The Roots of Jacinda Ardern’s Extraordinary Leadership After Christchurch

By Amelia LesterMarch 23, 2019

In October of 2017, when Jacinda Ardern became the Prime Minister of New Zealand—a country with a population of fewer than five million—she assumed leadership of a place not accustomed to making global headlines. It made few headlines, at least apart from those about Ardern’s appointment itself, which was a major news item across the world. The wave of Jacindamania had a way of flattening the Prime Minister’s story. Ardern’s center-left party, Labour, did not win the election outright, but instead struck an unlikely partnership with N.Z. First, a party that, as its name suggests, has made occasional swerves into nationalism. Ardern was not, as was often assumed, the youngest ever Prime Minister of New Zealand, though, at thirty-seven, she was the youngest in a hundred and fifty years. Nor was she the first woman; New Zealand, which, in 1893, was the first country to grant women the right to vote in parliamentary elections, had already seen two female Prime Ministers. Internationally, though, these nuances didn’t matter so much. Ardern’s rapid ascent was a welcome contrast to the painful evidence emerging from the #MeToo movement of men’s abuse of power. When she gave birth, in June of last year, Ardern was again the subject of adulatory global attention.

New Zealanders were proud of their Prime Minister, but they expected Ardern to get on with things in the Kiwi way, with a minimum of fanfare. (Reflecting the national M.O., her no-frills campaign slogan was “Let’s Do This.”) When I visited Ardern at her Auckland home, in late 2017, for a profile in Vogue, I was struck by the resolute ordinariness of her existence. She and her partner, Clarke Gayford, a celebrity TV fisherman (a species native to New Zealand), lived in the same three-bedroom suburban house they had shared before Ardern became Prime Minister. They had just renovated, painting the walls themselves. I asked what her recently assigned security detail thought of the house. “They were pretty happy we had a fence,” she said. Back then, neither she nor her constituency could ever have imagined that they would face horror like what happened last week, an event that one local political commentator described to me as “New Zealand’s own 9/11”: fifty people killed at two mosques in the small city of Christchurch, shot dead by a terrorist, as they prayed.

Much of the coverage of Ardern’s extraordinary response to the Christchurch killings has praised her compassion, and it’s true that she has displayed an uncommon ability to speak on behalf of a grieving nation. A few hours after the attack, she addressed the terrorist directly with words that exuded both eloquence and strength. (“You may have chosen us, but we utterly reject and condemn you.”) The next day, wearing a black head scarf, she met with Muslim leaders and asked them what they would like her to do: “Our time is for you to determine.” She also hasn’t shied away from naming racism and, in particular, Islamophobia as a root cause. When, on Tuesday of this week, she addressed Parliament for the first time since the attack, she opened with the Arabic greeting of “As salaam alaikum.” When Donald Trump made a condolence call and asked what support the U.S. could offer, she told him, “Sympathy and love for all Muslim communities.”

After a few days, though, Ardern made clear that she was interested in more than a gesture of tolerance. On Wednesday, she made an explicit connection between Facebook, where the shooter uploaded footage of his attack in real time, and the rise of extremism. “There are some things we need to confront collectively as leaders internationally,” she said. “We cannot, for instance, allow some of the challenges we face with social media to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.” The tech platforms, Ardern said, needed to take responsibility for spreading hate; she had just spoken to British Prime Minister Theresa May about it. Then, on Thursday, Ardern did something that Americans, in particular, might find unthinkable: with the agreement of the conservative opposition party, she enacted immediate and sweeping changes to the country’s gun laws, banning all assault rifles and military-style semi-automatics—a major achievement in a country with a sizable rural population. (Although there are multiple steps currently involved in buying most guns in New Zealand, registration for owners is haphazard; authorities still don’t know where the Christchurch shooter acquired one of his weapons.)

Ardern’s extraordinary display of empathy in the wake of Christchurch has been linked to the fact that she’s a woman. (“Jacinda Ardern just proved typically ‘feminine’ behavior is powerful,” one publication declared.) It could equally be a result of her upbringing, by a police officer and a school cafeteria worker who instilled in her and her sister a strong sense of service. In either case, she possesses something else, which is an unwavering interest in enacting change. From the beginning of her time in office, she has emphasized an outward-looking vision of New Zealand. ...

Jasin wrote on May 16^th, 2019 at 9:33am:


You're kind

To me, she's a globalist shill

with a massive ball sack as revealed in the video

Just another tool of izrayle

and the kiwis don't buy her

just the whore media singing its satanic song

.............. Citizens Disobey New Zealand Gun Ban, Only 530 of 300,000 People Turned Guns In
After New Zealand banned people from having guns in reaction to the terrible shooting in March, almost everyone is refusing to obey the law.

In March, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the “first tranche” in a number of moves to restrict the rights of New Zealand citizens to protect themselves with firearms. This move was in direct response to the horrific murders that unfolded on March 15. Coincidentally, this is the exact move the terrorist who carried out these attacks had hoped for and predicted. The good news is, however, that most citizens are refusing to turn in their guns.

The terrorist who murdered 50 people earlier this year was engaging in a classic propaganda of the deed in which he predicted—accurately—that his murder would spark the restriction of gun rights. Lawmakers took his bait.

“On 15 March, our history changed forever. Now, our laws will too,” said Ardern as she carried out the will of this terrorist. “We are announcing action today on behalf of all New Zealanders to strengthen our gun laws and make our country a safer place.”

“What we’re banning today are the things used in last Friday’s attack,” she said, adding: “It’s about all of us, it’s in the national interest and it’s about safety.”

According to a new report from the NZ Herald, however, the citizens feel “safer” by holding on to their guns.

It is estimated that roughly 250,000 people own the recently-banned semi-automatic weapons in New Zealand. Estimates show that these 250,000 gun owners — who were turned into criminals overnight by their government — own around 300,000 firearms.

Since the government attempted to disarm these 250,000 people, only 530 guns have been turned in.

Government officials are attributing the lack of gun turn-ins to citizens wanting to be properly compensated for their weapons. However, the complexity of this situation is likely far different.

“If they are being serious about their considerations and ensuring that there is fair and reasonable compensation, then firearm owners will wait a bit longer to make sure it is just and it is fair when it is received,” Nicole McKee, Secretary of the Council of Licensed Firearm Owners, told the NZ Herald.

“We are effectively being punished for the acts of a foreign terrorist, and we want to make sure that our personal and private property is adequately compensated when it is confiscated,” she said.

But in reality, the people likely don’t want to disarm themselves as this is their only defense against these terrorists. Sure, people don’t simply want to be robbed of their property without compensation. However, there is no amount of money that can compensate someone into being defenseless.

As TFTP has previously noted, depending on the current government, life in disarmed societies can go on peacefully for a while. However, in some cases, citizens — men women and children — are slaughtered by the millions as corrupt government officials and criminals become the only ones to have guns. ...............