On September 13, Catalyst Trust held a mayoral candidates’ forum, inviting the public to ‘hear more than soundbites and see beyond the marketing gloss’.
The national mask mandate had expired at midnight; discretion now lay with organisers as to whether events would require masks.
For various reasons — including assurances already given to immune-compromised members of our community, who could otherwise not attend — we decided to keep the requirement.
We reconfirmed this with all registrants, ensured we had masks to give anyone who arrived without, and even arranged an optional meeting room with participation via audio-video feed in case anyone insisted on refusing a mask.
We were delighted that more than 200 members of our community accepted our invitation to attend the forum masked.
Catalyst volunteers, moderator David Williams, the Wakatipu High students that worked with us, and the candidates can all be proud of the result (bit.ly/catMayorVid).
There were a few who stood in the foyer, loudly complaining, but in the end chose the maskless meeting room option.
And then there were a different few, who turned up demanding our event be run on their terms and insisting on their entitlement to ignore our invitation’s requirements.
Catalyst volunteers welcoming arrivals were subjected to belligerent behaviour they found abusive and intimidating, to the point of questioning whether they want to be involved in running community events in future.
It seems a decision was taken by some to use our event as an opportunity for their own grandstanding, arriving only with the self-serving intent to abuse our volunteers and unleash their ‘‘this is discrimination’’ monologue as attendees streamed in.
One man seemed to have no interest in attending, but rather had come solely to create disruption and manufacture drama to capture on his camera video — aggressive and maskless, shoved right in the face of the first of several volunteers he challenged.
To what purpose?
The implicit bad faith of this is immensely disappointing, and it saddens us that there are members of our community who seemed comfortable supporting the actions of those who would sink so low.
In eight years, we have never had to consider audience and volunteer safety from other audience members as part of our event organisation.
For this forum, and our recent event on disinformation in social media, sadly we did.
The next day, trustees received a phone call and email from different people, reading from what appeared to be the same script, with accusations of misconduct and casting aspersions on Catalyst’s supposed tax and ratepayer funding.
We don’t receive any.
We are an entirely voluntary and unfunded community group — and since Covid, we have donated any koha to local community groups and charities.
As stunned as we were by what happened, equally disappointing is what didn’t.
In the weeks before the event, we had widely shared our invitation and had been consistently clear that it was conditional on masks being worn.
No one had contacted us to discuss this condition or any possible compromise if they were unwilling/unable to meet it.
Community groups giving their time and energy to run events are some of the glue that hold our diverse community together.
We know we are not the only ones who have been hit by this kind of behaviour.
Surely this is not how we want our community to be?
Our civil society cannot function while some are intent on sabotaging discussion and deliberation.
No matter what cause or flag you might choose to clothe yourself in, if you reach first for combative grandstanding rather than evidence, reason, and an open mind for dialogue, your influence on our society and community can only be toxic.
We are all members of the same community, a community that is confronted with significant challenges.
Challenges we can only overcome if we embrace civility, dialogue and community; and reject divisiveness, combativeness and ego.
AJ Mason is Catalyst Trust’s co-chair
