and reported on many more as a reporter and chief reporter for Radio New Zealand.
The youngest protester I met in Aotea Square this January was a Palestinian Ali, seven years old. And he was brilliant using a megaphone to lead the chanting – one two three four, we don’t want your racist wars. He also changed the songs to fit the protest of the week…. The second time I was there, he chanted “Palestine shall be free. Don’t invest with ASB.”
The 1980s protesters were often very confrontationial and the police hit them down with with batons, But the Auckland protests I joined over the past month were marked by gentleness and humour. They were watched by only a handful of police, but they didn’t need to intervene.
At the rallies Susan was selling watermelon plants and she told the Zooming Newsies this idea goes back to the 1950s and 60s, when Palestinians were forbidden by Israel to wave their flag, so some of them responded by holding pictures of watermelons instead, because they have the same colours: white, red and green. And they told the Israelis: This isn’t a flag, it’s a watermelon.
So I took home two souvenirs: a watermelon plant in a pot and a Palestinian flag.
Numerous Muslims attend the rallies, including children and the atmostphere is like a picnic, not the clashes with poliee that older proestors remembered from the 70s and 80s. A large selection from the Q’ran was read at one of the rallies. And at the strategy day, several Muslim high school girls were making very assertive comments,
At our Zoom meeting Susan agreed that Muslim women in New Zealand are showing a different brand of protest and she welcomed it.
Susan said: “We (She and Des) are not religious people, but we believe that people have the right to have religion and believe they have the right to their religion and they shouldn't be persecuted for it.
“We will fight for human rights, will fight for rights of gays.
“And for LBGTQ rights. As America is about to find out.
“But first of all, we'll fight for the rights of people.”
I commented that these are things that many Methodist people believe in as well. The Methodist National Conference in November 2023 passed a resolution objecting to Israel’s attack on Palestinians, and called it “settler colonialism..”
A Tongan member of our Takapuna Church, Susana Mangisi came to the Zoom discussion, determined to learn more about the Israeli attack so she can tell others. She thanked Des and Susan “for the great work they are doing with PSN and is now more enlightened on the best approach to make a difference, and will be out to encourage others especially her Pacific communities, to stand up and break this continuing imperial colonialism.
She already has a strong experiece in social work, social justice, human rights. She supports the the Treaty of Waitangi, wants to fix the impact of colonisation on Aotearoa New Zealad. and she believes in inclusion so she came to our Zoom meeting specially to learn more. (She also attended our Explorers group.)
“Thanks all of you. I feel educated and I’ll be talking to a few people, because I think it’s not that people don’t want to get involved with what is right and just, but the message needs to be communicated in ways hat are informative and cultutally appropriate.
I had not met Susana before but looked out for her at church the following Sunday to offer her my Palestinian flag to use in her campaign. And without intending to we both ended up being part of a demonsration. I couldn't find her before the service, so I sat in my usual place, the front row, and (surprise) got a lot of attention. After the service. I gave it to Susana. She loved it and we both ended up in numerous conversations about Palestine.
Then on Tuesday Susan used the flag alogside a Tongan flag at a public community meeting in South Aucklad. She sure is keen..
Susana is also following up my suggestion that she invite a Tongan Methodist band to play in a PSN March in downtonn Auckland . PSN leaders are considering the idea and it could happen on March 1.
For our next Zooming Newsies, on February 26, I'm hoping to get a New Zealand climate expert to tell us what global warming is going to be like here. He believes will be very different from other countries.
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