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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 35 no. 16. 1972

Out Now Out

Out Now Out

The argument that defence policy entails more than just protection of territory and covers protection of a community's values and material wealth is often forgotten by critics of present policy. Its easy to construct scenarios of the future and show that the Russians and Chinese won't (and don't want to) invade New Zealand. Even the defence establishment will agree with that. But protection from invasion is not and never really has been the rationale for New Zealand's defence policies. Critics of our present policies should realise that they have to attack the 'logic' of propping up corrupt pro-western governments in order to protect western capitalism, if they want to be effective. That's why its important when people come out and openly state their support for the Provisional Revolutionary Government in South Vietnam and the African National Congress in South Africa. One of the failings of sole concentration on the 'Out Now' demand for the anti-war mobilisation is that it limits the opposition to the war to their own country (paradoxically this demand comes from the internationalist 'Trotskyist' Socialist Action League) - opposition to imperialist war and neo-colonialist, racism must be international if it is to be at all successful. Such internationalism must also extend to contact and support for the victims of western capitalism.

Finally I discovered, slightly to my sorrow, that academics and the military make a deadly boring and conservative combination in their political analysis. Perhaps it doesn't strike them as ironic that the college in which this Foreign Policy school is held has its foundation stone prominently set by the front door. The foundation stone was laid by one W.F. Massey, Prime Minister, in 1914. Massey was a good Ulster Protestant but his foreign policy was never more than servile and facile. His name on the foundation stone is thus a warning to all those who annually discuss foreign policy within. Its a pity that warning is never headed.

- by Peter Franks

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