What is the Aim of the Antiwar Movement?

The reason why we march is not, I think, because we hope our government or the U.S. government will be influenced by us very much. As most people know, governments do not decide policies on the basis of majority opinion. Governments listen to people who can exert direct influence on government policies which is sufficiently powerful to make governments listen to them. The obvious example of this sort of pressure group for N.Z. is the U.S. government.

By marching in large demonstrations we are showing solidarity with the people opposing the U.S. government's genocidal policies in Vietnam. In a very important sense we are transcending the limits of our national boundaries and declaring ourselves with the victims of western attempts to impose 'democracy' on Asian people.

'But the government and media will attack us if we support the victory of the Indochinese People', they say. Of course the government and media will try to smear anyone as a Communist if it can. At the start of the war for New Zealand in 1965 Holyoake smeared every opponent of the war, even the Labour Party, as pro-communist. If the antiwar movement is scared of expressing its true feelings, it is unworthy of the people it is supposed to be trying to help. The Vietnamese have been fighting for over twenty-five years for the right to determine their own affairs, and some of us who oppose the war, in New Zealand are too scared of the government and the media to express our support for their struggle.