Nandor Tanczos
Nandor Tanczos is a New Zealand activist and former Member of Parliament.
Background
Tanczos was born in the UK to Hungarian and South African parents.
Radical uncle
From a Tanczos interview on Derek Wall's blog 26.4.06.
- A South African man came to my office to meet me when I got back, a guerilla, in truth. He asked if I had met any political people while I was there. I thought he meant MPs and said no, but then mentioned my uncle, Richard Stevens. "Oh Richard. I was in prison with him," he said, and then laughed as he told me about some of my uncle's prison tricks.
- Uncle Richard was a lovely man. We had visited him for lunch and talked about various things, including black theology, which he had taught at the university, and also the black consciousness movement that he had been part of.
Anarchist
Nandor Tanczos has been an anarchist since his teens.
Quotes from an article “Anarchism and the Real World” Mr Tanczos wrote for the Waikato student newspaper Nexus (17th July 1989 p12,13).
- The anarchism I agree with most is anarcho-syndicalism (“syndicalism” meaning revolutionary unionism)….
- Anarcho syndicalism, to me, is organized anarchism, libertarian socialism.
- Rather than sit back and wait for “The revolution”…anarcho-syndicalism was born when anarchists got their hands dirty in the day-to-day class war-as agitators, educators and organisors.
- Real change will never occur on the say-so of smiling judges, top-cops or multinational murderers. A free society will only be built on the ruins of class rule and the laws that protect it….
- Anarchism is seen in practice as the most militant and practical section of the working class movement.
- Anarchism is not a game. It’s a movement based on class struggle, against class society, for the liberation of all humanity…
Wall connection
Nandor Tanczos is a long time friend and associate of Derek Wall, principal Male Speaker of the Green Party of England and Wales.
Wall is a militant anti-capitalist and eco-socialist and a leading Venezuela Solidarity activist,
Nandor Tanczos wrote the foreword to Derek Wall's anti-capitalist book "Babylon and Beyond".
Some extracts;
- Authoritative voices are warning us that we are very close to the point where world demand for oil will outstrip the capacity of the oilfields to supply. Our total dependence on fossil fuels, the use of which has provided the energy for an enormous expansion of human activity and population, is like a chemical addiction. And as the USA has recently confirmed in Iraq, strip a junkie of their supply and the temptation to turn to crime can be irresistable.
- “The American way of life” says George Bush the First “is not negotiable”…
- We cannot grow forever on a finite planet. If we continue to assume that endless growth and consumption is possible, and disregard the biosphere’s capacity to meet our greed, and if we continue to neglect social justice and fair and sustainable wealth distribution, we will reap a bitter harvest…
- We humans think that we can own the planet, as if fleas could own a dog…
- The ability to ‘own’ property is fundamental to capitalism. Since the first limited liability companies – the Dutch and British East India Companies – were formed, we have seen the kidnapping and enslavement of 20 – 60 million African people and the rape, murder and exploitation of indigenous people around the world. Colonisation was primarily about mercantile empires, not political ones. It was all about forcing indigenous, communitarian people to accept private individual ownership of resources, which could then be alienated, either by being bought or stolen. The subsequent political colonisation was just about how to enforce that ownership.
Nexus
1990 - Member of "Editorial Collective" of Nexus, ranewspaper of the of the Waikato Students Union.
Aoteoroa Legalise Cannabis Party
1996 - No 5 on the Aoteoroa Legalise Cannabis Party list.
"Wild Greens"
1998 ALCP member and also leader of Greens youth group Wild Greens.[1]
Nandor Tanczos was leader of the Wild Greens when they destroyed a million dollars or so of property in their attack on Lincoln University's research on GM potatoes.
Tanczos was there at the bail hearings acting very supportive, gossiping with the families and the publishers of 'Unity' like old friends, and sporting a Civil Rights Defence button along with almost everyone there.[2]
Melbourne protest
September 2000, Tanczos attended S11 protests in Melbourne against World Economic Forum meeting.
Happy Valley
In 2006, Motueka Public Forum on Happy Valley/Cypress Mine, was held March 7.
- The First Motueka Community Forum was held last Tuesday at Motueka's Community House in Decks Reserve. The forum, whose topic was the proposed Cypress Mine in Happy Valley near Westport , attracted a diverse audience of over 4O people, who engaged in a lively, rowdy discussion. Green MP Nandor Tanczos was later heard to say it was the rudest public meeting he had ever been to.
- Official speakers at the event were Alan Liefting of the Save Happy Valley Coalition; Debs Martin, Top of the South Conservation Officer from the Forest and Bird Society; and Green Party MP Nandor Tanczos.[3].
"Urewera 17" connections
Welcome to parliament
On February 14th 2006 Save Happy Valley Coalition was welcomed to Parliament by Green Party Conservation Spokesperson Metiria Turei, Nandor Tanczos and co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons.
The Save Happy Valley Coalition was at Parliament, complete with Great Spotted Kiwi, to talk with MPs about the destruction of the kiwi habitat in Happy Valley. State-owned Solid Energy plans to create a vast open cast coal mine in Waimangaroa Valley, one of the few stable habitats of the endangered Great Spotted Kiwi…
Tanczos was photographed holding an SHVC banner, with anarchist Val Morse (on left)-also later arrested in the October 2007 raids.
Predictions, denials
In January 2006, Nandor Tanczos wrote on a Green Party forum;
- If we say ‘well Pakeha have the power now, so tough’ and base our occupation on simple domination, then we have to prepare ourselves for permanent civil unrest and eventually when the demographics change enough, for outright war. I have spoken to people who see this as the future, and it frightens the hell out of me.
When challenged by NZ Truth to tell police what he knew about the Urewera 17, Tanczos backpedalled, stating it would be a “waste of time“.
Further, Mr Tanczos denied knowing any of those arrested in the October anti terror raids except Tame Iti.
This was despite of being photographed on February 14th 2006 holding a Save Happy Valley banner in the grounds of Parliament with Val Morse, one of the country’s most well known activists and an Urewera 17 arrestee.
Mana Party launch
At the launch of the Mana Party, in 2011, on the stage with Hone Harawira to express their solidarity and support were some of the most well-known names from the left, union, Maori rights and social justice movements. They included Annette Sykes (Ngati Pikiao, lawyer and activist), Matt McCarten (general secretary of Unite Union), John Minto (leader of the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s and spokesperson for Global Peace and Justice Auckland), Sue Bradford (unemployed workers rights leader in the 1980s and 1990s and former Green Party MP), Syd Keepa (Maori vice-president of the Council of Trade Unions), Nandor Tanczos (former Green MP), Margaret Mutu (Ngāti Kahu’s chief negotiator, the chairperson of Te Rūnanga-a-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu and the professor of Māori Studies at Auckland University). Most groups that describe themselves as socialist, such as Socialist Aotearoa, the Workers Party, Socialist Worker and the International Socialist Organisation, have also generally greeted the emergence of this new party positively.[4]