The rise of the far-right globally is intertwined with the globally networked power of libertarian think tanks, funded at the base by the global extractive industries.
In this blog post, through an analysis of the disinformation-based campaign I have personally experienced since October 2023 mobilised by the communicative ecosystem of the Free Speech Union (FSU), I will attend to the lifecycle of disinformation in libertarian networks, arguing that the disinformation ecosystem is invested in upholding both white supremacy and extractive capital.
The FSU’s investment in disinformation
I argue that the FSU is invested in producing and circulating disinformation.
In response to my analysis of the hypocrisy of the Free Speech Union (FSU) that positions itself as a champion of free speech in Aotearoa while one of its co-founders, council members and spokespersons David Cumin (who is also one of the key actors representing Israel Institute of New Zealand) actively targets the freedom of academics critical of the settler colonial state of Israel, the FSU ecosystem launched a disinformation campaign.
Dane Giraud, another Zionist free speech advocate was a key driver of this disinformation campaign targeting me, tagging my employer and mobilising the racist online hate targeting me.
Giraud had earlier falsely claimed that I had lied about the absence of FSU support or advocacy when I was being doxed and targeted by far-right Hindutva trolls. You can read my earlier analysis of FSU's right-wing agenda, including the biases in its survey of academic freedom here.
Giraud had earlier falsely claimed that I had lied about the absence of FSU support or advocacy when I was being doxed and targeted by far-right Hindutva trolls. You can read my earlier analysis of FSU's right-wing agenda, including the biases in its survey of academic freedom here.
Despite the critical analyses of the disinformation (the FSU and FSU-aligned advocates can’t empirically document where in my blog I have celebrated the violence deployed by Hamas targeting civilians), the FSU-Zionist ecosystem has continued to reproduce the disinformation, portraying me in racist terms as “terror sympathiser,” “supporter of evil” etc.
In an email sent out to the FSU membership on December 1 2023, David Cumin reiterated the disinformation, noting “In a blog post (since removed), Prof Dutta celebrated the Hamas massacre of October 7 as “a powerful exemplar of decolonising resistance” and openly expressed “solidarity” with it.”
The already debunked disinformation is recycled here. As noted in my earlier analysis, nowhere in my blogpost did I “celebrate the Hamas massacre,” and Cumin offers no evidence of it except the reiterated cherry picked phrase, removed from the broader context of the original blogpost where I actually categorically note that decolonisation “fundamentally critiques violence in any form carried out on civilian lives.” Cumin’s concoction of fiction takes on a new hyperbolic form, stating that the Israel Institute of New Zealand had called out my support for “terror groups.” Once again, this claim, like the rest of his email on the official FSU listserv, is unsubstantiated.
To spice up the affective registers of his right wing FSU audience base, Cumin makes up new lies. He suggests that I have “since removed” the blog post. This lie is circulated by Juliet Moses.
That Cumin crafts and sends out the email from the official email address of the FSU to the FSU listserv is powerful evidence of the investment of FSU in disinformation. That Cumin and the FSU have not retracted the email or issued an apology after the lies have been pointed out on public platforms further renders visible the disinformation architecture of the FSU. In his email, Cumin justifies his act of doxing me and other academics to our employers as amplifying our speech to draw attention. That this act of amplification through doxing is based on disinformation and leads to a campaign directed at our employers to get academics fired doesn't matter.
At the time of writing this blogpost on January 1 2024, the disinformation forms the basis of the libertarian campaign portraying me as the supporter of evil.
Remember Giraud, the FSU spokesperson who seems to have disappeared after running the campaign doxing me to my employer?
Moreover, Cumin’s crafting of the email to the FSU audience, rife with disinformation, is intentionally designed to invoke racist backlash. The text of the email is juxtaposed in the backdrop of an image of one of my lectures on “Decolonizing whiteness.”
A critical reader should ask, why is this particular image of my work on decolonization doing in Cumin’s email about academic freedom? What purpose is the image serving? Does it work as racist dog-whistle to an already aggrieved audience that reads decolonisation as a code word for threat to white Western civilisation, and specifically as Māori take-over of Aotearoa (of course by erasing the rights of Māori as tangata whenua)?
My critique of the white supremacist linkages of the FSU (more on this in the next section) is framed by this network as an attack on free speech (note the active work of conflating free speech with the FSU). Consider here the following tweet by the former National Party and Act politician and FSU council member Stephen Franks.
