No, this is not an article insulting that beautiful Scandinavian oasis. Instead, a personal perspective of the incoming mandated vaccinations in New Zealand, and of the Covid response of New Zealand’s government, from a Kiwi Adventist teacher.
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom (Proverbs 4:7 NKJV).
Denmark seems like a beautiful place. The home of Hans Christian Anderson. Neat. Orderly. Sadly I have never been there. In fact, I was meant to be there last spring for a trip through Scandinavia and onto Russia. Due to Covid, that never happened. So I am not saying anything rotten is literally happening in Denmark right now. I am saying that what is happening in New Zealand right now is profoundly troubling.
Back at university, I enjoyed studying Shakespeare through to Master’s level. As most of you know, the title of this article is a famous line from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, when Hamlet’s loyal friend, Horatio, and servant, Marcellus, are both trying to persuade Hamlet to not follow the ghost but Hamlet chooses to. Marcellus says that “something is rotten in Denmark”, meaning that he does not trust that all is well - he thinks something is wrong. It means that the situation of Denmark is similar to a fish that rots from head to tail, or in other words, it shows that everything is not good at the top of Denmark’s political hierarchy.
Today something is not right at the top of our political hierarchies. It doesn’t matter what country you talk about. USA, like most of our readers here. Or New Zealand, where I am from. Or Australia, across the ditch from us. The UK. The Caribbean. Israel. The Middle East. Africa. Asia. South America… as my mind runs through names of countries around the world, all is not well.
I was blessed to be brought up on a farm. There is something very grounded about a farmer. I adored my father. He was a man of few words but great wisdom. Great common sense. Dad esteemed common sense highly. He felt clearly inferior in the presence of those with impressive educational achievements, which in turn meant I grew up unconsciously under-estimating the wonderful wisdom I was being exposed to in that country classroom of our farm, and instead turned my view to university. I have an unfinished doctorate, which I now doubt will ever get finished. In the last year, my motivation has greatly waned. But even prior to that, I would look at our topics, and often I would picture my late father’s head bowed and shaking, and hear his quiet voice softly murmuring, “What’s the point in that? Where’s the use? There is no common sense...” I often thought if the world crashed tonight, who would actually care about animal theory in literature, or how women are represented in a particular body of literature, and so forth. I thought back to how self-sufficient we were on our farm, and how resourceful Dad was, and realised that was true education.
Dad died in 2002. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss him. However, I am thankful he is not alive to see New Zealand today. The type of Kiwi he was is not who we are any more. The values he valued are no longer valued. Hard work. Honesty. Honour. Shaking hands on a deal, and knowing your word was your bond.
When did I first notice something was not right in New Zealand? Very early last year.
When I first heard about a new virus in China, I must admit I skipped over that news - I thought they seemed to regularly get things like that: Bird Flu, SARS, Swine Flu… so I carried on enjoying our Kiwi summer and thought nothing of it. But then it got to February, and news from Wuhan was dominating our daily news. Frightening images of people in PPE running around an eerily silent city are etched into my memory. It was clear this was becoming a major issue, and one that was quickly spreading beyond the confines of China. So being the daughter of my father, I assumed New Zealand would close its border to students from that province of China who were planning to study in New Zealand for our academic year starting that month. But no…
At the time, I lived in a university city. There was growing concern about the large number of students from China, and specifically from Wuhan, who were due to arrive. Why was the government not stopping them? Their excuse was they couldn’t stop them unless WHO stipulated a pandemic… Again, that sounded odd. I could immediately think of times New Zealand had defied the world, and stood proud on a principle.
Anecdotally, I knew of a professor at that university. He told me about a conversation he had had with one of the university medical centre doctors, who had inspected the students who had arrived from Wuhan, many of them presenting with symptoms of Covid. She had naturally been alarmed and had notified the Ministry of Health, to be told that as it was not yet a recognised issue by our government, there was nothing to be done… Hmm… more memories of my father shaking his head quietly.
Roll on a month, and finally in late March, Covid hits New Zealand, and we are put straight into a Level 4 lockdown. I think every Kiwi was glued to their telly, avidly listening to our charismatic Prime Minister tell us what was happening. I think we all felt united in relief that something was happening; there was a plan. Fear reigned supreme, and Jacinda had the solution. Lockdown!
Having autoimmune disease, and a past of various health conditions, I was thankful. Even though I am no longer the political beast I once was, I would diligently watch her 1pm briefings, feeling I was doing my civic duty in being up-to-date. When did I wake up? How did I first sense something was maybe not quite right?
