REVIEW: By Amit Sarwal of The Australia Today

Forty years after the bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, award-winning journalist and author David Robie has revisited the ship’s fateful last mission — a journey that became a defining chapter in New Zealand’s identity as a nuclear-free nation.

Robie’s newly updated book, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, is both a historical record and a contemporary warning.

It captures the courage of those who stood up to nuclear colonialism in the Pacific and draws striking parallels with the existential challenges the region now faces — from climate change to renewed geopolitical tensions.

“The new edition has a completely new 40-page section covering the last decade and the transition in global emphasis from ‘nuclear to climate crisis survivors’, plus new exposés about the French spy ‘blunderwatergate’. Ironically, the nuclear risks have also returned to the fore again,” Robie told The Australia Today.

“The book deals with a lot of critical issues impacting on the Pacific, and is expanded a lot and quite different from the last edition in 2015.”

In May 1985, the Rainbow Warrior embarked on a humanitarian mission unlike any before it. The crew helped 320 Rongelap Islanders relocate to a safer island after decades of radioactive contamination from US nuclear testing at Bikini and Enewetak atolls.

Robie, who joined the ship in Hawai’i as a journalist, recalls the deep humanity of that voyage.

Humanitarian voyage
“The fact that this was a humanitarian voyage . . .  helping the people of Rongelap in the Marshall Islands, it was going to be quite momentous,” he told Pacific Media Network News.

“It’s incredible for an island community where the land is so much part of their existence, their spirituality and their ethos.”

The relocation was both heartbreaking and historic. Islanders dismantled their homes over three days, leaving behind everything except their white-stone church.

“I remember one older woman sitting on the deck among the remnants of their homes,” Robie recalls.

“That image has never left me.”

Their ship’s banner, Nuclear Free Pacific, fluttered as both a declaration and a demand. The Rainbow Warrior became a symbol of Pacific solidarity, linking environmentalism with human rights in a region scarred by the atomic age.

On 10 July 1985, the Rainbow Warrior was docked at Auckland’s Marsden Wharf when two underwater bombs tore through its hull. The explosions, planted by French secret agents, sank the vessel and killed Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira.

Bombing shockwaves
The bombing sent shockwaves through New Zealand and the world. When French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius finally admitted that his country’s intelligence service had carried out the attack, outrage turned to defiance. New Zealand’s resolve to remain nuclear-free only strengthened.

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark contributes a new prologue to the 40th anniversary edition, reflecting on the meaning of the bombing and the enduring relevance of the country’s nuclear-free stance.

“The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior and the death of Fernando Pereira was both a tragic and a seminal moment in the long campaign for a nuclear-free Pacific,” she writes.

“It was so startling that many of us still remember where we were when the news came through.”

Clark warns that history’s lessons are being forgotten. “Australia’s decision to enter a nuclear submarine purchase programme with the United States is one of those storm clouds gathering,” she writes.

“New Zealand should be a voice for de-escalation, not for enthusiastic expansion of nuclear submarine fleets in the Pacific.”

Clark’s message in the prologue is clear: the values that shaped New Zealand’s independent foreign policy in the 1980s — diplomacy, peace and disarmament — must not be abandoned in the face of modern power politics.

Geopolitical threats
Robie adds that the book also explores “the geopolitical threats to the region with unresolved independence issues, such as the West Papuan self-determination struggle in Melanesia.”

Clark’s call to action, Robie told The Australia Today, resonates with the Pacific’s broader fight for justice.

“She warns against AUKUS and calls for the country to ‘link with the many small and middle powers across regions who have a vision for a world characterised by solidarity and peace, which can rise to the occasion to combat the existential challenges it faces — including of nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence.’”

When Eyes of Fire was first published, it instantly became a rallying point for young activists and journalists across the Pacific. Robie’s reporting — which earned him New Zealand’s Media Peace Prize 40 years ago — revealed the human toll of nuclear testing and state-sponsored secrecy.

Today, his new edition reframes that struggle within the context of climate change, which he describes as “the new existential crisis for Pacific peoples.” He sees the same forces of denial, delay, and power imbalance at play.