It is worth pointing out here that the rant by Franks based on disinformation targets my employer. Over the past six years, Massey University has consistently climbed in rankings, being ranked among the top Universities globally in its overall rankings, as well as in sustainability and social impact. Compare the 2024 ranking of Massey at 239 in QS World University rankings compared to 343 in 2014, a decade earlier. The Communication programme at Massey is ranked among the top 100 globally and first in Aotearoa, and the Massey Business School ranks among the top global programmes across a range of subjects.
It is worth pointing out here that the rant by Franks based on disinformation targets my employer. Over the past six years, Massey University has consistently climbed in rankings, being ranked among the top Universities globally in its overall rankings, as well as in sustainability and social impact. Compare the 2024 ranking of Massey at 239 in QS World University rankings compared to 343 in 2014, a decade earlier. The Communication programme at Massey is ranked among the top 100 globally and first in Aotearoa, and the Massey Business School ranks among the top global programmes across a range of subjects.
Of course, these facts get in the way of the hysteria that right-wing propagandists mobilise around the supposed falling state of education, which in turn shapes the organised attacks of the right directed at education. I am sure in the disinformation web spun by the far right, these global rankings are part of some conspiracy hatched by an elite "woke" cabal. That libertarians can't get over Massey's decision to cancel an event hosting Don Brash of the Hobson's pledge in 2018 and see the decision as an indicator of the University's quality gives away the actual source of the angst that drives the low-grade trolling of the University.
The champion of free speech repeats the strategies deployed by Giraud and Cumin, tagging my employer and stating, "They leave the badge of Professor of Communication on a poseur named Mohan Dutta." The implied suggestion here is that Massey should remove the badge of Professor of Communication from me because of my opinion shared on my private X handle regarding the FSU upholding white supremacy.
Now contrast this with an impassioned plea by an FSU Council member expressing their strong criticism of journalists doxxing medical practitioners for their views:
"Stuff should not be allowed to get away with doxxing medical staff for 'wrongthink'? Our professionally conducted annual survey of academic freedom shows the pervasive fear now in our Universities; that a career-ending mistake could come from incautious expression of doubt in the current Wellington orthodoxy."
The plea urges the reader to write to Stuff:
"Remind them that in a free country people like Momo in the caring professions have every right to hold opinions others disagree with, and to express them publicly. Hit jobs like this are the reason many feel like they need to hide behind anonymous accounts on Twitter to say anything at all. Do we wonder why only 42% of Kiwis trust mainstream media?"
"Stuff should not be allowed to get away with doxxing medical staff for 'wrongthink'? Our professionally conducted annual survey of academic freedom shows the pervasive fear now in our Universities; that a career-ending mistake could come from incautious expression of doubt in the current Wellington orthodoxy."
The plea urges the reader to write to Stuff:
"Remind them that in a free country people like Momo in the caring professions have every right to hold opinions others disagree with, and to express them publicly. Hit jobs like this are the reason many feel like they need to hide behind anonymous accounts on Twitter to say anything at all. Do we wonder why only 42% of Kiwis trust mainstream media?"
That post was written by, you guessed it, Stephen Franks, and posted on the FSU site by Jonathan Ayling.
Also worth pointing out here is that Franks is the founding director of the commercial and public law firm Franks Ogilvie, and spokesperson for the Water Users' Group, with Franks Ogilvie leading the legal challenge against the Three Waters reform (more on this later).
Cumin the, FSU, and the libertarian ecosystem don’t care about correcting the disinformation once they have been fact-checked. It doesn’t matter how many times the disinformation is critically analysed and pointed out to Cumin and the FSU. As part of the broader global libertarian ecosystem, the FSU is invested in producing, circulating, and amplifying disinformation.
Disinformation for FSU doesn’t emerge from an error or lack of understanding.
Instead, it is a part and parcel of its everyday functioning, achieving control through the mobilisation of fear/anger through repetition. FSU draws its functional legitimacy as an organisation from the (re)production and amplification of disinformation.
Disinformation, libertarian think tanks and extractive industries
This repetition of disinformation ad nauseam, in affective cycles of utterance charged with performed anger, is a core strategy of global libertarian networks both historically as well as in contemporary contexts of right wing organising. To understand this communicative process of recycling of debunked disinformation, FSU needs to be examined in the context of the broader global libertarian ecosystem and its investment in disinformation.
I want to begin by drawing on the persistent evidence pointing out the extractive and tobacco industries that fund libertarian think tanks. Libertarian think tanks have historically been funded by the extractive industries. The Koch Brothers, Exxon Mobil, billionaires connected to oil fortune are often the key funders of these libertarian think tanks.
A central element in the disinformation puzzle is the investment of the extractive industries in producing and circulating disinformation in the form of climate science denial. In the backdrop of the convergent body of scientific evidence on climate change over the last five decades, extractive industries have relied on astroturfs to hide their influence on democratic processes.
