New collabs, new perspectives, a critical lens on NZ environmental policy, and anti-imperialism.

God, we are so back. Our first print issue of 2026 (thank you for all your support to keep the project going), truly is an exciting one. The Memo presents its longest and most thought-out issue to date, covering the turbulent state of the environment, politics, and culture, here and abroad. So, before anything else, a massive thank you for all the mahi put in by everyone involved in the building of this seminal issue, kia ora.

If you’re new here (and I’m hoping heaps of freshers pick up a copy), The Canterbury Memo is Ōtautahi’s printed voice of progressive and environmental writing, based here at UC. You can find a new issue at our stand in the Undercroft, at a few spots across the city, and online every quarter, usually at the start of term.

We are the only truly independent periodical on campus; not affiliated with the university or students association. With no corporate editorial oversight, we are proud to print unapologetic voices of change, in glorious black and white. 

So, onto Issue 5. Just days before this issue went to print, your editor was off the leash in China obsessing over—among other things—revolutionary literature, which you can find a lot of there. While a full dispatch won’t be ready for print in this issue, some of my hurriedly assembled thoughts inform why I think we have an increasingly complicated relationship with leftist print media, this magazine included. 

Revolutionary media exists within a revolutionary moment. It draws its urgency and its energy by rallying behind a collective political horizon. 

Mao’s insistence that working-class literature function as a vital cog in the revolutionary machine once rang true, at least within a specific historical moment. The value seen in the “people’s literature” came not necessarily from the fact alone that it was the product of the working class, but also that it served the revolutionary project of the moment. Direction and voice were congruent at the time.

But China today offers a different lesson. The contemporary Communist Party no longer treats independent, people-powered media as dynamic or even necessary forces. Where working-class artistic and literary voices were once amplified, they now suffer systemic attenuation. The state adapts faster than the people within it are encouraged to speak.  Some of that is overt censorship. But some of it is a subtle, uncomfortable form of political pragmatism. The state posits itself as the executer of progress where outcomes matter more than expression, rendering redundant the autonomous voices that once powered the revolutionary project.

In the last half century, material outcomes for many, if not most, in China have improved. Poverty declines while infrastructure rises. The machine appears well oiled, even when trying to look in through the fogged lens of Western propaganda. The implicit logic is that if conditions are improving, and the project is working, why risk instability by encouraging dissenting voices when the state claims to deliver for the people?

The material gains are real. But that line is thin. Systems and the aspirations within them evolve. A democratic system is one in which people’s voices are central to shaping outcomes, while also, though not exclusively, being beneficiaries of them. A democracy is not secured by casting a ballot every three years, nor is it secured without the amplification of the working voices of the moment. Neither China nor the liberal West has resolved this tension.

Herein lies the strange paradox of movement media: its ultimate goal is redundancy. If the future it fights for becomes reality, it dissolves into the energy of this new moment. While if it is suppressed, its censorship becomes evidence for its relevance. 

I fear the day this magazine is censored yet I yearn for the day it no longer needs to exist. But when that day comes, the voices collected here will not vanish. They will adapt, take on other forms, speak differently.

Now, for real, Issue 5:

The big theme, as it always will be, is the environment and how we defend it. This edition’s op-editorial looks at direct action as a mechanism for meaningful change, speaking with activists and organisers about what it means to care for a better future in a world where systems of power have failed us.

In the second half of the magazine, returning fan-favourite Jenna Kelly unpacks recent RMA reforms and the disaster they present for environmental protections in Aotearoa. You may remember her scathing critique of the Fast Track Approvals Act in Issue 1.

As proudly displayed on the cover, this issue’s centrepiece is about empire (if only as an excuse to do a flag burning photoshoot). Spurred by the recent illegal kidnapping of President Maduro and imminent regime chance in Venezuela, we interrogate the U.S’ legacy of imperial practices across the world. Hunting beneath the surface, Noah Everard, helps us better understand the threat of a wider imperial project. 

With other features and columns by new and returning contributors, this was a fun one to edit.

A final note: we have opened a donation page to help us fund this project. Just a few dollars equals the printing cost of several copies, about 500 metres of lamppost bill-sticking, and means we can keep our digital and print platforms free for everyone. We are determined to make print, progressive print at that, viable in 2026. As time closes in on the next general election, we want to be able to run meaningful campaigns that engage the electorate. 

Scan the QR code on the contents page. 

Solidarity, ngā mihi nui, and all the very best for the new year,

Joseph Davidson-Labout

Editor-in-Chief, The Canterbury Memo

www.memozine.nz / editor.thememo@gmail.com

In Memoriam: Tyler West (1995-2025)

Tyler was a talented writer, radio presenter, and activist. His blog and archive, Notes South From Nowhere, was a sharp and critical voice for the socialist movement in this country.

Tyler contributed the opposite-editorial Radicals in the Quiet Years for Issue 2 (Sept. - Feb. 2024/25), spurring a thoughtful discussion on the history of radical student activism in Ōtepoti. He was due to contribute another piece to this issue. 

He will be dearly missed. He was a vital presence in our pages and in the literary life of the New Zealand Left. His work will continue to resonate. 

We dedicate this issue to his memory.

—

Published by the Canterbury Memo Underground Press, 2025

Printed in ōtautahi-christchurch, free distribution at UC.

As an independent student press, we are not affiliated with the University or UCSA. The Canterbury Memo does not necessarily reflect the views of these organisations. Signed articles reflect the views of the authors, not necessarily the editors. We rely solely on crowd community support and not advertising or organisational funding. Thank you to the writers and contributors who make this project possible.

If you have an issue with anything we have published, you can use our complaints page: www.memozine.nz/complaints