“This whole renewal of climate denialism, refusal by major states to realise that the solutions are incredibly urgent, and the United States up until recently was an important part of that whole process about facing up to the climate crisis,” Robie says.

“It’s even more important now for activism, and also for the smaller countries that are reasonably progressive, to take the lead.”

For Robie, Eyes of Fire is not just a history book — it’s a call to conscience.

“I hope it helps to inspire others, especially younger people, to get out there and really take action,” he says.

“The future is in your hands.”

The Rainbow Warrior returned to Aotearoa in July to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing. Forty years on, the story of the Rainbow Warrior continues to burn — not as a relic of the past, but as a beacon for the Pacific’s future through Robie’s Eyes of Fire.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Yesterday’s victory of “democratic socialist” Zohran Mamdani in the race for the New York mayoralty is fuelling debate among progressives around the world about the way forward.

And this has significant implications and lessons for the political left in New Zealand, casting the Labour and Green parties as too tired and bland for the Zeitgeist of public discontent with the status quo.

Mamdani’s startling victory in the financial capital of the world symbolises a broader shift in global politics.

His triumph, alongside the rise of similar left populists abroad, sends an unmistakable message: voters are hungry for politicians who take the side of ordinary people over corporations, and who offer bold solutions to the cost-of-living crises squeezing families worldwide.

The Mamdani phenomenon follows on from some other interesting radical left politicians doing well at the moment, including the new leader of the Green Party in the UK, Zach Polanski. These politicians seem to be doing better by appealing to the Zeitgeist of anger with inequality and oversized corporate power that characterises Western democracies everywhere.

Such politicians and activists are channelling the tone of other recent radicals like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, who both embraced a leftwing populism concerned with working class citizens.

Here in New Zealand, however, the contrast is stark, where the political forces of the left are very timid by comparison. The Labour and Green parties remain stuck in the past and unwilling to catch up with the anti-Establishment radicalism, that focuses on broken economic systems.

However, locally some commentators are pushing for the political left to learn lessons from the likes of Mamdani and Polanski.

Simon Wilson: Focus on class, not identity politics
Leftwing columnist Simon Wilson wrote yesterday in The New Zealand Herald that “Labour and the Greens can learn from Mamdani”, pointing out that although the New Zealand left has become overly associated with identity politics, the successful way forward is “class politics”.

Wilson says: “Instead of allowing his opponents to define him as an “identitarian lefty” — and they really have tried — Mamdani is all about the working class.”

In policy and campaign terms, Wilson says Mamdani has been successful by getting away from liberal/moderate issues:

“His main platform is simple. He wants to reduce the cost of living for ordinary working people. And instead of wringing his hands about it, he has a plan to make it happen. It includes childcare reform, a significant rise in the minimum wage, a rent freeze, more affordable housing, free public transport and price-controlled city-owned supermarkets. Oh, and comprehensive public-safety reform and higher taxes on the wealthy.”

Wilson also suggests that the political left in NZ should be focused on the enemy of crony capitalism (also the theme of my ongoing series about oversized corporate power): “It might be corporates, determined to prevent meaningful reform of oligopolistic sectors of the economy, such as banking, supermarkets and energy.”

Such an approach, Wilson suggests dovetails with a type of “democratic socialism” that should be embraced here. As another example of this, Wilson says, is the new leader of the Green Party in the UK, Zach Polanski.

Donna Miles: Kiwi politicians need to push back against corporate capture

On Monday, columnist Donna Miles also wrote in The Press that Zack Polanski and Zohran Mamdani are showing the way for the global left to push back against corporate power. She explains the problem of how corporate power now swamps New Zealand politics, in a similar way to what Mamdani and Polanski are fighting:

“New Zealand faces a parallel plague of vested interests eroding faith in democracy. The revolving door between politics and lobbying creates unfair access, allowing former officials to trade insider knowledge for influence.”

Miles explains the recent success of the new environmental populist leader in the UK:

“The second politician you should know about is Zack Polanski, the gay Jewish leader of the UK Green Party who is of Eastern European descent. Elected last month with a landslide 85 percent of the vote from party members, Polanski’s bold policies on wealth taxes, free childcare, green jobs, and social justice have triggered an immediate ‘Polanski surge’, with membership reaching 126,000, making it the third-largest political party in the UK.”