Think tanks operate as dark-money-funded institutions designed to influence political processes in democracies while simultaneously keeping their influence hidden. These extractive industries consistently target regulatory frameworks around climate change, seeking consistently to undermine public policies around resource extraction through white papers, policy briefs, media releases, events and conferences, advertising campaigns etc.
This underlying extractive agenda shapes the role of disinformation in libertarian think tank networks, producing, circulating and amplifying climate science denial. Similar strategies are deployed by the tobacco industry in seeding science denialism, channelled through libertarian think tanks as astroturfs.
Disinformation is strategically designed to mislead, plant doubt, and create chaos. The disinformation produced by libertarian think tanks funded by the extractive industries consistently pushes climate denialism. Similarly, the science around the health effects of smoking is the target of the disinformation produced by the tobacco industry, with free market-promoting think tanks working actively to target and undermine World Health Organisation guidelines on tobacco control.
Libertarian think tanks work as astroturfs, feeding right-wing political movements and political parties that in turn push the extractive agenda in the policy space once in power. Consider here the role of the Koch network in driving disinformation that is deeply tied to Koch-funded libertarian think tanks. At a global scale, the Atlas network, as a global network of right-wing libertarian think tanks, drives disinformation around climate science, and targeting Indigenous rights and Indigenous organising against extractive capitalism.
Disinformation, libertarianism and white supremacy
Simultaneously, libertarian think tanks have historically worked to promote white supremacy, invested in the broader project of privatising resources and public services.
The investment of libertarian networks in the promotion of white supremacy is rooted historically in the white supremacy that underlies the extractive industries, existing in continuity with the extractive infrastructure that has fuelled the colonial project.
Colonialism is critical to establishing the infrastructures of extraction. The organizing structures of the extractive industries globally are based on the occupation of Indigenous land, the expelling of Indigenous communities from land and livelihood, and the exploitation of racialized labour. Colonising processes work to privatise resources, establishing concepts of privatised property that catalyse the extractive processes.
Economies in the Global South such as in Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea have been shaped by the ongoing processes of neocolonialism that facilitate extractive economies.
Salient here is the deployment of disinformation to dehumanise Indigenous communities that then offers the language of development to spin extractive operations, packaging development in the language of privatised grab. Libertarian constructions of the free market have been continually deployed to target land, resources, and communities in the Global South for privatisation, framed under the language of development.
The depiction of Indigenous and local communities in the Global South and in settler colonies in the Global North as primitive, anti-civilizational and backward is critical to establishing the principles of the free market as the basis for driving resource capture/extraction.
Similarly, the language of choice and market fundamentalism were key drivers in the libertarian campaign promoting school choice through vouchers, essentially collaborating with white supremacists in pushing through cascading processes of free market fundamentalism across institutions. The effect of the collaboration was the entrenchment of racialized inequalities in education. Notes the William H. Chafe Distinguished Professor of History and Public Policy, Duke University, Nancy MacLean,
Disinformation, libertarian think tanks and extractive industries
This repetition of disinformation ad nauseam, in affective cycles of utterance charged with performed anger, is a core strategy of global libertarian networks both historically as well as in contemporary contexts of right wing organising. To understand this communicative process of recycling of debunked disinformation, FSU needs to be examined in the context of the broader global libertarian ecosystem and its investment in disinformation.
I want to begin by drawing on the persistent evidence pointing out the extractive and tobacco industries that fund libertarian think tanks. Libertarian think tanks have historically been funded by the extractive industries. The Koch Brothers, Exxon Mobil, billionaires connected to oil fortune are often the key funders of these libertarian think tanks.
A central element in the disinformation puzzle is the investment of the extractive industries in producing and circulating disinformation in the form of climate science denial. In the backdrop of the convergent body of scientific evidence on climate change over the last five decades, extractive industries have relied on astroturfs to hide their influence on democratic processes.
Think tanks operate as dark-money-funded institutions designed to influence political processes in democracies while simultaneously keeping their influence hidden. These extractive industries consistently target regulatory frameworks around climate change, seeking consistently to undermine public policies around resource extraction through white papers, policy briefs, media releases, events and conferences, advertising campaigns etc.
This underlying extractive agenda shapes the role of disinformation in libertarian think tank networks, producing, circulating and amplifying climate science denial. Similar strategies are deployed by the tobacco industry in seeding science denialism, channelled through libertarian think tanks as astroturfs.
Disinformation is strategically designed to mislead, plant doubt, and create chaos. The disinformation produced by libertarian think tanks funded by the extractive industries consistently pushes climate denialism. Similarly, the science around the health effects of smoking is the target of the disinformation produced by the tobacco industry, with free market-promoting think tanks working actively to target and undermine World Health Organisation guidelines on tobacco control.
