By MIKESH PATEL

INTRODUCTION FROM FIGHTBACK

Organise Aotearoa (OA) was an activist grouping of the radical left in Aotearoa New Zealand which dissolved earlier this year (2026). Fightback was involved as a tendency in OA until late 2019, and the statement we made on our withdrawal is available here: https://fightbackarchive.blog/2020/01/20/fightback-withdraws-from-organise-aotearoa/

With the neoliberal global order rapidly cracking up, and fascism and other Right-wing forms of populism being the main force filling the gap in most parts of the world, it is inevitable and urgent that new regroupments of socialists, anti-capitalists, and other movements for liberation will arise. It is important to recapitulate the experience of Organise Aotearoa in that regard – the socialist Left in Aotearoa has a regrettable history of making the same mistakes over and over again, and of not learning from its mistakes.

Although comrade Patel’s account of OA’s history only overlaps with Fightback’s at the margins, we feel the analyses complement each other. We call for further contributions on the lessons of Organise Aotearoa, and on the prospects of what a new regroupment of the anti-capitalist Left in this motu would look like, and what its programme would be.

---

Author disclaimer: The views here are representative only of my own and from my limited perspective as one member of one branch for a specific period in the life of Organise Aotearoa.

Tēnā koutou,

I was a member of Organise Aotearoa from around November 2017 until May 2024. My first real engagement with OA was sitting in on a ‘roadshow’ session they did in the buildup to the creation of the party at the University of Auckland, while Sue Bradford was still involved. (I won’t comment on the process of forming the party and the split with Sue that happened since I was not involved.) Being more focused on forming Tāmaki Makaurau Anarchists around the same time, I went along for curiosity’s sake more than anything else. A few months later, I was invited to speak at the final session of a series called Everything’s Fucked… but the point is to move beyond that, where they were showcasing various groups and initiatives that people could join. OA was there too and I remember the audience and myself being impressed by the party’s principles which they read out – these remained constant until the demise of the organisation. This was still before OA’s official launch at the end of 2017.

What actually moved me to get involved, however, was hearing their proposed plan of action. The strategy was to build a programme by holding mass meetings all over the motu (and, I assumed, in collaboration with various social movements working in the different proposed areas of the programme – Housing, Work and Welfare, Environment, Decolonisation and Justice). This struck me as an idea worth pursuing so I got involved, joining the Housing ‘site of struggle’ (the group of members which would take responsibility for writing and then acting on that section of the programme once the party had launched). Unfortunately, for reasons that I can’t claim to understand, from the beginning the meetings of the various sites of struggle were poorly attended. This arguably doomed the strategy to failure from the start. I understand that this lack of participation drove the creation of local branches which swiftly became far more influential bodies within the organisation, alongside the National Coordinating Committee.

The initial surge of membership on launch was hopeful. Without a doubt, OA briefly captured the hopes of a number of people – not only those established or itinerant on the left, but new to the left also. At the same time, from the beginning it was more or less dominated by those already established on the left, who were usually already part of various factions or tendencies. The writers of the party’s constitution had purposefully left things light, I think understandably and with good intentions, hoping that it would be made fit for purpose over time. However, it was pushed to its limits regularly early on, with damaging debates around the organisation’s tagline and logo, etc. exposing weak decision making and non-existent conflict protocols. Of course, conflict in any group let alone a broad-tent left organisation was inevitable, but the structures of the organisation were also not at all equipped for it. This would be a recurring problem, still only partially addressed by the time of the party’s dissolution.

Most disappointing of all, the strategy proved limp. Rather than the vision which had drawn me in of mass meetings around the country, single meetings around each of the sites of struggle (housing, environment, etc.) in Wellington and Auckland and one or two elsewhere were held instead. They featured guest speakers representing organisations working within the sites, but otherwise did not show any interest in building any ongoing relationship with those organisations. I remember asking about this at the time and was told by the then Programme Officer that “well, if they want to get involved they should join the party” – a statement buoyed no doubt by the initial membership surge. There was no checking-in with or feedback for the discussion groups which were supposed to feed into the programme, resulting in programme sections that probably resembled what the authors would have written anyway. The result was (eventually) an impressive programme with no legs or influence beyond the organisation (with engagement even within the organisation limited).