New Zealand’s timid political left
Leftwing thinkers in New Zealand are viewing the rise of these bold leftwing populists with envy. Why can’t New Zealand’s left tap into the Zeitgeist that Mamdani and Polanski are successfully surfing? Why can’t they concentrate on the “broken economic system” that Mamdani put at the centre of his widely successful campaign?

For example, Steven Cowan has blogged to say “Mamdani’s election victory will be a rebuke for NZ’s timid politics”. He argues that Mamdani’s victory shows “that voters are not allergic to bold politics”, and he laments that the parties of the left here are worried about coming across as too radical.

Chris Trotter suggests that there is a new shift towards class politics occurring around the world, which the New Zealand left are missing out on, saying “Poor old Labour doubles-down on identity politics, just as democratic-socialism comes back into fashion.”

Trotter points out that Labour managed to alienate all their democratic socialists many years ago, and their absence meant that a “new left” took over the party:

“To rise in the Labour Party of the 21st century, what one needed was a proven track record in the new milieu of ‘identity politics’. Race, gender and sexuality now counted for much, much, more than class. One’s stance on te Tiriti, abortion, pay equity and LGBTQI+ rights, mattered a great deal more than who should own the railways. Roger Douglas had slammed the door to ‘socialism’ – and nailed it shut.”

Trotter holds out some hope that the Greens might still avoid being pigeonholed in identity politics:

“The crowning irony may well turn out to be the Greens’ sudden lurch into the democratic socialist ‘space’. Chloë Swarbrick makes an unlikely Rosa Luxemburg, but, who knows, in the current political climate-change, ditching the keffiyeh for the red flag may turn out to be the winning move.”

Taking on corporate capture: Could Chlöe Swarbrick ditch the keffiyeh for the red flag?
The rise of figures like Mamdani and Polanski is not occurring in a vacuum. It reflects growing public recognition of a problem I’ve been documenting in this column for weeks: the systematic capture of democratic politics by corporate interests.

As I’ve detailed in my ongoing series on New Zealand’s broken political economy, our democracy has been hollowed out by lobbying firms, political donations, and the revolving door between government and industry. From agricultural emissions policy to energy market reforms, we see the same pattern: vested interests using their wealth and access to shape policy in their favour, while the public interest is systematically ignored.

Throughout the campaign, Mamdani made it clear who the enemies of progress were. He railed against corporate landlords, Wall Street banks, and monopolistic companies profiteering off essential goods. New York’s economy, he argued, was full of broken markets that enriched a wealthy few at the expense of everyone else – and it was time to take them on.

By naming and shaming the elites (and proudly embracing the “socialist” label), Mamdani gave voice to a public anger that had long been simmering.

Mamdani’s win is part of a broader pattern. Across the world, leftwing populists are gaining ground by focusing relentlessly on material issues and openly targeting the corporate elites blocking progress. Rather than moderating their economic demands, these leaders channel public anger toward the billionaire class and monopolistic corporations.

And they back it up with concrete proposals to improve ordinary people’s lives. This approach is proving far more popular than the cautious centrism that dominated recent decades.

It turns out that a “bread-and-butter” socialist agenda of making essentials affordable, and forcing the ultra-rich to pay their fair share, resonates deeply in an age of rampant inequality. Policies once dismissed as too radical are now vote-winners.

Freeze rents? Tax windfall profits? Use the state to break up corporate monopolies and provide free basic services? These ideas excite voters weary of struggling to make ends meet while CEOs and shareholders prosper.

We’ve seen this new left populism surge in many places. In the United States, for example, Bernie Sanders’ campaigns and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s outspoken advocacy popularised these themes, and recently Chicago elected a progressive mayor on a pledge to tax the rich for the public good.

In Latin America, a string of socialist leaders, from Chile’s Gabriel Boric to Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, have swept to power promising to rein in corporate excess and uplift the masses. The common denominator is clear: voters respond to politicians who offer a clear break from the pro-corporate consensus and speak to their real economic grievances.

Here in New Zealand, the Labour Party and its ally the Greens should have been the vehicle for bold change. But instead they’ve both largely stayed the course. When Labour took office in 2017, there were high hopes for a transformational government. Yet Jacinda Ardern and her successors ultimately shied away from any fundamental challenge to the economic status quo.

