Winston Peters comes up with a stunner of his own just before the elections – on the issue of the Sikh Kirpan.
This election will, as it seems now, be known for some stunners dropped by major political parties to attract the attention of seemingly uninterested voters.
After Labour’s dispatching of its leader just seven weeks before election, and the Green’s audacious confession of benefit fraud by their Co-leader on the pretext of starting a conversation on social justice in this country and to some extent National’s leaning toward ethnic communities, as noted by some commentators, now Winston Peters has come up with his own stunner on the Sikh Kirpan.
“Perhaps it’s time for a serious talk with the Sikh community to avoid people walking around with a dagger of cold hard steel.
“All cultures must adapt especially when they live in another country,” Mr Peters said.
Unlike some other stunners seen so far in this election, Winston Peters’ is likely to have less impact on the national political scene, hopefully.
However, it has the potential to impact those on the fringes who can often find themselves susceptible to divisive politics on the imaginary pretext of a clash between cultures and nations.
The statement that “all cultures must adapt” is an unassumingly patronising statement, stirring emotions.
Similarly, the choice of words that Mr Peters exercises in describing the Sikh Kirpan – a ceremonial dagger, which according to the current Members Bill in Parliament should be less than 10 cm in size and worn inside the dress away from the public gaze – as a “dagger of cold hard steel,” intends to do what Mr Peters does best – divide people and incite emotions.
And this is exactly what Mr Peters would want, as people on the fringes with heightened emotions so close to the elections, often turn up and vote, driven by their passion, rather than reason.
Getting few more votes from the fringes is more doable for Mr Peters than expecting any major exodus from core constituencies of other major parties.
These many votes would be enough to accentuate Mr Peters’ enviable position of a kingmaker after election night on September 23.
It is certainly another masterstroke of strategy from a politician who is so tantalisingly close to realising his dream of being in power in the style of a kingmaker.
However, in his endeavour to fulfil his dream, Mr Peters exposes one major flaw in his personality – the inability to manage mutually competing interests and goals in politics.
Ideally, this should be a paramount skill for any politician, not the least from a politician aspiring to be a kingmaker in New Zealand politics.
Instead, what Mr Peters is doing here is creating and perpetuating fictitious social cleavages between different segments of New Zealand society in order to get near to his cherished dream.
Mr Peters invokes the prophecy of Maori traditional weapon Taiaha and the fictitious demand of Hindus who want to carry a trident, their traditional three-pronged spear to camouflage his divisive utterances.
Though Mr Peters’ political ambitions and ability to be divisive could be his own, it would be interesting to know who is providing such valuable ‘inputs’ in shaping his obstructionist stance on issues that could be sensitive to many communities.
It would be interesting to see if there has been a history of collective community demand around Taiaha.
Or at best if the demands by these two communities (Maori and Sikhs) are mutually exclusive and non-reconcilable, or even worse, disruptive to wider interests of New Zealand as a country.
In fact, on the contrary, one community that Maori warm up the most among the wide spectrum of people of Indian descent is the Sikh community.
There is abundant anecdotal evidence on social media to substantiate the above argument.
However, what is most surprising is Mr Peters wading into playing up Hindus against Sikhs.
If stirring up the emotions was the only goal then probably raising the issue of Maori taiaha would have been sufficient.
However, Mr Peters’ goal is to win elections with maximum party votes to augment his position to negotiate with Labour and National.
Toward this goal, Mr Peters seems to be eyeing smartly on those ethnic voters (read Kiwi-Indian voters), who are yet not committed to either National or Labour and are equally susceptible to divisive politics around cultural beliefs.
If that is the strategy, then it could not be ruled out completely as meaningless, though it would come at a social cost of exacerbating fissures between otherwise close-knit communities.