1954: Mazengarb
September 20, 2019
By AHNZ
Today in New Zealand history, 20 September, 1954, The Mazengarb Report was released. Every home got a copy. It was a State response to kids running rampant. And, they were.
A ‘juvenile delinquency’ moral panic crops up in New Zealand periodically. Anarchist History records the first occasion being the Parkhurst Boys of 1842 with repeats every 20 years or so. The latest incarnation we would recognise are the Boy Racers. The adolescent offenders in each case are no more than a rising Honour Culture who will inevitably go on to claim supremacy as the mainstream culture when they come of age.
Meanwhile, Slave Culture is momentarily terrified that their natural predator (HC) is gathering strength. Recognising this, some politician will step forward to capitalise on the panic and promise to rescue the protected class.
Ossie Mazengarb
Ossie Mazengarb was one of those Razzle Dazzle defence lawyers who reminds me of Richard Gere’s character in Chicago. Before television New Zealanders had sought their drama in the antics of court-room advocates and newspapers like The Truth. Mazengarb was part of the last great era of Razzle Dazzlers before being recruited for the National Party stables.
As an operator for National 1.0, Ossie had been given one of the Legislative Council seats and used it (along with others) to bring down New Zealand’s bicameral political system. Next, Ossie was the chairman and force behind the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents (aka Mazengarb Report.) He also authored a suite of laws to criminalise the unholy rise of these damn kids: Indecent Publications Amendment Act (1954,) Child Welfare Amendment Act (1954,) The Police Offences Amendment Act (1954.)
“Yonder stands your orphan with his gun, Crying like a fire in the sun”- Dylan
National 1.0 thought defending New Zealand from it’s neglected war children with a grudge was an election winner. Mazengarb was their Knight and stood to win a high place at the table for all his hard work. Unfortunately for them their ship did not come in, the 1954 General Election was not decided on such issues.
The Kids Aren’t Alright
The old establishment, Mt Everest Dignity Culture (c.1947-52,) did have plenty to fear from their latest spawn. Resentful and repressed Silent Generation kids, Parker and Hulme, had lashed out and killed. Bodgie and Widgie subculture defied and spooked the mainstream. A real or imagined Milk Bar Sex Gang of teenagers was busted by police in the Hutt Valley. There was a radical change in values among the young and the call for good parenting was answered. It was answered (too late) by a memo called the Mazengarb Report to every house in the land!
Of course that did nothing and never could. Writing a memo is a typically institutional, abstract, way to solve problems that Dignity Culture folks prefer. The run-away train of the Baby Boomers could perhaps have been stopped with hands-on parenting and mentoring because the new kids needed serotonin not a written warning to their parents!
The best thing this dying Dignity Culture ever did came after the fact: Saying sorry.
“….a dying doyen of the Old Guard status quo giving his side away and apologising. Baxter and Rattigan’s 1950s senior academic figures are passing away and as their last act lift the lies from Youth’s eyes so he can see clearly. The spell is lifted….There were, in New Zealand, bodgies and widgies perpetrating this Demolition Phase against the old ‘GI Generation’ back from the war.”- AHNZ
“Do not believe us; do not follow us.
Our systems of authority, built for security,
Deceive us into incorrigible vanity.
[…]
Though for me it is late, accept my apology
For having been deceived …”
Today we look at our Baby Boomers for all the trouble they’ve caused, the wrecking ball they’ve taken to our society! Their avarice, possessiveness, self-entitlement, indulgence…not just of material wealth but, crucially, the refusal to pass on the values and institution they benefited so much from themselves. Their failings were preceded by their parent’s failings and they identified that very well but exercised no power to change it.
—
Image ref. Mazengarb Rd, Kapiti Coast District; Kāpiti Coast District Council, Facebook
Image ref. O. Mazengarb; Evening Post, Wiki
Ref. Mazengarb biography; Te Ara
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