They tinkered around the edges of problems, unwilling to upset the powerful or depart from orthodoxy.

Even when Labour admitted certain markets were broken, for instance acknowledging the supermarket duopoly that was overcharging Kiwis for food, it refused to take decisive action. A Commerce Commission inquiry into supermarkets resulted in gentle recommendations and a voluntary code of conduct, but no real crackdown on the grocery giants’ excess profits.

The government balked at imposing windfall taxes on the booming banks or power companies. Its much-vaunted KiwiBuild housing scheme collapsed far short of targets, and it never embarked on a serious state house building program. Time and again, opportunities for bold intervention were passed up. It often seemed Labour was more afraid of annoying corporate interests than of disappointing its own voters.

In the end, the Labour-led government managed a broken economic system rather than transforming it. And during a mounting cost-of-living crisis, “managing” wasn’t enough. By 2023, many traditional Labour supporters felt little had changed for them — and they were right. The party had kept the seat warm, but it hadn’t delivered the economic justice it once promised.

Time to catch up with the Zeitgeist
The contrast between New Zealand’s left and the new wave of international left triumphs could not be more stark. Overseas, the left is rediscovering its purpose as the champion of the many against the few, of public good over private greed.

At home, our left has spent recent years timidly managing a broken status quo. If there is one lesson from Zohran Mamdani’s New York victory — and from the broader resurgence of socialist politics abroad — it’s that boldness can be a virtue for parties that claim to represent ordinary people.

To catch up with the Zeitgeist, New Zealand’s Labour and Green parties will need to break out of their cautious mindset and actually fight for transformative change. That means making our next political battles about the “big guys” – the profiteering banks, the supermarket duopoly, the housing speculators – and about delivering tangible gains to the public.

It means having the courage to propose taxing wealth, curbing corporate excess, and rebuilding a fairer economy, even if it upsets a few CEOs or lobbyists. In short, it means offering a clear alternative to “broken markets” and business-as-usual.

The winds of political change are blowing in a populist-left direction globally. It’s high time New Zealand’s left caught that wind. If Labour and the Greens cannot find the nerve to ride the new wave of public enthusiasm for economic justice, they risk being left behind by history.

In an age of crises and inequality, timidity is a recipe for oblivion. Boldness, on the other hand, just might revive the left’s fortunes.

Dr Bruce Edwards is a political commentator and analyst. He is director of the Integrity Institute, a campaigning and research organisation dedicated to strengthening New Zealand democratic institutions through transparency, accountability, and robust policy reform.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A New Zealand politician and human rights activist with a strong connection to Tonga’s Democracy movement and other Pacific activism has been farewelled after dying last week aged 80.

Keith Locke served as a former Green MP from 1999 to 2011.

While in Parliament, he was a notable critic of New Zealand’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan and the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002, and advocated for refugee rights.

He was appointed a Member of the NZ Order of Merit for services to human rights advocacy in 2021, received NZ Amnesty International’s Human Rights Defender award in 2012, and the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand’s Harmony Award in 2013.

Locke was often a voice for the Pacific in the New Zealand Parliament.

In 2000, he spoke out on the plight of overstayers who were facing deportation under the National Party government.

As the Green Party’s then immigration spokesperson, he supported calls for a review of the overstayer legislation.

Links to Pohiva
“We are a Polynesian nation, and we increasingly celebrate the Samoan and Tongan part of our national identity,” Locke said at the time.

“How can we claim as our own the Jonah Lomus and Beatrice Faumuinas while we are prepared to toss their relations out of the country at a moment’s notice?”

Locke had links to Tonga through his relationship with Democracy campaigner and later Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pohiva, who died in 2019.

Locke defended Pohiva in 1996 when he was a spokesperson for the Alliance Party. He said he was horrified that Pohiva and two colleagues had been jailed for comments in their pro-democracy newspaper Kele’a.

He criticised the New Zealand government for keeping silent about what he described as a “gross abuse of human rights.”

In 2004, Locke called on the New Zealand government to speak out about what he called the suppression of the press in Tonga.

