Who the hell would crucify a messiah?
Jacinda Arden’s resignation got me thinking about the types of people most inclined to crucify those who bear messages of kindness.
It wasn’t long after Jacinda Ardern’s announcement of her resignation the other day that the political commentators started flooding the internet with their reflections. A theme quickly emerged — that she’d basically been bullied out of office by a hateful mob and that they were surprised she hadn’t left the job sooner.
If you haven’t heard or seen the vitriol the commentators referenced, I wouldn’t start looking for it now. It’s genuinely vile stuff. Whether it’s a Twitter thread, or the comments attached to RNZ’s coverage of her press briefings, or the real-time responses to her own Facebook Live sessions, the language and taunts are abusive, threatening, hateful and pretty much deranged. No normal person says those things about another human being, and no normal person stands for it. I’m glad she’s finally said enough is enough — though I’m dismayed that I share the same air as the nutjobs who have made her role untenable.
I’m probably more dismayed though by the people who have put me in the position of having to defend Jacinda face-to-face. I’m not talking about arguing for her politics or policy decisions or the finer details of her pandemic management — I’m talking about defending her as a woman. I never expected to take a call from a friend and have them go on a rant about ‘Cindy the power mad bitch’. I never thought that I would head down the road for my coffee and have the barista cursing ‘that horse face woman who’s making our lives hell’. And while as a fact-check journalist I’ve had to write about some pretty messed up delusions over the past few years, I didn’t expect crazy theories about our prime minister’s secret millions or her hidden agenda to sell New Zealand off to some new world order. And as someone who’s interviewed and written about Jacinda favourably, I also didn’t expect to see my own name in the online forums as an object of ridicule and hate.
Where on earth were all these batshit crazy people before the pandemic, before Jacinda’s time in office?
To be honest though, none of this should surprise any of us. The human race has a long and inglorious history of crucifying its messiahs, so we should have seen it coming.
‘BUT HANG ON,’ I hear you protest. ‘Jacinda’s no messiah, whether you’ve been a fan of her prime ministership or not!’
Well of course she isn’t, not in the sense of the Jewish people’s long hoped for political and military champion. But there are echoes of similarity between Jacinda’s message of kindness and the message of love preached by the most famous messiah of all, the Christ himself.
There are other echoes too … their youth … their zeal … their forgiving attitude even in the face of the hate and the mockery … their commitment to their core message of neighbourliness, even when that message is being ridiculed … and, of course, the premature end to their glittering careers.
There are striking similarities, too, between the mob who nailed the Christ to the cross and the lunatics who have bayed for Jacinda’s blood.
The first that comes to mind is that neither mob trusted that the message of kindness or love came from a genuine place. They thought it was a ploy, a play for power. What we know about people who live in suspicion of acts or words of love is that they typically don’t believe they themselves are worthy of love — that love given freely is suspect, and that only love that’s been earned can be relied upon as authentic. Transactional love, in other words. Such people are cynical about kindness because somewhere along the line kindness has been conflated with cruelty or hurt — by a smothering mother, for example, or a violent and distant dad.
Which leads to another thing the mobs have in common — they’re bullies, specifically targeting what they perceive as a weakness (a message of kindness, peace, love). Ironically, most of us see those things as strengths, and appreciate the genuineness of an appeal to the better aspects of our humanity. But bullies who believe themselves beyond the reach of unconditional love hate the meek. I do wonder if it’s because deep down they recognise that kindness and love do possess a kind of power, but it’s a power they don’t understand and so they fear it. And in fearing it, they commit themselves to destroying it.
Which is something else the first century Pharisee and the 21st century Kiwi has in common — the peculiar penchant of destroying beauty that they can’t possess for themselves or control for their own ends. There was genuine beauty about the Messiah, and the things he said and did, the way he loved and disrupted, the way he healed and cared, his acts of forgiveness (not just his words proclaiming it), and his deep connection to people of every status and station. I’ve met Jacinda and can testify to her genuine beauty too. To her inner peace, her calm, a glow that radiates outward when she engages you. I believe her message of kindness comes from a deep conviction that it’s only kindness that will bring about the sort of societal change society actually needs — not policies, as such, or the wielding of power from the halls of government — but the sharing of opportunity and time and wealth and compassion and understanding within the community. I think her leadership during the first years of the pandemic was driven by an authentic concern for the wellbeing of all New Zealanders, and particularly the most vulnerable. And I know that her ability to connect with others, whether over a table in a cafe, or over the internet via Facebook Live, is because of her desire for real engagement and a deep belief in the healing, restorative, reconciling power of encounter.
There’s an awful lot there to annihilate if you’re full of hate and can’t recognise authentic love when it’s staring you in the face.
And if you’re one of those people … well, we see you now. One outcome of Jacinda’s time as prime minister is that the mob has been exposed. Ironically, Jacinda never set out to expose anyone — they’ve done it to themselves. The authentic humanity of messiahs tends to shine a very bright light on the bitter hearts of those around them, purely by dint of being in their presence. Think of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, or the character of Peter Sellers’ Chance the gardener in his movie Being There. It’s their apparent ‘weakness’ that brings the hypocrisies and foolishness of the people near them into sharper focus. And having seen it, how can we forget it?
We won’t forget Jacinda either, but for different reasons. Messages of love, as we’ve seen throughout history, tend to stick around. They dig roots, and they grow and bear fruit.
It’s hate that has no substance, and over time blows away on the clearing winds like ash from a fire that once raged for a while.
Well written. I do not agree with everything Jacinda did or said. I do agree with a lot. She is a person and she was, it seems to me, doing the best that she understood she ought to be doing. No doubt she will continue to do so. Thank you David.