Not that long ago, we thought we’d have to keep a care­ful eye out for the slow, creep­ing rise of fas­cism in Amer­ica; now it’s com­ing on as a rap­id, ter­ri­fy­ing ava­lanche. The massive, spon­tan­eous air­port protests against Trump’s latest vile Exec­ut­ive Order give some hope for the rise of res­ist­ance in the US itself, but some­times it seems as if we in New Zea­l­and can only look on in hor­ror.

Not quite. Actions such as the glob­al gag rule and the Muslim ban cause harm all over the world, and New Zea­l­and can play its part in fight­ing back or tak­ing up the slack. I’ve quickly put togeth­er just a few Wel­ling­ton-spe­cif­ic ideas for how we might be able to help.

Make your voice heard

Any­one can (and should) con­tact their loc­al MPs about New Zeal­and’s shame­fully poor con­tri­bu­tion to help­ing refugees (both Grant Robertson and Peter Dunne have spoken well on the issue already), but as res­id­ents of the Cap­it­al, we have a few more options. We can protest at Par­lia­ment or the Amer­ic­an embassy, and even the small num­bers at today’s hast­ily-organ­ised event helped send a mes­sage that the res­ist­ance is glob­al.

US Embassy protest against Trump

Action Sta­tion has a peti­tion to bring some of those refugees that have been left stran­ded by this ban to New Zea­l­and, which is some­thing dir­ect and urgent that a coun­try that likes to think of itself as humane and caring could be doing right now. Both Justin Trudeau and Nic­ola Stur­geon tweeted mes­sages that strongly wel­comed (to Canada and Scot­land respect­ively) “those flee­ing per­se­cu­tion, ter­ror & war…regardless of your faith”, but at the time of writ­ing Bill Eng­lish has said abso­lutely noth­ing. You could email b.english@ministers.govt.nz or call (04) 817 6801 to let him know that he needs to do more, and per­haps glare bale­fully in the dir­ec­tion of Premi­er House while you’re doing so.

Support refugees

One of the major goals is to Double the Quota, and the Doing Our Bit web­site lists a few ways you can help that cam­paign. They have a bro­chure that explains the cause and ways to assist in great detail (it’s a 78-page PDF, but worth the read).

Per­haps the most dir­ect way you can help refugees is to volun­teer in vari­ous ways. Bring­ing more refugees to New Zea­l­and is vital, but it’s only the first step, and help­ing people who have escaped hor­rif­ic cir­cum­stances adapt to a strange coun­try is not easy. If you have the time and spoons to make a major com­mit­ment, the Red Cross’s refugee sup­port pro­gramme is always look­ing for volun­teers. In Wel­ling­ton, Pori­rua and Lower Hutt, Mul­ti­cul­tur­al Learn­ing and Sup­port Ser­vices provide lan­guage and employ­ment coach­ing, while Change­Makers Refugee For­um provides sup­port, research and advocacy. Both are always in need of dona­tions, and you might also have spe­cif­ic skills that could help them.

One deli­cious way to help out is by order­ing lunch from Pomegranate Kit­chen. They’ll deliv­er to your work­place, or provide cater­ing, and in the pro­cess you’ll be help­ing new Wel­ling­to­ni­ans gain loc­al work exper­i­ence, build com­munity con­nec­tions, and share their diverse cuisines.

Resist local fascism

Wel­ling­ton’s sup­posed to be a lib­er­al bubble, but fas­cists are every­where. Occa­sion­ally the Nation­al Front will crawl out of the rot­ten wood­work and rally at Par­lia­ment, and they’ll be feel­ing emboldened right now. Even if you’re not into punch­ing nazis, there are many ways to derive them of oxy­gen and the legit­im­acy they crave. If you see neo-nazi fly­ers, posters or graf­fiti, get rid of that crap (there are rumours that such posters over­seas some­times have razors hid­den under­neath them to pre­vent remov­al, which may be an urb­an myth, but be care­ful any­way). If you see any­one wear­ing racist mes­sages or white suprem­acist regalia in a bar, let the staff know and see wheth­er the boun­cer can let them know in no uncer­tain terms that they and their hate are not wel­come. Free speech stops when you start advoc­at­ing gen­o­cide.

Take care of yourself and your friends

All of this is fright­en­ing, exhaust­ing, and in some cases dan­ger­ous. Use whatever resources you have (time, money, energy, con­nec­tions), but don’t overdo it. Keep a close eye on how your friends are hold­ing up, offer sup­port where you can, and ask for it when you need to. Some of us are more dir­ectly affected by this glob­al dis­aster than oth­ers, but togeth­er, we can fight.