Coming from a country that doesn’t encourage protesting, the last few days has certainly been interesting for us.
Truckies Rolls
On Friday, we had the truckies (truck drivers) protesting against the sudden increase in road user charges when they were promised that a notice will be given a month in advance. It was pretty impressive how they did it. On Thursday, there were notices coming in all form of communications telling the whole country that the truckies has planned a protest during the morning peak hour traffic to drive very slowly into the town centre and city area. The roads they were going to take and how long the whole protest would be for were all detailed so that drivers could plan alternative road or just take the day off from work. Hee…
We happened to have an appointment with the doctor in the morning so we took an alternative road. The protest went well and was supported by the general public. We saw teachers with their students waving from the pedestrians overhead bridge to all the motorists stuck on the motorway. Most of the cars were following slowly (not that they have much of a choice) behind the trucks but everyone seemed to understand the need for the protest and were willing to accommodate it. The truckies left one of the lanes open for emergency vehicles which I thought was really considerate and it was pretty impressive to have over 2000 trucks in Auckland city central itself. There were around 4400 trucks protesting around the country beside Auckland, they were also in Hamilton, Wellington, Tauranga, Christchurch and Dunedin.
Asian March
And the next day on Saturday, we had the Asian marching in protest against the crime. Crime rates were going up here and with the recently violent death of 3 Asian within months of each other, it kind of got the community really upset and worried. We weren’t in the march but because we lived opposite the town centre where they are protesting, we saw the whole procession moving from one end to another. 15,000 Asian were braving the hail storm and cold strong wind to be in the march. It was quite a sight. Like the truckies, they weren’t expecting the numbers but I guess the issues of crime affected everyone. I only wish it wasn’t just an Asian March but in general, a country in protest against crime. Local kiwis told me that 10 years ago, a violent death on the newspaper would be a big nation-wide topic because there’s so few of those. Now, it’s getting common and depressing. What a blot on such a beautiful country.
Both protests were a success because of the number of people supporting them by being a part of it. I doubt we’ll see that in SG. We’ll probably get more spectators than protestors during a march. Hee…
with love from NZ,
J
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