In the absence of this, by the end of 2018 local branches largely were busy supporting local organising efforts. In Auckland we attempted to form campaigns around golf courses and a hospo union for example. This was also a peak of inter-group organising, with groups like Tāmaki Anti-Fascist Action coming together in Auckland made up of five or six groups across the left. OA members formed the backbone of an anti-sexism education group for men. While this valuable work was happening, however, the initial enthusiasm for the organisation had started to dissipate. Topics such as internationalism and whether to run for elections (local or national) were addressed mainly by avoiding the topic altogether. While it did keep the organisation alive, this lack of channels and protocol for having the necessary internal debates meant that most factions, one after another, stopped participating in the organisation, sometimes leaving with fireworks (and letters of resignation).

Unfortunately, it seems in most instances the National Coordination Committee received these letters and largely dismissed concerns, not opening up debate within the membership. The NCC was also disproportionately influential in the organisation. While branches met fortnightly, the NCC met weekly. And even though the NCC wasn’t supposed to make any real decisions without branch input, they were. There was also a Feminist caucus, but there was no limitation on how many cismen could be on the NCC which contributed to a certain level of dominance of cismen throughout the life of the organisation, another problem that remained unaddressed until the end.

Being busy with TMA I had kept myself largely out of things until 2019 when I started to become more active in the organisation. This was of course a monumental year in the history of Aotearoa because of the successful land protection, occupation and eviction resistance at Ihumātao. And this was probably the highlight of OA’s existence as an organisation: sending significant numbers to the direct actions at the Weapons Expo in Palmerston North, an occupation of the Brazilian embassy and then above all OA’s involvement with Ihumātao. That was naturally driven by our Māori caucus which was small but increasingly influential at this time (its existence, though not as central as it could have been, was a strong reason for me to stick with the party).

Prior to this moment, the organisation had dealt with colonisation topics rather gingerly, compartmentalising it as a site of struggle and with the Māori caucus (which had just one seat on the NCC). I had been exhorting all organisations on the left to engage with Ihumātao and Matike Mai with little success. But to the vast credit of OA, especially the Māori caucus and a younger wave of members, they really stepped up during the attempted eviction. We ran direct action training for the whānau and showed up for working bees. We postered and even had members living out on the land. When the eviction attempt happened, we were well represented every day, holding the barricade on one side of the road. In hindsight, this was a major turning point for the organisation. Prior to this, it more or less resembled your standard Pākehā dominated leftwing party, in thought and practice. Ihumātao marked a shift towards a far more interesting, in my opinion, type of politics.

This extended of course to Pukeiāhua, Puketiti, Mau Whenua, and above all Pūtiki, where our members were at times central to the resistance against the marina. This was driven by connections made by our Māori caucus, and to the vast credit of a cohort of Pākehā members, they showed up for the mahi. This was a turning point not only in politics but also a reaffirmation of OA’s commitment to direct action, which led to those committed to other forms of politics withdrawing. The failed OA-led direct action at Ihumātao exposed again the lack of decision making and safety protocols. Nonetheless, the heart of the members involved was in the right place.

The result was that the OA that emerged by the end of 2019 was significantly different to the one that had started off at the end of 2017. Auckland and Wellington branches remained relatively strong, attracting 15-30 members at its fortnightly meetings. Unfortunately, the Dunedin and Hamilton branches started falling away even before Covid hit. Both branches said that they felt disconnected from the organisation as a whole and lacked support and guidance on what to do. Auckland and Wellington committed to independent strategy processes. I joined the NCC as the Housing Officer at the end of 2019 and pledged the formation of a tenant union. As part of the strategy process, decolonisation started to play a bigger role, with a member of the Māori caucus writing an excellent piece on why the organisation should support Matike Mai. Interestingly, however, the response was muted, and it would take further work for the organisation to orient more fully theoretically towards decolonisation as a major part of its focus and explicit strategy. That work, as far as it went, will hopefully remain one of the lasting influences of OA’s existence.

The strategies proposed ranged from supporting Green party candidates to focusing more on union work to ‘base-building’ proposals, slightly in vogue at the time with the Marxist Center in the US. Disappointingly, however, many of these were theoretical with few genuine action points behind them. Where there were action points, there was a conspicuous lack of will and capacity to implement them. Perhaps worst of all, the proposals were simply put forward to be rejected or accepted, meaning that they remained unintegrated and unprioritised. The result was that OA effectively continued to muddle on without a strategy.

Covid naturally leant itself to more internal facing work such as this, as OA externally continued to work primarily with land occupations and on forming a tenant union in Tāmaki Makaurau. A process around a member led to the decline of the Wellington branch half-way through their strategy process, meaning it was essentially moribund by the end of 2020. All of this spurred, probably far too late, the beginning of the creation of policies around conflict, harm and decision making.