Libertarian think tanks work as astroturfs, feeding right-wing political movements and political parties that in turn push the extractive agenda in the policy space once in power. Consider here the role of the Koch network in driving disinformation that is deeply tied to Koch-funded libertarian think tanks. At a global scale, the Atlas network, as a global network of right-wing libertarian think tanks, drives disinformation around climate science, and targeting Indigenous rights and Indigenous organising against extractive capitalism.
Disinformation, libertarianism and white supremacy
Simultaneously, libertarian think tanks have historically worked to promote white supremacy, invested in the broader project of privatising resources and public services.
The investment of libertarian networks in the promotion of white supremacy is rooted historically in the white supremacy that underlies the extractive industries, existing in continuity with the extractive infrastructure that has fuelled the colonial project.
Colonialism is critical to establishing the infrastructures of extraction. The organizing structures of the extractive industries globally are based on the occupation of Indigenous land, the expelling of Indigenous communities from land and livelihood, and the exploitation of racialized labour. Colonising processes work to privatise resources, establishing concepts of privatised property that catalyse the extractive processes.
Economies in the Global South such as in Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea have been shaped by the ongoing processes of neocolonialism that facilitate extractive economies.
Salient here is the deployment of disinformation to dehumanise Indigenous communities that then offers the language of development to spin extractive operations, packaging development in the language of privatised grab. Libertarian constructions of the free market have been continually deployed to target land, resources, and communities in the Global South for privatisation, framed under the language of development.
The depiction of Indigenous and local communities in the Global South and in settler colonies in the Global North as primitive, anti-civilizational and backward is critical to establishing the principles of the free market as the basis for driving resource capture/extraction.
Similarly, the language of choice and market fundamentalism were key drivers in the libertarian campaign promoting school choice through vouchers, essentially collaborating with white supremacists in pushing through cascading processes of free market fundamentalism across institutions. The effect of the collaboration was the entrenchment of racialized inequalities in education. Notes the William H. Chafe Distinguished Professor of History and Public Policy, Duke University, Nancy MacLean,
“And the sad fact of the matter is that improving education was never the true reason for free-market fundamentalists’ embrace of vouchers. As Friedman signaled in that first 1955 manifesto and argued for over a half century, school “choice” was a way station on the route to radical privatization. The vouchers were a tactic. The strategy they served was to stick parents with the full cost of their children’s schooling and the labor of finding and arranging it.”
The life of disinformation in libertarian infrastructures is embedded within the linkages of this infrastructure with the racist politics of white supremacy. It is in continuity with this historical linkage between white supremacy and libertarian transformation that libertarian think tanks promoting the free market, funded by the extractive industries, invest in propelling white supremacy.
Consider here the role of the Koch network in funding the campaign against critical race theory (CRT) that originated in the U.S. in 2020 and is currently being mobilised globally, including here in Aotearoa. Libertarian think tanks target anti-racist pedagogy because theoretically informed analyses of structural racism directly challenge the neoliberal extremism that upholds the concepts of individual liberty, merit, and property driving widespread private capture of public resources and systems. Notes Dr. Isaac Kamola, the author of “Free speech and Koch money,”
“Koch network libertarians have propagated the fantasy that we all do (or should) live in a radically free market, populated by unraced and ungendered free individuals, all pulling ourselves up by our proverbial bootstraps. In this world, individuals are wealthy (or poor) on their own merit (or because governments tried too hard to make everyone equal). The founding myth for plutocratic libertarians -- an American dream on steroids -- is essential in maintaining this deeply ideological, pro-corporate policy agenda. This mythical narrative, however, requires studiously avoiding the fact that the United States is not a radically free market but rather a country founded on both the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the racialized practice of chattel slavery. Starting from the actual historical record, however, makes it impossible to take the libertarian mythology seriously -- a myth created by rich, cis, white males to justify their own economic superiority.”
In September 2020, the far-right propagandist Christopher Rufo appeared on the Tucker Carlson show on Fox news, attacking CRT as anti-Western civilisation. This formed the backdrop against which Trump, an avid follower of Carlson, issued the executive order banning the teaching of CRT. In the following months, the hysteria around CRT died down and no states had issued policy frameworks until the Koch network of libertarian think tanks started pushing out policy briefs and press releases attacking CRT after the election of Biden.
