Meet the kaiāwhina who volunteer to keep protesters safe
Since the first rally in support of the people of Gaza in 2023, seasoned activists knew there would be counter-protesters. They formed a group, Kaiāwhina Tāmaki, to de-escalate disruptions and keep people safe.
'Our first week, we were like a fruit salad,' says Bianca Ranson (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa), a long-time community organiser and activist. At the very first rally in support of Palestine at Auckland's Aotea Square on October 21, 2023, about 20 seasoned activists wore mismatched hi-vis vests – blue, orange, yellow, pink, green. They were what each had lying around at home or had borrowed to marshal the event.
Thousands of people turned up wearing red, green, black and white, waving Palestine flags and bearing placards. On the edges of the crowd, a handful of counter-protesters appeared with Israel's white and blue flag, megaphones and their own placards. The marshals focused on de-escalation, but the counter-protesters were disruptive, and Ranson knew that they'd continue to appear at any future rallies. They needed to be more organised.
A year and a half later, all the rally marshals wear fluro green vests with two reflective strips, a Tino Rangatira flag patch and the word 'Kaiāwhina' (helper, assistant, contributor, counsel, advocate) stencilled in black along the back. Some have radios with headsets, others have megaphones. When counter-protesters come, as they do every week, they're quickly blocked off from the main protesters with banners – some plain white, others painted with messages like 'nothing to see here' or 'Zionist here'. People attending the rallies are told to move along and not give the disruptors any energy.
After that first rally, the group's formation 'happened very quickly,' says Ranson. The core group already knew each other thanks to years of intertwined kaupapa. But as their ability to deal with counter-protesters is growing, so are the threats they face.
A community security or marshalling service isn't a new idea. Māori Wardens are one of the longest standing volunteer institutions in the country, established in the late 1800s to help maintain order within Māori communities and protect the rights and safety of Māori people. Today, they're regulars at large events including protests, visible in uniforms which include black ties, silver-button blazers and sometimes hats or hi-vis vests. Māori Wardens are known to watch out for people and de-escalate situations with an understanding of tikanga to resolve conflicts and steer away from violence.
'We kind of see them as our tuākana,' says Ranson. The newly forming Kaiāwhina group turned to them for advice and training. 'They've been very supportive and willing to share their knowledge and experiences with us.' When Kaiāwhina are asked to help at one-off events, they encourage the organisers to also reach out to the Māori Wardens for support. With the Palestine rallies, 'we can't expect Māori Wardens to be down there every single week for 18 months. We just wanted to be able to organise ourselves.'
There are more than 120 Kaiāwhina from different activist groups and communities who volunteer their time, and their services aren't restricted to Palestine events. They have marshalled the Auckland stretch of Hīkoi mō te Tiriti, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation strike in December 2024 and the Pride Parade march earlier this year as well as the weekly Palestine rallies. They run social media accounts that give people advice on how to stay safe at protests. Currently, they're fundraising for radios and getting ready for self-defence workshops. There's one belief that ties the Kaiāwhina together – that people have the right to be safe while protesting and that the police do not provide that safety. Their un-official motto is: 'We keep us safe'.
As the conflict in Gaza continues, so do the weekly rallies. Over the 18 months the political moment has 'heightened' and 'people are feeling a little bit more emboldened,' says Ranson. In recent months, there's been increasing awareness that Kaiāwhina need to keep themselves safe as well as others. Starting this month, self-defence is being incorporated in their regular training, and while they extend their marshalling services beyond Palestine rallies, they won't marshal events where they don't believe they'll be safe – because of the kaupapa or because organisation is lacking.
A core belief guiding the Kaiāwhina is that everyone should be able to protest safely as long as they aren't harming others. Ranson tentatively stretches this out to the counter-protesters. 'Hold your own event, if you want to hold your own protest,' she says, 'don't consistently come and intentionally enter into our space to create harm.' Ranson says that at first the Kaiāwhina wondered, 'Whoa, who's this guy? Who are these guys?' but now they recognise most of them, know their names and can trace which groups or ideologies they're associated with. Many, she says, are members of Destiny Church, though they don't usually turn up with the same force or visibility as they did in October last year outside TVNZ.
When members of Destiny Church's group Man Up gathered outside the rainbow story time event at Te Atatū Community Centre on February 15, Kaiāwhina were alerted. Trav Mischewski, who is also a member of the Tāmaki Street Medics collective, says that a message pinged on his screen saying 'there's a shit ton of Destiny Church people here. It's feeling really tense. We would love for some Kaiāwhina to turn up'. He put his first aid kit in the car and began the half-hour drive there.
Another message came shortly after saying to hold off because there were concerns that the presence of Kaiāwhina could escalate tensions. Mischewski waited in a carpark around the corner for a few minutes before popping into the library 'incognito' without his kit or hi-vis. He remembers that a librarian was on the phone trying to get police officers to come, and then the violent entry. 'I've protested in front of all sorts of scary, ugly, tough people, and I didn't think it was gonna affect me that much,' he says. 'It still affects me'.
In late March, seven people who were arrested following the event appeared at Waitākere District Court. They were charged with assault, indecent assault and injuries with intent. While an application for interim name suppression was denied for six of them, it was immediately appealed, meaning the defendants cannot yet be named. All defendants were remanded on bail. They are not to threaten or use violence, not be within 100m of the Te Atatū Library or have contact with the complainants.
'They're [Destiny Church counter protesters] extremely dangerous,' says Ranson. 'People need to understand they're not just annoying, they've proven that they will use violence.' She says that at the weekly Palestine rallies, the counter-protesters yell 'all of their usual Destiny Church kind of things about terrorists and Islam and immigrants that is just completely abhorrent'.
Ranson believes that the counter-protesters are trying to provoke reactions to create content for social media. 'It's pretty much all about content.' In response, Kaiāwhina run safety briefings at the beginning of rallies asking people to ignore counter-protests. Kaiāwhina have noticed that where once disruptions would be livestreamed onto Facebook, now only snippets are uploaded.
The police are part of the equation too. Mischewski says the police are contacted in advance to advise about protests as a sort of olive branch. He says while police are 'not allies', the relationship has improved as the weekly Palestine protests have gone on. 'They are generally way more inclined to listen to us and respect our wishes and acknowledge that we too want to keep the peace.' Mischewski knows that they will step in if things 'get really out of hand' but Kaiāwhina aim to diffuse and prevent harm much before that. 'Ultimately we want the police to not be needed.'
Being a Kaiāwhina is showing Mischewski glimmers of something bigger. 'Kaiāwhina has been a really beautiful sort of meeting point,' he says. He's seeing people from different organisations and kaupapa turn up to support each other, he's seeing skills and knowledge shared and spread, he's seeing the building of alternative structures and people attuning themselves to question, 'How can we look after each other in a way that is meaningful and matters?'
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