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Go on, protest - it's not futile

By Ron J. Smith, member of the Committee on Vietnam and Communist Party Candidate for Island Bay in the last elections.

Some of Mr. Alister Taylor's observations about New Zealand's opposition to the war in Vietnam and criticisms of the Committee on Vietnam (Salient No. 8) need deeper consideration.

"Organised protests have been relatively unsuccesful," he declared.

Further on he cites student demonstrations and other activities for higher bursaries as an example of a successful pressure campaign.

Surely he doesn't put the campaign for higher student bursaries in the same category as the Vietnam protest movement?

It seems he thinks this conflict between student needs and Government policy was similar in depth to the contradictions in the Vietnam war policy where the Government is clamped by all the force of American money power.

The campaign of the N.Z. people against this war has embraced a richness of form a persistence and a volume, unprecedented in N.Z. history.

It has included every form of educational publication and meeting, from the sit-in of 1966 to that vast marathon of enlightenment?the PPP conference.

It has been expresed in protests resolutions, petitions, meetings and vigils, the chaining of people to Parliament Buildings, fasts, making and exhibiting protest films, deputations and leaflet distribution.

Every American war emissary and warship has been met by demonstrations and pickets.

The highest form of political action?the demonstration?has been repeatedly used (at least 21 times in Wellington alone) ranging from small poster parades to the mighty patriotic protests of 2000 and more against Ky and Johnson.

Outstanding among these were the highly conscious demonstration of over 800 Victoria students against General Taylor, and the later student demonstration against the SEATO conference.

All this has been outstandingly successful.

A wide range of people's organisations have now expressed themselves against the war.

The trade union movement "is opposed to New Zealand troops being there under any circumstance".

The student movement at every University is opposed to it.

So are many churches, the United Nations association, me PSA and others.

The Labour Party's conference policy is to withdraw troops.

Even within the RSA and National Party, courageous individuals have spoken out.

The effect on the Government has been marked.

It hesitated a month before it dared run directly in the face of the people's hostility.

When it finally capitulated to the most intensive American pressure, it was to send the barest token force.

While this gave the Americans the extra flag they so badly needed, the contingent was almost worse than none at all.

It shouted aloud that New Zealand undestood that freedom and independence for Vietnam constituted no threat to this counrty.

Even more severe arm-twisting followed. The President of the United States found it necessary to visit these islands of the South Pacific.

United States Cabinet Ministers and fivestar generals, the Vice-President, admirals, even their puppet Ky, also visited these islands.

But the people's pressure has still prevented more than a minor contingent.

They are all volunteers mainly escaping the problems of normal life.

The Government has not dared use conscripts. It even shamefacedly smuggles the units out.

Contrast this with World War II when we fought not for the aggressor but for the small countries, victims of aggression.

The whole heroic history of protest demonstrations marching straight into the harsh wind of Government displeasure, permitted the phenomenal success of the PPP conference, riding along in the wake of these actions.

At the same time the PPP conference broadened and deepened the movement and thus no doubt, laid the basis for even more powerful demonstrations in the future.

There are other errors in Alister Taylor's statement but comment must be limited to one subject?the role of the press.

The fact to face is the basic hostility to the Vietnam protest movement of the capitalist press in N.Z.

This press comprises all the dailies and big circulation weeklies, excluding only the specificaly left-wing weekly and monthly publications and the trade union and the student press.

Their bias dominates virtually every newspaper of every issue—in the news suppressed, headlines used, news which receives frontpage treatment or a single column on page eight or 10, adjectives used and which side is called "terrorist".

This basic position is not altered by the fact that in certain favourable circumsances it is possible to get in a progressive story or paragraph.

Of course, every reasonable effort to do this must be made and expertise counts here.

But a protest movement on Vietnam will never "have good relations with the press" if by this meant getting fair or equal treatment.

Consider the PPP conference. After months of work we had a conference better prepared with a, larger attendance and a greater team of acknowledged experts than ever the war-camp could field.

Did it break through into the press?

Yes, just. Not in Auckland where onethird of the population of N.Z. is, nor even much in Chistchurch.

But it did in Wellington, in secondary places and pages, after the SEATO conference and with a lot of attention given to the one agent-provocateur who was present.