Hannah fixed the ageing boomer with a look that would have halted a stampeding bull.
Hannah’s question banished what Laurie liked to think of as his impish grin.
‘‘Not with a name like Hannah’’, chimed in Les, joining his friend at the bar with a grim expression. ‘‘What sort of people entertain themselves by burning books in the 21st century?’’
‘‘The sort of people who hang out in the Black Dog Tavern’’, Hannah replied. ‘‘Ageing bikers who like to think of themselves as rebels and outlaws, and who live in a part of the country where outlawry, rebellion, and hating on Jacinda Ardern are pretty much the same thing.’’
‘‘You’ve actually been to the pub where Ardern’s book was burned?’’ Laurie seemed rather taken aback.
‘‘Oh yeah, I’ve been to Makotuku, and since Makotuku and the Black Dog Tavern are pretty much the same thing, I had a beer or three and a halfway decent pizza at the pub.’’
‘‘Of course you did,’’ Les chuckled. ‘‘But I’m pretty sure I haven’t. Where is it?’’
‘‘Makotuku? The wop-wops barely covers it. I was headed for Kopua when I dropped in to the Black Dog. And, before you ask, Kopua is northeast of Ormondville, which is just up the road from Makotuku, which is a few klicks east of Dannevirke, which is in the middle of nowhere.’’
‘‘Heartland country,’’ Laurie ventured. ‘‘Salt-of-the-Earth Kiwis.’’
‘‘Yeah.’’ Hannah flashed him a dangerous smile. ‘‘And we all know how good salt is for your heart.’’
‘‘Wop-wops or not’’, Les continued, ‘‘surely someone up there, the local teacher perhaps, or minister, could have told the publican who the last people to burn books for political reasons were?’’
Hannah laughed. ‘‘I’m not sure there is a local teacher, Les. Come to think of it, I’m not sure there are all that many children of school age living in the vicinity of the Black Dog. And even if there are, they’ll all be bused to Dannevirke. These tiny rural communities lost their schools and their churches years ago. So, not a lot of scope for the dissemination of liberal ethics. They’re pretty much intellectual-free-zones.’’
‘‘Isn’t that just a teeny-weeny bit condescending, Hannah?’’, interjected Laurie, still smarting from her earlier reprimand and anxious to clamber back into the conversation.
‘‘Not in the least, Laurie. You’re forgetting, I’ve been to Makotuku, rubbed tattooed shoulders with the women who ride with these bikers, seen the Stars and Stripes hanging behind the Black Dog’s bar. And I’m telling you, the men — the Pakeha men — who drink there would not feel out of place in any rural tavern, in any red state of the USA. If they could’ve they would’ve voted for Donald Trump three times in a row.’’
‘‘Yeah, but book-burning?’’ Les winced. ‘‘That’s Nazi stuff.’’
‘‘These guys don’t do a lot of reading, Les. And even if they did; even if they knew what they were doing was guaranteed to shock educated New Zealanders living in the main centres, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have cared. You need to remember whose book they burned.’’
Laurie grinned. ‘‘New Zealand’s very own Kamala Harris.’’
‘‘No, no, no! That’s not it, Laurie.’’
Hannah took a deep breath.
‘‘Harris was just a woke idiot without a clue. But Jacinda, during Covid, had turned these weekend rebels and outlaws into real rebels and outlaws, and encouraged the rest of the country to spit on them as antisocial morons. You need to understand how isolated places like Makotuku are. Way out there it’s possible to feel like you’re still in control of your life, to feel free. In 2021, Jacinda proved to them in no uncertain terms that they were neither. They hate her for that, and they hate the different kind of power she represents. That’s why they stoked up the brazier and burned her book on top of it.’’
‘‘What you’re describing’’, said Les, quietly, ‘‘are the sort of folk who occupied Parliament grounds in 2022. Strangers in their own land, or what they thought was their own land. Kiwis who’ve never heard the quote: ‘Where they burn books, they will in the end burn people’.’’
- Chris Trotter is an Auckland writer and commentator.