Locke, who was then the Greens foreign affairs spokesman, said several publications had been denied licences, including an offshoot of the New Zealand-produced Taimi ‘o Tonga newspaper.

Vale #KeithLocke, tireless and fearless campaigner for peace, justice and a sustainable future for a green planet … I’ll also remember him for friendship and commitment to independent truth publishing and OneWorld progressive bookshop. – @DavidRobie, editor, #AsiaPacificReport pic.twitter.com/SC0obJzfOA

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) June 21, 2024

Tribute by Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie.

‘Speak out as Pacific neighbour’
“We owe it to the Tongan people to support them in their hour of need.  We should speak out as a Pacific neighbour,” he said.

In 2007, ‘Akilisi was again charged with sedition, along with four other pro-democracy MPs, for allegedly being responsible for the rioting that took place following a mass pro-democracy march in Nuku’alofa.

“As the Greens’ foreign affairs spokesperson I went up to Tonga to support ‘Akilisi and his colleagues fight these trumped-up charges. I was shocked to find that the New Zealand government was going along with these sedition charges against five sitting MPs,” Locke said in an interview.

“I was in Tonga not long before the 2010 elections with a cross-party group of New Zealand MPs. We were helping Tongan candidates understand the intricacies of a parliamentary system.

“At the time I remember ‘Akilisi being worried that the block of nine ‘noble’ MPs could frustrate the desires of what were to be 17 directly-elected MPs. And so it turned out.

“Despite winning 12 of the popularly-elected 17 seats in 2010, the pro-democracy MPs were outvoted 14 to 12 when the votes of the nine nobles MPs were put into the equation.

“However, in the two subsequent elections (2014 and 2017) the Democrats predominated and ‘Akilisi took over as Prime Minister. I am not qualified to judge his record on domestic issues, except to say it couldn’t have been an easy job because of the fractious nature of Tongan politics.

“And ‘Akilisi has been in poor health.

‘Admirable stand’
“As Prime Minister he took an admirable stand on some important international issues, such as climate change. At the Pacific Island Forum he criticised those countries which stayed silent on the plight of the West Papuans.”

Locke said that Tonga may not yet be fully democratic, but that great progress had been made under Pohiva’s “humble and self-sacrificing leadership.”

Keith Locke was also an outspoken advocate for democracy and independence causes in Fiji, Kanaky New Caledonia, Palestine, Philippines, Tahiti, Tibet, Timor-Leste and West Papua and in many other countries.

His remembrance service was held with whānau and supporters at a packed Mount Eden War memorial Hall on Tuesday.

Philip Cass is an editorial adviser for Kaniva Tonga. Republished as a collaboration between KT and Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Jana Fayyad, a Palestinian activist, had some sharp words about “the silence of Western feminists” at International Women’s Day, asking in her address to the Palestine rally in Sydney last Saturday: “Are you only progressive until Palestine?”

No Palestinian speaker had been asked to address the annual protest the previous day and Fayyad did not mince her words.

“Save your corporate high teas, your bullshit speeches, your ridiculous and laughable social media posts on this International Women’s Day!” she said.

“We don’t think of Margaret Thatcher or Ursula Von der Leyen or Hillary Clinton.

“We think of Besan [Helasa], we think of Dr Amira al Assori, we think of Hind Khoudary —  we think Plestia [Alaqad], we think of Lama Jamous.

“We think of the women that we honour — the women in Gaza.

“And beyond the women of Gaza, we think of Leila Khaled and Hanan Ashrawi and Fadua Tuqan and Amira Hass and Dr Mona el Farrah — the women at the forefront of Palestinian liberation.”

She said considering that 9000 women had been “slaughtered by the terrorist state of Israel”, the silence of Western feminists had been deafening.

“The silence has been deafening — the silence on the 15,000 children slaughtered; the silence on the sexual assault and the rape that woman in Gaza have been subjected to; the silence on the horrific conditions that 50,000 pregnant women face having to do C-sections without anesthesia; and the silence on the mothers having to pick up their children in pieces,” Fayyad said.

“The silence is deafening!”

“Where is your feminism?” she asked.

“I don’t see it anywhere! I don’t hear of it! Where are your voices? Or are you only progressive until Palestine?”