Notes Jasmine Banks, Executive Director of UnKoch my Campus, that as the Biden administration took over, “mentions of CRT skyrocketed on Fox News” and state legislators across the U.S. started introducing bills targeting CRT. She observes,
“But I have always known, as a Black woman, that the Koch brothers’ brand of radical capitalism relies on maintaining a system of white supremacy. That reality has rarely been as clear as now, when the Koch network is essentially working to manufacture a crisis to prove its case for privatizing education. Unkoch My Campus reviewed the published materials of 28 conservative think tanks and political organizations with known ties to the Koch network from June 2020 to June 2021 and found that they had collectively published 79 articles, podcasts, reports or videos about Critical Race Theory…Both the highly influential Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has known ties to the Kochs and a long history of driving conservative state legislation, held webinars devoted to attacking CRT. The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research alone devoted 43 separate articles or videos to the topic.”
On a global scale, it is critical to interrogate the role of another libertarian think tank, the Atlas Network, connected with Koch networks, drawing funding from Koch networks, and invested in building a global coalition of libertarian organisations promoting the free market. Consider the role of the Atlas Network in promoting far-right political movements and actors across global spaces, including across Latin America. The network has played a pivotal role in shaping electoral processes in Venezuela, Brazil.
In Australia, the Atlas Network and its extractive industry-based funding infrastructure drove the No campaign, targeting the Voice referendum seeking Indigenous participation. Carried out through the interface of Advance Australia, the campaign was built around disinformation, stoking fear around Indigenous take over of democratic processes. In Canada, the Atlas affiliated MacDonald Laurier Institute has consistently advocated against the federal government’s adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as this would potentially offer greater rights to Indigenous communities over natural and fossil fuel resources.
As noted by Dr. Jeremy Walker based on his study of the role of the Atlas Network in driving the No campaign, “Should an Indigenous Voice be constitutionalised in Parliament, First Nations representatives might raise objections to such fossil and mining projects,” Walker writes. The effort to deny Aboriginal Australians a voice is part of a global playbook from Atlas and its allies…They’ve also used it in Canada and likely anywhere else that greater Indigenous rights could impact fossil fuel and mining profits.”
The current emergence of attacks on decolonisation, critical race theory (CRT), and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) being witnessed across the globe, fuelled and designed by far-right actors are closely linked with the libertarian think tanks, ferrying in discourses and strategies for consolidating power in the hands of private capital. Over the past three months, the targeting of decolonisation by white supremacists and Zionists needs to be situated amidst this opportunity window of collaboration among Zionism, white supremacy and libertarianism. These attacks argue that the teaching of decolonisation and postcolonial theories in Western academia has led to the environment that is witnessing the large protests against Israel. Efforts to censor these protests are working alongside the active targeting of the teaching of CRT and decolonisation in Western Universities by framing these pedagogies as anti-Western civilisation.
Ultimately, as a powerful exemplar of the foundational hypocrisy that shapes the organising of libertarian think tanks, the organised attacks on Palestinian voices and voices in solidarity with Palestine seek to silence articulations from the margins of the colonial-imperial structure.
Re-turning to Aotearoa and FSU
As I have noted earlier, the Zionist disinformation campaign targeting academics, activists, and politicians in Aotearoa critical of the genocide being carried out by Israel exists in continuity with the global disinformation campaign targeting decolonisation. The manufacturing of the hysteria around decolonisation in Aotearoa mirrors the hysteria being produced by the libertarian think tank network in the US. Consider here the following tweet by Christopher Rufo that makes the strategy visible.
“Koch network libertarians have propagated the fantasy that we all do (or should) live in a radically free market, populated by unraced and ungendered free individuals, all pulling ourselves up by our proverbial bootstraps. In this world, individuals are wealthy (or poor) on their own merit (or because governments tried too hard to make everyone equal). The founding myth for plutocratic libertarians -- an American dream on steroids -- is essential in maintaining this deeply ideological, pro-corporate policy agenda. This mythical narrative, however, requires studiously avoiding the fact that the United States is not a radically free market but rather a country founded on both the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the racialized practice of chattel slavery. Starting from the actual historical record, however, makes it impossible to take the libertarian mythology seriously -- a myth created by rich, cis, white males to justify their own economic superiority.”
In September 2020, the far-right propagandist Christopher Rufo appeared on the Tucker Carlson show on Fox news, attacking CRT as anti-Western civilisation. This formed the backdrop against which Trump, an avid follower of Carlson, issued the executive order banning the teaching of CRT. In the following months, the hysteria around CRT died down and no states had issued policy frameworks until the Koch network of libertarian think tanks started pushing out policy briefs and press releases attacking CRT after the election of Biden.