Being a staunch George Orwell fan, it was the day our Prime Minister uttered the words “We are your one source of truth.” Ouch! For any history buff or literature teacher, that hit a raw nerve. I immediately recoiled. That was a big claim to make. Every year I teach about the Holocaust to my senior class, imprinting Elie Wiesel’s famous saying, “Never forget” into their minds. I thought back to one of Hitler’s first acts upon gaining the leadership of Germany was to censor the press. He was their one source of truth. Any democracy worth its salt has freedom of expression. Freedom of speech. Freedom of the press. Already by the time our Prime Minister said that, there were a few reports of differences of opinion about what was termed “The Covid response.” One of New Zealand’s top scientists publicly queried our response. You can no longer even find his name in a Google search. Something was rotten in the state of New Zealand…
I then found out that within half an hour of our Level 4 Lockdown announcement, the most extreme abortion laws in the world were signed into law. So while we were all out elbowing each other in the rush to stock up on loo paper, our Prime Minister was quietly and purposely signing in full-term abortion. The transcript of our parliament’s debate that allowed it made for gut-churning reading. Her presence of mind to get that done whilst her naive countrymen were out panicking over the impending lockdown was unsettling, to say the least. Something was rotten in the state of New Zealand…
I started to notice that the usual robust debate in our media was making way for the one source of truth. We were gradually just getting the one narrative. Covid. Covid. Covid. Black and white. Nasty bug. Nice vaccine. No preventative measures mentioned. No other treatments available or worthwhile. Just hanging out for a vaccine. It didn’t matter that the backbone of our economy was breaking. Mum and Dad New Zealander who run small businesses were all closed, deemed ‘non-essential’. The government was borrowing millions upon millions to pay everyone out. Most were thrilled to get paid to stay home. Nothing was said in the media about how all this would get paid back. My Depression era-raised Dad, who had a lifelong hatred of debt, would have rolled over in his grave, if he could. Something was rotten in the state of New Zealand…
One sunny day in lockdown I was out walking our dog, keeping my two metres away from other walkers, and ensuring our dogs did not touch (yes, dogs and cats can apparently pass on Covid). A neighbour stopped to chat (two metres away, of course). Her husband and son were both train drivers. She told me how many people were suiciding on the main train line down the South Island. I was shocked. Nothing was said in the media. Then one day, one account of an elderly man who suicided through loneliness was briefly mentioned in the media. Later another account of the suicide of a young butcher, married with a young family, who lost hope with his business ruined through lockdown, also hit the media. Then silence. A little while later I was at a wedding, seated opposite the fire chief of one of New Zealand’s top tourist destination towns. We got chatting about lockdown and about the state of New Zealand, and he told me about the huge suicide rate in his town, and the awful tragedies he had to attend. A well-known Kiwi personality publicly questioned the mental impact of the lockdowns. The government denied our suicide rate had gone up, but refused to release the 2020 figures. They are still not released, although one report has said our suicides doubled last year. About 600. We had 27 deaths from Covid. Something was rotten in the state of New Zealand…
Gradually reading about the vaccine development got me thinking. I had always diligently and trustingly taken every vaccine offered, but in 2015 and in 2017 I suffered adverse reactions to the annual winter flu shot, developing autoimmune disease, and so in agreement with my doctor, decided no more vaccines for me. I knew good vaccines took time. That made sense. So the speed of the roll-out of each vaccine for Covid had me concerned. It seemed like we were the trial rats. Then watching jurisdiction after jurisdiction not just make this an option for its citizens, but the main and increasingly only plank of addressing Covid illogical. I was in New Zealand - we have had only 27 deaths from Covid; well, more accurately, with Covid. Last year, I think it was 24 or 25. All were elderly people, with the usual comorbidities one expects with those in rest-home care, especially dementia care. They were vulnerable. It was heart-rending to see family standing in gardens outside windows to farewell their loved ones, or via Zoom calls on iPads. It all seemed wrong. Suddenly we seemed to have no annual winter flu deaths. Neither did the UK, or other countries. Those deaths were getting swallowed up into Covid stats. English lit was always my forte; not stats, but even I could see something was not quite right. Something was rotten in the state of New Zealand… Stay tuned for part 2.
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Sharyn Dunn is a mother to three adult children and teaches at one of our church schools in New Zealand. Coming into our message in a rather miraculous way in 2003, she loves our Seventh-day Adventist message and movement.