Republished from Green Left with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Community organisers representing multiple Aotearoa struggles gathered at the Ponsonby Community Centre in Tāmaki Makaurau last Sunday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Ponsonby People’s Union (1972-1979).

Organised by former PPU activists, representatives of many Aotearoa social justice movements and struggles from around the country came together to honour the PPU’s work.

The gathering was simultaneously a birthday celebration; a communal remembering of activist history, and a hui to launch the important PPU commemorative book project.

Taura Eruera was a founding member of Nga Tamatoa and the PPU, doing important food co-op work for the union. He opened the hui with a mihi whakatau.

PPU activist Farrell Cleary chaired the meeting and provided excellent introductions for all speakers.

The speakers
Roger Fowler co-founded the PPU and coordinated the group between 1972-1979. He spoke of how the PPU emerged from the Aotearoa countercultural movement; growing public opposition to the Vietnam War; Progressive Youth Movement activism, and Resistance Bookshop labours in Auckland.

Fowler paid tribute to his friend and PPU co-founder Cliff Kelsell. He acknowledged the writings of the Black Panther Party as formative to thinking concerning community activism — in particular, the writings of Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and George Jackson.

Fowler explained why Huey P. Newton’s concept of “intercommunalism” was vital for developing the PPU’s community resilience and network building praxis in Ponsonby from 1972.

He said the issues the Ponsonby community confronted were:

• people needing food;
• people needing protection from police harassment and racism; and
• local tenants needing assistance against unjust treatment from property owners.

Fowler spoke about the PPU’s food co-op, prison visitors bus service, and free community newspaper and leaflet work. He said the PPU used the food co-op as an organising tool to mobilise people for multiple community interventions.

He expressed concern that knowledge of activism in the seventies may be disappearing — but he acknowledged Nick Bollinger’s recent history Jumping Sundays as an important addition to keeping public memory of activist history alive.

Fowler paid tribute to the Polynesian Panther Party (PPP) — the PPU’s sister organisation — and acknowledged the Polynesian Panther Party Legacy Trust’s (PPPLT) contemporary community organising in schools.

Pam Hughes was an activist in the PPU. She spoke about the impact of the anti-Vietnam War Movement and the writings of Karl Marx upon her early life. She said she felt she possessed theoretical but not practical knowledge of struggle until she moved to Auckland and joined the PPU in the middle 1970s.

She spoke about the lives of working-class women who lived in Grey Lynn, Herne Bay, and Ponsonby at the time.

Hughes spoke of the terrible hardship these women endured: these women had to make the weekly choice of either paying their rents or buying food for families — they did not have the money to do both.

She spoke of the impact of the 1973 oil crisis; the racism Māori and Pacific people faced during the period, and the emergence of the Dawn Raids strategy as an approach to Pacific “overstayers” initiated by Norm Kirk’s Labour government — before the strategy was intensified under Muldoon’s National government.

Hughes said the PPU had stood up for collective rights and improved living standards in inner city Auckland. She acknowledged the PPU as an early forerunner to contemporary community development programme initiatives in Aotearoa today.

Fuimaono Norman Tuiasau is chairperson of the PPPLT and a former PPP member. He worked closely with the PPU from the early 1970s.

Fuimaono said he felt honoured to attend the 50th celebration for the PPU. He acknowledged all the brothers and sisters from different movements in attendance.

Fuimaono talked about the long, 50-year struggle of the PPU (and others) to uphold the mana of the poor, homeless, and lost in inner city Auckland. He talked about his deep alofa and gratitude for the PPU.

He told rich stories about the work the PPP did in partnership with the PPU. He told the story of how the PPP and the PPU worked together concerning the PPP’s Dawn Raids activist campaign.

Fuimaono talked about how the PPU, and PPP worked together to organise the PIG Patrol to monitor team policing in Auckland. He also shared the narrative of how the PPP assisted the PPU concerning tenancy eviction direct action activism in Ponsonby.

He acknowledged the PPU and his great friends, Roger Fowler and Lyn Doherty. He thanked the PPU for supporting the PPP.

