Citizen Action Pollard

Shaw: You clearly see N.Z. as pert of the international bourgeoisie and you pour scorn on aid agencies that operate from the rich bourgeois nations. What is the "white liberal" to do in a society such as ours to help the struggle of the poorer nations?

What I pour scorn on is that the aid distributed by the rich manifestly exercises leverage on the poor and obviously not in the interests of the poor. N.Z.'s part in this is a separate question. It is not the N.Z. mystification that I am quarrelling with. They are not very powerful and have very little guilt in the organisation of the system. They are a faithful colony of a great power.

Shaw: What though is the "white liberal" to do other then demonstrate?

He is in a hopeless position. He wishes to have all the advantages of capitalism and to live a decent life, accepting none of the strutures of a life that would change things.

Shaw: Is he, then, by supporting the N.L.F. committing class suicide.

No he merely wants to make a large profit without dirtying his hands. This is the confused person. The person who says! I do not want a world of endless violence and exploitation and starvation. He is being logical to the end.

Shaw: How far then would you go to ensure that this country no longer involved itself in imperialism

I came here to become nationalised. If the Vietnam war had not occurred I would now be a citizen. If I were a citizen I would do almost anything to stop it. I am inhibited by my upbringing and I can't see myself planting a bomb in someone else's country underneath a train carrying troops.

Any citizen could regard this a neccessary, even a moral act.

Carson: You say you are an amateur arguing against proffessionals. Do you feel the system is so refined as to produce only professional defenders and no attackers.

This is the key to the whole damn thing. How is it possible that we have universities where under 10% are against the War. How is it possible that you can have masses of students with all the evidence and the books and the documents lying around which force you to recognize that this war is atrocious, genocidal and counter-productive, and all the rest. Somewhere along the line it seems to me you have to look at an educational system which is laying foundations, the very things that Krishna Menon was so scathing about at the Peace Power and Politics in Asia Conference -if you want to change a man's ideas go back to the kindergarten. We're taught to divide things up so much never to get to basic problems. Is it possible for any economist to teach economics today and not mention this disequilibrium, this flow of wealth from the poor to the rich. If it Is possible to teach economics without mentioning this basic fact then their must be something wrong with the teaching of economics or else my facts are wrong and I will wait for a refutation. The same thing is going with history. How is it possible to teach European history, that glorious march of liberation down the Balkan. When the Turk was driven out not identify with the colonial forces driving out the original inhabitants. How is it possible that the penny never seems to drop anywhere, that you read about great deeds of heroism in my field (that might be literature) and never apply them to any thing concierable. The whole thing is becoming capsu-lated. It's as if they taught you endless techniques but never what the thing was for.

When you look at N.Z., where justice works, where no-one dies of hunger, why on earth should anyone challenge the structure. We are a small island entirely surrounded by sea and all our commerce passes over the sea. The lord of the sea has to be our friend. When England had the largest fleet then we were the friends of England. Now America has the largest fleet and it is logical we should be the friends of America. The question to ask Kiwis, it seems to me, is - Look, nothing for nothing in this world. When you were allies of the English they led you into a monstrously unjust war in the case of the Boer War, they led you into 2 other wars against the Germans and you'd probably never even seen a German. Now under America they've led you into Korea, they've led you into Vietnam. Do you not think that the future role of N.Z. is going to be the Gurkhas of the South Pacific? Now if you want, this, good, but if you don't want it then you've got to start to think of alt this. Because, at the present moment, whenever the pool rise up and scream for justice or bread, be it in Amazon or the Limpopo or the Ganges, N.Z. will be asked to furnish troops. You are going to go or not going to go. This is the key question.

Carson: But the way that the Vietnam war is being waged shows that it's a technological war by the Americans, and N.Z. cannot provide anything in this regard. So all N.Z. will be required of in the future, surely, is a moral aid where Marshall comes out, for instance, and supports the blockade. This is not going to cost us much?

All you are asked to do is to side with Judas Iscariot. Yes that is all you are asked to do. And I think I cannot phrase it any other way. But ultimately to whose interest? For the poor and the weak nations, and N.Z. in terms of resources is poor and weak. Their interest must be somewhere in the field of international law and a stable world order, because the first to get eaten are going to be the weak. In the long term N.Z.'s interest is in the United Nations, or in any system which doesn't need violence and exploitation.

That being the case, we in N.Z., simply by virtue of our consumption of protein, our total disruption of the environment, which we are actively engaged in because of our life-style, we, I feel are clearly the enemy of the Asian and the African, and I cannot see how, they can pursue a war of liberation without involving this country as long as this country's structure remains where it is. We are part of the enemy.

True, but not everything is deterministic. For example, it seems very odd that Japan escaped in the 19th Century from American capitalist control. Because China was rich, right next door, everyone bypassed her. The second miracle was when Japan was defeated and occupied by America she still managed autonomy of her economy. Nothing is deterministic. We do not have to be a part of it.