By 2021, however, OA felt clearly in a state of decline. It seemed like time to reflect, review and do better, rather than continuing to attract new members while lacking the structures to keep, engage and develop them. I proposed a review process where we would survey current and ex members on their views of the organisation and how it could be improved. This led to a 141 page report summarising all the findings and key areas to improve. This was released at the first national camp for its members, attended primarily by its Tāmaki members and a few surviving members from other parts of the country. There we made our initial plan on what to address, identifying first and foremost that OA lacked purpose and strategy. This was partly a function of being a broad tent. It was felt that it had become time for OA to identify its specific tendency, which eventually was identified as ‘decolonial communism’.

The initial steps of the review process (later rebranded ‘refresh’) were highly engaged with. It was decided that OA needed, first of all, a vision (what it wants for the world / Aotearoa), then a theory of change (broad strategy), an understanding of its role within that, and then a specific strategy would hopefully flow out of that. In parallel processes, specific concerns around areas of the organisation, e.g. membership, conflict, etc. would continue to be worked on.

OA produced a vision, with a relatively high engagement from the remaining members. The aim initially was for a relatively simple vision that would give the beginnings of a clear direction for strategy. While the result was a beautiful statement, it did not lend itself to a clear direction or site of action. After this, we began work on our theory of change (which we decided to call our theory of revolution). This took, perhaps not surprisingly, much longer than we wanted to, and many people perhaps understandably grew frustrated with this and the feeling that we were too busy ‘navel gazing’. By the end of 2021 the tenant union in Auckland had blown up due to conflict with more liberal members that it had brought in, and there was an ebb in occupations to support, leaving OA with relatively little external focus and, with fewer and fewer members, little capacity to start new initiatives.

In hindsight, it also became clearer that attempting to find a strategy for a communism of our times was a formidable task that has been eluding essentially everyone since the 90s. There were fundamental tensions between various possible broad strategies (focusing on unionism, ‘building the alternative’, building a party, etc.) with none of the available ones on their own seeming sufficient. We pieced together a theory of revolution that just about satisfied all of us – but which we also all had reservations about – and then got completely caught in the weeds with OA’s role. We were partially through this stage until I was no longer part of the organisation, and it remained incomplete. This was a shame because it was painstaking but valuable work which the left as a whole needs to do. At the same time, it was unlikely that the few of us in OA were going to stumble on the magic formula of how to do revolution.

In the meantime we started a magazine which launched one edition on Landback and continued running monthly film nights and supported various campaigns. For whatever reason it was decided that the magazine was for members and supporters only, but in perhaps a sign of the dilapidated nature of the organisation, our email to our many supporters (more than 2,000) hardly reached anyone because of an IT glitch. We also put some effort into creating what was meant to be a coalition of social movements – Tapatahi – which unfortunately fizzled out, which is perhaps another story in of itself. After I was no longer around, capacity dropped even further until it appears the few remaining decided to call it quits.

What lessons can we learn from all this? I think many, though unfortunately they’re unlikely to be learned by those keen on forming the next party that will surely, this time, crack the code. Perhaps the foremost is the need for a solid, engaging and viable strategy. This is the case for a single-tendency group (TMA also died arguably for this reason), but arguably even more so for an organisation that seeks to unite or transcend various tendencies (though also having caucuses in the style of DSA is maybe not a bad idea). Another is the need for protocols on how to handle debate and discussion, decision making, information flow, conflict and harm. This is a problem that has hamstrung the left for far too long. Another is to find active ways to entrench non-cismen, people of colour, and tangata whenua in the core power structures of the organisation.

How any such party should orient to social movements, above all the struggle to end colonisation in Aotearoa, is also paramount. It seemed to be part of the vision of the party from the days of Sue Bradford and then with the initial idea of the programme to have various social movements structurally involved with the organisation. Personally, I think there is still potential for that, a party that has space also for unions (or rank and file groupings) and social movements to meet and generate ideas and action. That would give a party that chooses to stand outside of the electoral system like OA did a fighting chance of being connected materially to struggles and draw in active members beyond the university.

Finally, fully embracing Matike Mai both as a central vision and as part of the structure in whichever way tangata whenua wish to express that in the organisation must be part of any party that emerges in the future. Not just in Tāmaki but across the country the days where monocultural political groups that claim to represent all are numbered. It is time for the left to fully embrace the multicultural and more importantly decolonised Aotearoa of the future. May we all strive and build for a communist, bottom-up, Landback conception of Matike Mai.