Film Maker & Journalist.
Freedom Village by Alan Simmons and Sue Grey
It is such a shame that the New Zealand media did everything it could to ignore the anti-mandate protests of February 2022.
Because if they had participated as journalists intent on hearing the stories of New Zealanders, what they would have found on the lawns and streets around parliament would have been real stories of real hurt by real New Zealanders.
But instead, journalism, like politics and science, inexplicably failed during the covid hysteria of 2020-2023.
And so it is up to authors like Sue Grey and Alan Simmons to write the history of those who were not only ignored, but also marginalised, chastised and demonised but the media, without any true attempt to understand them.
‘Freedom Village’ is that story. A recalling of the incredible nationwide out-pouring of love that was the Freedom Convoy of 6-8 February 2022. And the story of the resulting Freedom Village that sprang up on the lawns and streets around the New Zealand parliament until it was brutally removed by the New Zealand Police on March 2nd, 2022.
In the end, this book is a necessity. Because of the failure of the media to tell the stories of New Zealanders with the dignity they deserved.
The people who had gathered at parliament to protest the vaccine mandates all had some sort of loss in their lives. They had lost jobs and businesses; families had been torn apart; people had been injured and died.
They were New Zealanders who came from all walks of life. Doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, tradespeople and business owners who had given their lives to a system of nationhood that now rejected them. They were also students and life-long activists, musicians, artists, yoga teachers, photographers and citizen journalists. There were people there who had given their lives to protesting all sorts of causes and there were people who had never protested a day in their lives.
What Sue Grey and Alan Simmons do with ‘Freedom Village’ is capture that cross-section of New Zealand by weaving their own stories in with those of every day Kiwis who decided the vaccine mandates were the one issue they just could not stand by and allow to pass without challenge.
And in doing so, because the media failed so badly at their job at the time, Sue and Alan have created a book that will be worthy of the very Kiwi descriptor: ‘Taonga’, for our nation’s history.
It is a treasure because it is a first-hand account in the absence of any true journalism of the time. And so one day this story will be the source material that historians will turn to. Where they will find a vast difference between the voices of the people who were there and the narrative spun by a news media that mostly appeared incapable of any empathy for their fellow New Zealanders who had had their lives destroyed by the vaccine mandates.
For many people like myself who were there, ‘Freedom Village’ is sometimes a difficult read and sometimes bewildering, but always heart-warming. It is difficult because it still swells the anger valve for how the media reported it, the government ignored it and the police brutalised it. And it is bewildering because even now while the memories are still fresh, it is hard to understand our our nation descended into such an outpouring of deliberate division that caused the protest to happen in the first place.
But it will be the the heart-warming tales told in this book that will get us all through this difficult period in our history. Because the Freedom Village was exactly that – a heart-warming place where we all suddenly found ourselves in a melting pot of love, community, understanding, healing… and hug breaks.
And since the news media chose not to tell that story, it is a wonderful thing that Sue and Alan have decided to do so. Because the Freedom Village was a place that showed us what we are truly capable of when we learn to love our differences. Where we came to live and eat and sing and tell our stories together.
And that’s why this book ultimately is so valuable. Because while the news media spent all their time spreading fear and division, this book calmly reminds us just how great we can be when we come together and simply listen.
And that, in the end, will be what saves not only journalism, but our nation as well.
‘Freedom Village’ by Alan Simmons and Sue Grey is required reading for any New Zealander who believes in truth, democracy and true representation.
– Alistair Harding, filmmaker, ‘We Came Here for Freedom’.