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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 27, No. 4. 1964.

Ban The Bombers Join Establishment

page 3

Ban The Bombers Join Establishment

The two articles in the latest "New Statesman" on the future of the C.N.D. movement, have led me to do some positive re-thinking of the role of the movement in New Zealand.

Kingsley Martin, takes the line, that without the C.N.D. movement all interest in political and public affairs by the so-called "Beat generation" would have died. Rightly, I think, the post-war teenager despaired of the 'Old Boy" establishment which seemed to control English life, on both sides of the political spectrum and right through almost all the recognised organs of protest. Martin neglects to mention that this generation was not as naive as their counterparts of the thirties, fed on apologia for the Soviet system, most of which eminated from the "New Statesman and Nation".

This is the tradition that most of the liberal Professors in the university became accustomed to and which has severely distorted their perspective in looking at many cases. Still, even if the ghost of Joe Stalin does look over their shoulders in many cases, Martin's and their attitude is better than that of Stephen Spender's for instance, the Left poet of the thirties who now, as joint editor of "Encounter", seems to have become completely reactionary.

Faced with the alternatives of Gait-skell's mildly controlled capitalism with its morally repellent policy of retention of the nuclear deterrent and membership of a petty bourgeois Communist Parly, most of the voluble younger generation opted for cynical apathy. Most of them had despaired of effecting anything through constituancy branches of the labour party, after the top bureaucracy of the party had almost helped the labour Government fall in 1951 through fear of being forced to adopt a more radical programme. But the birth and increasing manufacture of the hydrogen bomb in the late fifties saw a new type of radical movement, dispersed into committees and ranging from anarchist groups to professional groups like doctors, scientists, and to religious bodies including Anglicans and Catholics.

The one uniting symbol linking all these widely diverging groups was a realisation of the power of complete destruction of the "nuclear deterent," This was a grass roots movement with at the beginning nothing deliberately planned. When for instance the suggestion came forward that a him should be made of the Aldermaston march a group of film technicians volunteered materials and labour to make this possible. People began looking at the whole set-up for civil defence and seeing what a farce it actually was. This led to 'The Spies for Peace" document of last Easter.

The movement, had given the left, a new and broad basis of support which enabled it and not as the Popular press crowed, Mr. Gaitskell, to revitalise the Labour movements. In the North, the depressed areas of the North East had radical groups founded originally on the C.N.D. platform, but because of depression and unemployment, they became vocal and outspoken groups of dissent.

But, even in the earliest stages the scope which the movement quickly began to embrace, frightened and brought attempts at curb and restriction from Canon Collins and the most conservative section of the movement. They were bent on changing Macmillan's reported comment on the C.N.D.

"It seems to me that that C.N.D. are the rag-tag and bob-fail of English society."

If we can jump to New Zealand the parallels seem obvious. The same growth was evident from the grass roots, which contained a great many people disillusioned with the labour Party. There was of course the same Quaker, communist and religious-pacifist support backing the movement. There was the same split always evident between the left principally younger members of the movement and the Canon Collins style supporters.

The liberterian group has repeat edly demanded some form of direct and positive action, sit downs, etc., to be taken against the French, and at the last conference, found themselves having to fight hard to keep opposition to the pacts.

S.E..A.T.O. and A.N.Z.H.S, Part of the platform. Beginning in arguments about the singing of working class songs on the march, the debate has usually broadened itself into wider and more extensive areas. It logically seems like a British movement all over again.

This year's march was a failure. The Aldermaston march has been discontinued and it was doubtful whether but for the strong insistance of out of town groups there would have been a march at all in Wellington this year. Quite legitimately, some sort of vigil outside the French Embassy was proposed. But nothing was done to organise it. In the past as with many mass movements, the best work, like the original organisation of the march, have been done by small and united groups within the movement. Thus Mr. Butterworth and a small group of students were able to initiate and start something which each Easter became a reasonably efficient mode of protest-speaking retrospectively that is.

However by now most of the original founders have dropped out in protest because of the overriding demand there seems to be on a "nice" public image. This was once some form of protest about a vital issue but it is now a group of somewhat eccentric people, thoroughly respectable though who perform a ritual of marching a certain distance at Easter. The Labour Parly supports its proposal for a nuclear free southern hemisphere and the lest ban treaty has achieved some of the movement's objectives. Where does the movement in both countries, go from here?

Competitor in Men's Discus event at Easter Tournament puts power into it.

Competitor in Men's Discus event at Easter Tournament puts power into it.