Notes Jasmine Banks, Executive Director of UnKoch my Campus, that as the Biden administration took over, “mentions of CRT skyrocketed on Fox News” and state legislators across the U.S. started introducing bills targeting CRT. She observes,
“But I have always known, as a Black woman, that the Koch brothers’ brand of radical capitalism relies on maintaining a system of white supremacy. That reality has rarely been as clear as now, when the Koch network is essentially working to manufacture a crisis to prove its case for privatizing education. Unkoch My Campus reviewed the published materials of 28 conservative think tanks and political organizations with known ties to the Koch network from June 2020 to June 2021 and found that they had collectively published 79 articles, podcasts, reports or videos about Critical Race Theory…Both the highly influential Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has known ties to the Kochs and a long history of driving conservative state legislation, held webinars devoted to attacking CRT. The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research alone devoted 43 separate articles or videos to the topic.”
On a global scale, it is critical to interrogate the role of another libertarian think tank, the Atlas Network, connected with Koch networks, drawing funding from Koch networks, and invested in building a global coalition of libertarian organisations promoting the free market. Consider the role of the Atlas Network in promoting far-right political movements and actors across global spaces, including across Latin America. The network has played a pivotal role in shaping electoral processes in Venezuela, Brazil.
In Australia, the Atlas Network and its extractive industry-based funding infrastructure drove the No campaign, targeting the Voice referendum seeking Indigenous participation. Carried out through the interface of Advance Australia, the campaign was built around disinformation, stoking fear around Indigenous take over of democratic processes. In Canada, the Atlas affiliated MacDonald Laurier Institute has consistently advocated against the federal government’s adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as this would potentially offer greater rights to Indigenous communities over natural and fossil fuel resources.
As noted by Dr. Jeremy Walker based on his study of the role of the Atlas Network in driving the No campaign, “Should an Indigenous Voice be constitutionalised in Parliament, First Nations representatives might raise objections to such fossil and mining projects,” Walker writes. The effort to deny Aboriginal Australians a voice is part of a global playbook from Atlas and its allies…They’ve also used it in Canada and likely anywhere else that greater Indigenous rights could impact fossil fuel and mining profits.”
The current emergence of attacks on decolonisation, critical race theory (CRT), and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) being witnessed across the globe, fuelled and designed by far-right actors are closely linked with the libertarian think tanks, ferrying in discourses and strategies for consolidating power in the hands of private capital. Over the past three months, the targeting of decolonisation by white supremacists and Zionists needs to be situated amidst this opportunity window of collaboration among Zionism, white supremacy and libertarianism. These attacks argue that the teaching of decolonisation and postcolonial theories in Western academia has led to the environment that is witnessing the large protests against Israel. Efforts to censor these protests are working alongside the active targeting of the teaching of CRT and decolonisation in Western Universities by framing these pedagogies as anti-Western civilisation.
Ultimately, as a powerful exemplar of the foundational hypocrisy that shapes the organising of libertarian think tanks, the organised attacks on Palestinian voices and voices in solidarity with Palestine seek to silence articulations from the margins of the colonial-imperial structure.
Re-turning to Aotearoa and FSU
As I have noted earlier, the Zionist disinformation campaign targeting academics, activists, and politicians in Aotearoa critical of the genocide being carried out by Israel exists in continuity with the global disinformation campaign targeting decolonisation. The manufacturing of the hysteria around decolonisation in Aotearoa mirrors the hysteria being produced by the libertarian think tank network in the US. Consider here the following tweet by Christopher Rufo that makes the strategy visible.
Now consider the following posts targeting decolonisation from the FSU network in Aotearoa: Here’s the Israel Institute linked with David Cumin:
Note once again, nowhere in my writings have I urged Māori in Aotearoa to follow Hamas-style decolonisation (whatever that means). The excerpt from the blog post quoted above has no reference to Māori .
Note similarly the following post by Juliet Moses on November 5, directly linking to the global far-right outrage around “decolonisation and its dangers”:
These are few other examples that make visible the racist hysteria around decolonisation from the far right audience base mobilised around the disinformation built around my blog post.
These are few other examples that make visible the racist hysteria around decolonisation from the far right audience base mobilised around the disinformation built around my blog post.
Note below the moral panic around decolonisation being reproduced by another FSU council member, Ani O'Brien.
How are the free market-promoting libertarian structures in Aotearoa connected to the global networks of libertarian think tanks? Jordan Williams, one of the four founders of the FSU is also a member of the Atlas Network. The Taxpayers Union, of which Williams is one of the Founders and is currently the Director, is listed as an affiliate of the Network. A recent post by the Network refers to Williams and the campaign he crafted leading up to the election. The post notes,
“Jordan Williams and New Zealand Taxpayers Union, a 2023 Smart Bets partner, are setting the standard in the work to curb government waste and abuse of taxpayer money. With a little help from "Porky the Waste-hater" they're ready to turn up the heat even more.”
