I like living in NZ because our extremist nutjobs are so rare. 1/
I also think that some New Zealanders who think they are having an important conversation about freedom of speech right now, have no fucking clue what they are dealing with when it comes to overseas extremist groups. 2/
Here are some examples of how both violent far right and violent jihadist extremists attempted to incite and provoke violence, hatred and civil unrest within the letter of the law while I was living in London over the past decade. 3/
(I mean, sometimes they literally just ran people over on the sidewalk, or made guns in their garage and murdered people with them while shouting ‘Britain First!’ but those were the obviously illegal bits) 4/
Britain First would go to minority neighbourhoods to ‘exercise their freedom of speech’ by abusing and harassing brown people on the streets. 5/
A typical Britain First stunt was to purposely drive badly in order to provoke road-rage incidents that they would film and turn into FB memes of ‘racist attacks’ by brown people against whites, in order to whip up hatred against Muslims. 6/
(Jo Cox’s murderer seemed so inspired by this group that he murdered Jo Cox) 7/
Hizb ut-Tahrir would announce stunt protests on conservative nationalist trigger-issues, in order to provoke vitriol and hate crimes against brown people to ‘prove their point’ to potential recruits, then would never turn up to the protest. 8/
This was an incredibly cost-effective way to run a protest, might I add. 9/
The English Defence League would organise giant yob brownshirt marches through Tower Hamlets, the heart of Bangladeshi Muslim & East End Yiddish London, hoping for a massive confrontation with brown people & antifa to prove the truth of white genocide. 10/
I thought my Muslim cockney husband was being paternalistic one time when he pleaded with me not to go to an EDL counter-demo. 11/
Then I realised if I went, he would feel bound to go with me, that he grew up with his house being targeted for violent attacks by the British National Front, and that I was a privileged little shit who grew up in safety in NZ and had no fucking clue. 12/
These groups worked from the same clickbait playbook; and the bedrock of their tactical approach is to provoke violent confrontation, in order to engage people who are seeking opportunities for violence. 13/
You can argue the letter of the law if you like, and white guys seem to love this in NZ. But you are fucking kidding yourself if you cannot see what the *purpose* of certain kinds of ‘speech’ by these groups are. 14
The British far right groups are pussycats compared with the North American groups. Laura Southern physically attacked NGO workers to try to stop them saving brown people from drowning. 15/
North American far right groups carry guns and aren’t afraid to beat the shit out of people on camera for some reason. Maybe because they have the endorsement of the US President, a sex-offender who hired Nazis. 16/
I mean, Kiwi innocence is nice. But also dangerous. I find it hard to take y’all seriously sometimes. /FIN