At the conclusion of Fuimaono’s talk, PPP and PPPLT members Melani Anae, Tigilau Ness, Alec Toleafoa, and Fuimaono Norman Tuiasau stood together and sang the beautiful Samoan song “Ua Fa’afetai” to thank members of the PPU for their long years of community service.

Tigilau Ness is a distinguished community activist, musician, PPPLT trustee, and former PPP member. He worked closely with the PPU from the early 1970s.

He offered warm salutations to the PPU at the 50th birthday celebration event. He spoke of how the loss of Panther sister Ama Rauhihi’s brother Peter in Vietnam galvanised the PPP’s anti-Vietnam War activism.

He articulated the bonds of fellowship between the PPP and the PPU via song. He performed songs such as “Teach Your Children”, and “American Pie” for the audience. These songs were sung by PPU and PPP members travelling on buses together to visit prisoners in Auckland.

Ness spoke about the importance of sharing histories of struggle with the youth of today. He spoke humbly about the community organising work the PPPLT do today speaking to youth in schools about PPP history. He warned that if activists did not tell their historical narratives, then outsiders might come and potentially misrepresent those stories.

Nick Bollinger is an eminent broadcaster and creative writer. He has written the important 2022 Aotearoa Counterculture Movement history Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Bollinger evoked the 1960s as a period where communes formed, music festivals abounded, and younger Kiwis challenged social norms from hairstyles and dress codes to social assumptions concerning racism and sexism.

He talked about his book’s title and where the term “Jumping Sundays” came from. He said he wanted to explore ideas important to this emerging counterculture in his book. He wanted to explore whether ideas from this historical conjuncture had survived, been diluted, or had been hijacked.

Bollinger said he felt PPU’s ideas of community service still existed today in the lives and service of former PPU members. He talked about writing about the PPU in his book. He said that if we do not tell these stories, the stories will not survive. He quoted lines from Bob Marley’s renowned community struggle anthem, “No Woman, No Cry” to emphasise his point: “In this great future, you can’t forget your past.”

Alec Hawke is a Ngati Whatua activist and kaumatua. He collaborated closely with Roger Fowler and PPU members at the Takaparawhau Occupation in Tāmaki Makaurau in 1977-1978.

He talked about his early engagement in the anti-Vietnam War Movement as a high school student at Selwyn College in Tāmaki, and his involvement in anti-Vietnam War protests alongside the Progressive Youth Movement (PYM). Hawke spoke about the Takaparawhau struggle and said that Roger Fowler had asked protestors to remain peaceful as police arrested them at the Point in 1978.

Hawke said that Roger had supported Ngati Whatua kuia and kaumatua’s request that arrested protesters remain non-violent. He said Roger Fowler was the last person arrested at Takaparawhau because he refused to move off the wharenui roof!

Hawke thanked the PPP for always helping Takaparawhau protesters when his people called for assistance. He spoke about the death of his daughter Joannie at Takaparawhau: and how Tigilau Ness had written a beautiful song in tribute of Joannie. Alec said that Tāmaki Makaurau would not be the same place but for the work of Roger Fowler and Lyn Doherty.

Musicians Sam Ford and Trudi Green performed for the PPU in the 1970s. They played several fine songs after Alec Hawke spoke. As Sam and Trudi performed their music, guests gathered to converse, share food, and mix and mingle.

Huey P. Newton once said, “I think what motivates people is not great hate, but great love for other people.”

Alongside other organisations and movements, the PPU embodied this great alofa/aroha for others in their tireless community labours. Their work offers living inspiration for new generations today.

The author, Tony Fala, wishes to pay respects to the work of all former PPU members living and deceased. People can send photographs and stories by October 31, 2022, to Roger Fowler for the PPU book project at: roger.fowler@icloud.com People can learn more about the PPU by reading Roger Fowler’s contribution in the important PPP history edited by Melani Anae, Lautofa (TA) Iuli, and Leilani Tamu in 2015 titled, Polynesian Panthers: Pacific Protest and Affirmative Action in Aotearoa New Zealand 1971-1981. Nga mihi nui to Roger Fowler for providing insightful editing comments concerning this article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Migrants and overseas Filipinos in Aotearoa New Zealand today called on the governments of both Australia and New Zealand to halt all military and security aid to the Philippines in protest over last month’s “fraudulent” general election.

