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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 20. 29th August 1973

Behind Nuclear Control

Behind Nuclear Control

When the Dominion of Thursday July 28 carried a brief report on the arrival of an American Trade Unionist, it was shown exactly what the current nuclear test issue was all about. "Leave Bombs to the Big Boys" was the headline attached by the Dominion to a story about an official of the Postal Telegraph and Telephone International (PTTI) workers' organisation who thinks it is quite unnecessary for France to have nuclear weapons. What need does France have for nuclear weaponry when the United States and the Soviet Union have enough to blow the rest of the world apart if they want to?

This of course is a very popular attitude at the moment, in one form or another. Such an expression from an American is not altogether surprising, but we see more or less the same line being taken by Norm Kirk and Barry Mitcalfe in New Zealand, Gough Whitlam in Australia, and by most trade unionists in capitalist countries. They all say what a marvellous thing it is that Norm with the backing of the New Zealand people has sent a frigate out into the Pacific to fight for liberty and humanity and all the rest of it.

The most important point to realise about all this is that it is entirely fraudulent. As the American trade unionist so carefully reminds us, as long as the United States and the Soviet Union have the bomb, who else needs it. While these two countries alone have vast stocks of nuclear armaments (Britain also has them, but not in significant quantities), they are capable of dividing up the world between them. There is an imperialist hegemony of nuclear control, where the most powerful weapons in the world are being held by the two most dangerous owners. United States imperialism and Soviet social imperialism. That is why we should surely be pleased at the prospect of both China and France developing nuclear weapons for themselves!

This makes quite obvious the reasons for the opposition to French tests by the American trade union official. American trade unions are notorious for their subservience to capitalism, and hence to find a prominent trade unionist supporting such an imperialist division of the world is only to be expected. It ties in well with the recent visit of Brezhnev to the United States, and is an attitude reminiscent of that of the fifteenth century pope who divided the world between Spain and Portugal.

It is now becoming plainer exactly what the role of our New Zealand and Australian Prime Ministers is in all this. Perhaps you noticed that they sent formal diplomatic protests to both China and France on the occasion of recent nuclear tests conducted by those countries. It is yet another instance of Labour governments giving support to foreign imperialism. (Look how Kirk is opening New Zealand up to the Japanese over the beech forests issue.) And all the trade unionists in the capitalist countries follow suit with their complaints as Tom Skinner and Bob Hawke tell them to. Trade unionism is essentially a spontaneous response of workers to industrial society, and so all our good capitalist trade unionists mechanically protest at bomb tests as an automatic response to an enviromental issue. As in so many similar cases, a more considered analysis of what their position ought to be might lead to a different conclusion.

But do not get the idea from this that it is a good thing for as many people as possible to have nuclear weapons. The ideal thing would be for all stockpiles of nuclear weapons to be destroyed. This is the answer to problems of maintaining world peace and preventing nuclear pollution. This is what is advocated by the People s Republic of China. But in the meantime we must not be misled by any thoughts of Dr Strange-love. The more countries that have nuclear arms, the more difficult it will be to use them. We must beware of Norm Kirk's apologies for imperialism, and recognise French nuclear tests as a positive move, and not as a regressive course of action!

David Tripe