Williams is also the Chief Executive Officer and sole director of the Campaign Company that ran the We Belong Aotearoa campaign on behalf of Hobson’s Pledge before the election, targeting immigrants and organised around attacking co-governance. Hobson’s Pledge engages in advocacy seeking to abolish the allocated Māori seats in the New Zealand Parliament and the Waitangi Tribunal, framing these allocations as race-based affirmative action, and arguing that the Treaty of Waitangi offers evidence that Māori chiefs ceded sovereignty in 1840. The implication of the campaign is that the provision for Māori participation in the constitution in Aotearoa is fundamentally undemocratic. The language of democracy and “one person, one vote” are deployed to mobilise populist majoritarianism, generated around the fear of Māori take over of Aotearoa New Zealand. Note here the role of the We Belong Aotearoa campaign as an astroturf, obfuscating the role of Hobson’s Pledge as the driver of the campaign. Hobson’s Pledge also ran the "NZ New Zealand, Not Aotearoa NZ," demanding that the official name of the country be New Zealand, and not Aotearoa New Zealand.
Refer here to the earlier observation in this blog post about the role of Franks in targeting co-governance through the legal infrastructure. The court case against the three water reforms led by Franks through the astroturf Water Users' Group and legally through Frank Ogilve, working alongside the Taxpayers Union, objected to the 50-50 iwi Māori representation on the regional water corporations. Here's Jordan Williams:
“If the Water Users’ Group succeeds in court, it will knock back the radical interpretation of the Treaty that underpins He Puapua and is driving co-governance across the local government, health, and resource management sectors.”
Commenting on the disinformation ecosystem manufactured around Three Waters, observed Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley:
The Campaign Company also lists as its clients the grassroots farmer advocacy group Groundswell.
Another astroturf campaign run by the Campaign Company, hosted under the domain name saveourstores.nz site and funded by the tobacco industry, offered the appearance of a grassroots campaign from dairy owners concerned about smokefree rules. The ads, presented as "a campaign to “save our stores” from a smokefree initiative looks like a grassroots effort," urging viewers on Facebook to support a petition to “save our stores, ”leading them to a website called Save Our Stores and a petition to repeal the Smokefree 2025 Act. The framing of the campaign as being driven by grassroots dairy owners worked to directly obfuscate the role of the funders, the tobacco companies BAT (British American Tobacco) New Zealand and Imperial Brands. The right-wing Coalition government announced its intention to remove three policies enacted through the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act:
Another astroturf campaign run by the Campaign Company, hosted under the domain name saveourstores.nz site and funded by the tobacco industry, offered the appearance of a grassroots campaign from dairy owners concerned about smokefree rules. The ads, presented as "a campaign to “save our stores” from a smokefree initiative looks like a grassroots effort," urging viewers on Facebook to support a petition to “save our stores, ”leading them to a website called Save Our Stores and a petition to repeal the Smokefree 2025 Act. The framing of the campaign as being driven by grassroots dairy owners worked to directly obfuscate the role of the funders, the tobacco companies BAT (British American Tobacco) New Zealand and Imperial Brands. The right-wing Coalition government announced its intention to remove three policies enacted through the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act:
These astroturf strategies deployed by organisational structures linked with Williams replicate US-style libertarian efforts at securing influence over political processes, obfuscating the source of the funding and driving up disinformation.
Both the targeted attacks on co-governance and anti-smoking policies are most likely to disproportionately impact the health and well-being of Māori. The evidence-based documentary produced by Mihingarangi Forbes and Annabelle Lee-Mather and supported by robust research by Josh Drummond, “Trick or Treaty? Indigenous rights, referendums and the Treaty of Waitangi,” offers powerful insights into the right wing networks of free market promoting interests attacking co-governance and mobilising a campaign targeting Te Tiriti. Pointing to the intertwined web that percolates across the diverse spheres of influence from think tanks to politics, notes Drummond:
Both the targeted attacks on co-governance and anti-smoking policies are most likely to disproportionately impact the health and well-being of Māori. The evidence-based documentary produced by Mihingarangi Forbes and Annabelle Lee-Mather and supported by robust research by Josh Drummond, “Trick or Treaty? Indigenous rights, referendums and the Treaty of Waitangi,” offers powerful insights into the right wing networks of free market promoting interests attacking co-governance and mobilising a campaign targeting Te Tiriti. Pointing to the intertwined web that percolates across the diverse spheres of influence from think tanks to politics, notes Drummond:
"New Zealand is a small country, to be sure, but after a few hours it becomes very clear that the favourite hobby of these lobby organisations is giving each other jobs. The boards are stacked with fixtures of the “business community” — the very elites that these same organisations so often rail against — and a scan of member’s employment histories often reveals them bouncing around related orgs like pinballs. New NZ First MP Casey Costello, to pick one name more or less at random, has previously worked for (or with) the Taxpayer’s Union, Hobson’s Pledge, and ACT. Each organisation is so entwined with the others that they start to look, accurately, like the same body."
