PM Jacinda Ardern Inspires Across Planet

March is National Women’s History Month in the US and Washington state newspaper, the Chinook Observer, salutes several outstanding women, including our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern.

The Observer’s Robert Brake writes:

“I extend kudos to [the] 39-year-old New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who has earned international acclaim for her leadership in the face of tragedy, and articulated a form of leadership that embodies strength and sanity, while also pushing for an agenda of compassion and community.

“After the 15 March 2019 tragedy, when gunmen killed 51 worshippers at a Christchurch mosque, Ardern moved swiftly to propose New Zealand’s first meaningful gun legislation in decades.

“When some seemed to feel powerless and disenfranchised, Arden spoke up at a 7 February 2020 interview, declaring; ‘We can either stoke it with fear and blame, or we can respond by taking some responsibility and giving some hope that our democratic institutions, our politicians, actually do something about what they’re feeling.’

“While New Zealand has set moral precedents on several fronts – the first country to give women the vote, the first to introduce some form of social security for its elderly and the first to ban vessels carrying nuclear weapons from entering its waters – it yet faces many leadership challenges and domestic setbacks for Ardern. But her authenticity and compassion may yet prevail.

“Speaking of Ardern, Mike Moore, former head of the World Trade Organization, said: ‘Leadership is more than finding an angry crowd and agreeing with it.’

“I’m looking forward to more of Ardern’s inspirational ‘pragmatic idealism’.”

Original article by Robert Brake, Chinook Observer, March 23, 2020.