Conspiracies and the climate of fear: Researcher Byron C Clark on …

This time last year, there was a tent village at Parliament, with freedom protests and anti-mandate activism. Depending on your perspective, it was either a festival atmosphere or, in the words of Cabinet Minister Michael Wood​, a river of filth.

Christchurch conspiracy researcher Byron C Clark’s book Fear was conceived in that climate but is published in a much less heated one. The mandates have gone. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern​, the chief villain of anti-vaccine conspiracies, has resigned.

There is definitely “a lull at the moment”, Clark agrees, but the core groups are still organising and he is noticing a pivot from Covid conspiracy to climate change conspiracy.

“What we’ve seen with Covid is a dress rehearsal for what we’ll see with climate change,” he warns.

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A chaotic public meeting in Rangiora last week, when National leader Christopher Luxon​ faced a vocal minority of conspiracy theorists, including Counterspin Media’s Kelvyn Alp​ and Hannah Spierer​, shows it was never solely about Ardern.

“They want to portray all mainstream politicians as part of a grand conspiracy,” Clark says.

Even blokey Wairarapa MP Kieran McAnulty​ has talked about increased security concerns in an election year.

Clark has a degree in history from the University of Canterbury and trained in oral history at the National Library, so while he is not an academic in an ivory tower, nor is he an amateur working in his basement.

His book is an informed account of the alt-right in New Zealand before and after the March 15 terror attack. The alt-right became visible here in 2017 on university campuses and online, disinformation grew around a United Nations migration compact and visiting alt-right celebrities Lauren Southern​ and Stefan Molyneux​ received surprising support.

Then the March 15 attack shocked everyone. National quickly scrubbed its support for migration compact conspiracies just as Christchurch broadcaster Chris Lynch​ confessed to being ashamed about a 2017 opinion piece asking if Islam had a place in public swimming pools.

But a year later, there was Covid and the lockdowns, and new political figures such as Billy Te Kahika​ emerged, before we arrived at the strange confluence of conspiracies that fed into the 2022 Wellington occupation.

Clark is not just an observer. He is an active participant in the anti-racist cause, which has led to death threats and harassment.

As a historian of the left, one of his earlier projects was an oral history of Occupy Christchurch​, which was part of the global Occupy movement in 2011. He saw there was a pipeline from the left-wing occupation to the alt-right one.

“There were probably some people at the Parliament rally who were at Occupy encampments a decade ago or TPPA marches or even the Mana Movement,” he says.

“Many of the people involved in Occupy didn’t have a particularly well-developed political analysis. It was just ‘the people against the elites’, and when conspiracy theorists tell you the ‘elites’ are using the pandemic or climate change to reshape the global economy, then you could get involved in this right-wing populist protest.”

That is part of what made the Wellington occupation such a confusing, contradictory event.

While Clark thinks politicians did the right thing in not meeting protesters, he says “some of the stuff, like turning the sprinklers on and blasting loud music, was probably unhelpful”.

Other stories are less familiar. There is a chapter on Hindutva​ or Hindu nationalism, which has a presence here and complicates the usual picture of racism.

“There is a tendency to see racism as white people versus non-white people, and to not look at things like the caste system or the oppression of Muslim people in India and the wider Asian diaspora.”

Canterbury readers may not be surprised to learn that while there are conspiracy theorists everywhere, the racist strand is over-represented in Christchurch, North Canterbury and Selwyn, “particularly when it comes to outright white supremacists and neo-Nazis”.

Another odd story from Christchurch involves Sam Brittenden​, a member of alt-right group Action Zealandia​ who was arrested after making threats against the Masjid An-Nur (Al-Noor Mosque)​. Clark learned Brittenden tried to convert to traditionalist Catholicism in Christchurch, mirroring a growing trend among right-wing young men overseas.

While mosques are practised in spotting radicalised young men, Clark wonders if our churches are as prepared.

Fear: New Zealand’s Hostile Underworld of Extremists by Byron C Clark (HarperCollins, $39.99) is published today.