Demonstrations

Your correspondent G.A. Findlay concludes that the July 17 national antiwar mobilisation educated nobody, was a dreary repetition of past antiwar actions, achieved nothing and offered no solutions for Vietnam other than withdrawal of troops.

The fact is that as yet only a small proportion of New Zealanders are prepared to take action against the war, though a significant number, probably a majority, want our troops out. The problem is how do we get from this position to actually forcing the government to withdraw?

Mr Findlay's solution ("contemplation and quiet thought in a library') takes no account of how the movement has been built up. Given a hostile news media, the only way of bringing the issue continually and forcefully before the public at the present stage is to organise steadily bigger and broader mobilisations. There is no short cut in this process; through watering down the 'immediate withdrawal' demand to Norman Kirk's vague platitudes, through merely visiting the library, or through throwing bombs into Army recruiting centres. Mobilisations must be built, and built with the maximum of energy and creativity available. Each time a mobilisation occurs, there are more activists to build the next action.

And it is unquestionable that the movement against the war is deepening in New Zealand. In May this year 300 took part in the Wellington antiwar activity; in July 900 were present at the town Hall rally, and several hundred marched in places like Nelson, Hamilton and Dunedin. The numbers participating across the country were far larger than ever before, and this is a great step forward for the movement.

To an experienced activist, of course, there is a lot of repetition at the rallies and teach-ins. But it is nevertheless new material to the vast majority present: the recent large teach-ins at Waikato and Massey, for example, were the first of their kind in those areas. The reasons why we must withdraw troops, and why we must build actions demanding withdrawal, are the same now as they were in 1965. we should be encouraged that they are now being put before an ever-widening audience as the active antiwar movement expands.

There can be no question that the July mob educated people. Apart from the several hundred hearing the speeches on campus and at the Town Hall, several thousand university and high school students and citizens of Wellington read pamphlets explaining the action. The newspaper coverage was the best for a long time—the Evening Post had forty column inches, including long extracts from Don Borrie's and Andrew Pulley's speeches, the night after the action.

Mr Findlay's final assertion—that the march offered no solutions after withdrawal of troops—misses the main point of the actions. The Vietnamese have indicated several times what they want of us: the one gigantic problem they face is the intervention of the 'allies' to crush their revolution, and our task of building a movement for withdrawal is quite enough for the present. The heroic struggle of the Vietnamese freedom fighters and the growing international mas active antiwar movement give us the hope that in the end the Vietnamese will win the right to determine their own affairs.