At simultaneous meetings in Auckland and Wellington, a new broad coalition of social justice and community campaigners endorsed a statement pledging: “Never forget, never again martial law!”

“Bongbong” Marcos Jr, the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr, was elected President in a landslide ballot on May 9 and will take office at the end of this month.

His father ruled the Philippines with draconian leadership — including 14 years of martial law — between 1965 and 1986 until he was ousted by a People Power uprising.

Marcos Jr – along with his mother Imelda – has long tried to thwart efforts to recover billions of dollars plundered during his father’s autocratic rule.

“Police and military forces should be investigated for their participation in red-tagging, illegal arrests on trumped up charges, extrajudicial killings, and all forms of human rights abuses,” the statement said.

“We call on the International Criminal Court to pursue investigation and trial of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte for massive human rights breaches in its drug war and systematic attacks against political activists, human rights advocates and anti-corruption crusaders.”

Call for ‘transparent government’
The statement called for “transparent government” and for all public funds to be accounted for.

“We specifically call for realignment of the national budget in favour of covid aid, public health and social services instead of wasting billions for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and other government machineries that aim to suppress critics of its corruption and human rights abuses.”

The statement urged the “dismantling” of NTF-ELCAC.

The Supreme Court of the Philippines was called on to “act on the petitions lodged by various persons and groups regarding the disqualification of Ferdinand Marcos Jr to run for office due to his conviction” for tax evasion.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue has confirmed that the court-ordered Marcos family’s tax bill remains unpaid and news reports say this is estimated to now total about 23 billion pesos (NZ$670 million).

The statement called on the Department of Justice and Supreme Court to provide for immediate and unconditional release of the unjustly jailed Senator Leila de Lima — an outspoken critic of Duterte — “following the recantation of the testimonies of three key witnesses”, and also freedom for more than 700 political prisoners “languishing in jail on trumped-up charges”.

The gathered Filipino community also sought an official Day of Remembrance and Tribute for all the victims of Marcos dictatorship to mark the 50th year commemoration of the declaration of martial law on 21 September 2022.

‘Truth army’ to monitor social media
“We call on all Filipinos to remain vigilant as a truth army, to tirelessly monitor and report social media platforms in serious breach of community standards, and to push for stronger laws in place for disinformation to be punished,” the statement said.

Filipinos in the two cities — Auckland and Wellington — pledged support for the Angat Buhay cause of defending Philippines “history, truth and democracy”.

Speakers included Filipino trade unionist Dennis Maga; Mikee Santos of Migrante Aotearoa; an unsuccessful Filipino Labour candidate in the 2020 NZ elections, Romy Udanga; and speaking by Zoom from Manila, Senate candidate Luke Espiritu, who said the new Marcos regime would be able to achieve virtual “martial law” without declaring it.

“All Marcos needs to do is suppress dissent, and he has all the sophisticated technology available to do this that his father never had,” Espiritu said.

Northland Kakampink coordinator Faye Bañares said the new Angat Buhay NGO should not take over the responsibility of providing for the poor in the community, although the aim is to help them.

“The NGO should push the Philippine government to face their responsibility and be transparent about what they do,” she said.

Many speakers told how shocked they were in the general election over a “massive breakdown of vote counting machines and voter disenfranchisement” and the “incredibly rapid count of COMELEC transparency servers” to award the “unbelievable final tally” of 31 million votes in favour of Ferdinand Marcos Jr as president and Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter Sara as vice-president.

Social media troll farms
Denouncing the social media troll farms, the meeting critics said “all the worst lies, disinformation and red-tagging were committed against [outgoing vice-president] Leni Robredo, opposition candidates and parties who stood up against [Rodrigo] Duterte and the Marcos-Duterte tandem.”

In November 2021, the Philippines and New Zealand agreed to boost maritime security cooperation during the 6th Philippines-New Zealand Foreign Ministry Consultations hosted by the Philippines.

Both sides acknowledged the growing breadth and depth of Philippines-New Zealand bilateral cooperation, particularly in the areas of defence and security, health, trade and investments, development cooperation, people-to-people and cultural engagements.

Trade between both countries is worth about trade in goods and services is worth about NZ$1.15 billion.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz