Aussie/NZ Imperialism

[Philip L Ferguson <PLF13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Alan B. wrote:
>Issues of this type had a big impact on how the Australian left faced the
>movement against the French tests, too.  It was a movement with genuine
>mass support, and some degree of tolerance, or even support from the
>bourgeoisie.  Of course, the government, good Holy Alliance members that
>they are, were embarassed by the hostility of the Australian working class
>to the French imperialists.

In NZ, 99 percent of the population - including 99 percent of the ruling
class - opposed French tests, but the marches around Moruroa in 1995 were
tiny.  The biggest demo was a mere 500 people in Wellington.

In NZ the government was not at all embarrassed by hostility to the French.
They encouraged it.  Former Labour PM Mike Moore (now a bigwig at the WTO)
hit a particular high note with his call for NZers to treat French tourists
"like lepers".  The far right of the Tory Party said the French should be
told to clear out of the Pacific once and for all.

So there was a cross-class kiwi nationalist consensus.  This led to a big
increase in the popularity of the National Party (Tory) government.  PM Jim
Bolger, who had been regarded as an idiot and taken seriously by no-one,
shot up six points in the preferred PM polls and National went on to win
the next election.

The left here was very confused over that issue.  'Socialist Worker' ran a
big article by one of their most theoretical figure at the time, calling on
the NZ government to send a warship to Moruroa to stick it up to the
French.  I wrote a stink letter to their paper, which they ran but couldn't
see why I was making such a fuss about their position.  In the end, I think
they got a rap over the knuckles from the SWP leadership in London and
there was no further nonsense about advocating NZ warships.  However, it
would have been preferable if they had've sorted it out themselves, rather
than having someone in London deliver the 'line'.


>
>They were even more embarrassed by the movement demanding that Australia
>stop mining and exporting uranium, and stop supporting the existence of
>paleo-colonialism in the Pacific.

This is probably one of the differences between the Australian and New
Zealand ruling class.  The NZ ruling class is utterly pc, the most pc
ruling class in the world.  They even cry when they sign Treaty of Waitangi
pay-out settlements with Maori 'tribes' (ie with Maori business ventures
masquerading as 'tribes').

Justice and treaty settlements minister Doug Graham is a particularly teary
fellow, but they are all quite into it.

By contrast, in Australia the government still seems quite hostile in
relation to Aboriginal claims.


>There was a considerable struggle to combat the elements of pro-Australian
>imperialist, anti-French imperialist national chauvinism.  To a great
>degree this was dealt with by ensuring that as many demands as possible
>were directed against the Australian state (as seen above), or in support
>of the colonised peoples of the Pacific, particularly those of 'French'
>Polynesia.  That is, to turn the spontaneous anger at the imperialist crime
>into proletarian internationalism - solidarity with the oppressed masses of
>other nations.  (Or the "White Man's Burden", if you prefer).  The movement
>also deliberately set out to build links with the French working class, who
>were also in struggle against their masters' crimes.

Well, this is the crux.  How to turn stuff against *our own* ruling class.
It's dead easy in Australia and NZ to whip up some hostility to the French
or the US.  The real challenge is finding ways of exposing the imperialist
nature of our own ruling classes and their states.  Unbtil the blinkers are
removed from the eyes of the masses on that score, we won't get very far in
developing any genuinely *revolutionary* politics.

Cheers,
Phil