Unpacking the linkage between the agendas of the extractive industries and the racist attack on Te Tiriti, adds Drummond:
"Since it gained limited judicial and legislative recognition, Te Tiriti has been a bugbear for neoliberals. It represents everything they hate: an example of collective recognition and responsibility, and an admission that indigenous people do in fact have continuing inalienable rights that pre-date colonisation. Perhaps most importantly, Te Tiriti acts as a potential handbrake on the kind of unfettered property rights required for mining and fossil fuel companies to prosper."
The FSU was formed as the Free Speech Coalition, organised around the goal of overturning the Mayor of Auckland Phil Goff's cancellation of an event featuring the far-right white supremacist speakers Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux at a venue owned by the council. Both Southern and Molyneux peddle the white supremacist ideology Great Replacement theory that inspired the Christchurch terrorist attack, the Buffalo white supremacist terror attack, and the mass murders in in Utøya, Norway, in 2011, at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2018 and in El Paso, Texas, in 2019. Although the FSU’s challenge was unsuccessful in both the High Court and the Court of Appeals, the organisation has since grown in its capacity, positioning itself as the central node of advocacy around free speech issues in Aotearoa.
One of the employees of the FSU is William McGimpsey who works in the area of legal drafting and research, handling submissions and cases according to the FSU website. McGimpsey tweets about the Great Replacement theory as a legitimate subject of public debate, writing, “The Great Replacement is a term popularised by French author Renaud Camus to describe the mass immigration and demographic changes happening across most Western nations. It is a legitimate subject of public debate…Mass immigration and large-scale demographic change, in addition to the other problems they cause, are a threat to self-determination - this applies not just to white people, but also to indigenous minorities like Māori. Mass immigration is causing massive changes to our countries and their way of life right around the globe.”
Refer the paragraph above to the underlying white supremacist ideology of the Great Replacement theory that has shaped white supremacist terror attacks across the globe, including the largest instance of terrorism in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Here are some additional examples of posts from McGimpsey that are racist and anti-immigrant (targeting immigrants of colour from what he terms as the third world), reflecting the underlying white supremacist ideology (please note that one of the images is violent and do feel free to skip the section).
Consider here the convergence with the Great Replacement theory narrative of threats to the purity of (white/Western) civilisation:
In Aotearoa, the organising principles of Te Tiriti offer the foundations for challenging and resisting the libertarian takeover, putting forth theoretical and material infrastructures that push back against the wholesale privatisation of resources, spaces, land, and services. Te Tiriti forms the basis for voicing climate justice and for imagining futures that are sustainable. Most importantly, Te Tiriti forms the basis for challenging the disinformation-based campaigns being mobilised by far-right libertarian networks. As evident in the solidarities voiced in allyship with the Palestinian struggle against settler colonialism, decolonisation struggles in Aotearoa form critical infrastructures for building just futures, here in Aotearoa and globally.
The far-right disinformation campaign targeting and censoring conversations and practices of decolonisation here in Aotearoa and globally will continue to be resisted by Indigenous communities, communities of colour and by allies. As I noted in my earlier blog debunking the disinformation being spread by FSU-affiliated actors, “decolonising resistance consistently co-creates voice infrastructures” that offer pathways for transformation.
The life of disinformation, propelled by powerful political and economic interests, is reproduced through a plethora of platforms that are strategically deployed to serve colonial powers. The challenge to disinformation emerges both from everyday acts of rendering its investments, underlying networks, and communicative processes visible, as well as in the everyday organising of communities at the raced margins of extractive systems, participating in democratic processes and laying claims to be heard. Decolonising communicative infrastructures lies at the heart of developing solutions that challenge the invested power networks driving the disinformation industry.
The ongoing struggles of the Palestinian people against the genocidal violence being deployed by Israel, in witnessing and documenting the violence and in resisting it, stands alongside the ongoing resistance offered by Indigenous communities to neocolonial extractive agendas. Decolonisation as anticolonial resistance thrives amidst the concerted efforts of silencing. As Tina Ngata reminds us, analysing critically and challenging the underlying power structures that shape disinformation campaigns upholding settler colonialism lies at the heart of building decolonising communication futures rooted in justice.