Rainbow Warrior 40 years on
It was the rage I remember most.
The naked rage that the French, a country we spilled blood for in 2 world wars, would bomb us in our harbour was the deepest memory I have of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior.
I was 11 years old when it happened.
The breaking news in the sleepy Shire of New Zealand that our boat, our Rainbow Warrior had been bombed, was the cultural equivalence to someone assassinating Big Bird from Sesame Street.
The Rainbow Warrior was this emblematic metaphor for the peaceful NZ we wanted to be, that the French had bombed it to stop them from recording serious radioactive pollution spreading from their Pacific nuclear tests only made the rage more incandescent.
It wasn’t just me who twitched with fury, everyone in my rural social landscape bonded over the collective anger and indignation that we had been treated like this by an ally we had spilled blood for.
The manner in which the French threatened NZ exports to ensure the return of their spies we caught and the way they were treated like royalty on their French island ‘prison’ only managed to add insult to injury.
We had our collective innocence robbed from us as a modern nation that day, the injustice of it all focused us against nuclear testing in a manner that managed to reach all the Paris.
We won in the end, but only because this act of terrorism forced us to fight.
Fuck the French.
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‘Fuck the French.’
Yes indeed! Heloise, Elaine, Madeline, Felicity, Jeanne, Annette, Bernadette, Suzette, Zizi, Louise, Daphne, Gigi, Jacqueline, Yvonne.
I count on the young Kiwi males doing their OE in Europe to help me with this mighty task. remember, sons of the ANZACs, the reputation that goes before us!
Kia Kaha katoa.
( I forgot Delfine and Albertine)
The French are the French and the French govt at the time were just like the CoC are here in NZ at the moment, complete arseholes with a president as pompous, ignorant and politically stupid as the polished turd we have as a prime minister. The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was a an act of terrorism and carried out with all the aplomb and usual fuckwittery the French are known for, however our current abysmal excuse for a govt CoC is wreaking far more damage and need to be arrested and dealt with. Wake up sleepy hobbits.
Will we arise again from our somnolent Rip van Winkle persona? To have to fight to defend our nation from being taken over by Machiavelli? The French could set their chins and stand up for their country even in a bad way. But when the NZ Greens, so defensive of the country, got to a position of power they went into a hissy fit over bad words about female parts; we can’t cope with major malevolence. And we can’t care about West Papua NG and what’s happening there. It has to be a fashionable well-known cause for us to put ourselves out so Gaza has seen a reaction. A general outrage, but close to home we can’t stir. (I believe that there have been three murdered women activists connected with nuclear tensions; one featured in recent film ‘The Sitting Duck’.)