Posted on 08/14/2005 8:29:24 AM PDT by Our_Man_In_Gough_Island
Lange's anti-nuclear stance became a hallmark of New Zealand's identity
The former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange, who has died aged 63, introduced an aggressively anti-nuclear stance and bold modernising of socialist politics to the world stage. Before he took over the leadership of New Zealand's Labour Party in 1983, the left-leaning party's anti-nuclear stance had made little impact.
But it was soon to become one of the cornerstones of the country's foreign policy - and one that would put it on a collision course with the US in some of the darkest days of the Cold War.
When Lange became prime minister after the snap election of 1984, New Zealand angered its allies - particularly the Reagan administration - by refusing to allow nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships into its ports.
Lange's opposition to French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific - New Zealand's "back yard" - was vocal and insistent.
It grew even more strident after France bombed a Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, in Auckland harbour.
Anti-nuclear campaigner
The 1985 attack thrust Lange - and New Zealand's - anti-nuclear views on to the world stage.
Just months before, the prime minister, a forceful public speaker, had travelled to the Oxford University Union debate in Britain to argue that nuclear weapons were illegal.
"Those who build nuclear weapons, and those who devise nuclear strategies, do more than provide for their own defence. They have it in their hands to determine the fate of us all," he told the debate.
Lange and Labour's commitment to the anti-nuclear cause - in the age of 'mutually assured destruction' - was instrumental in creating New Zealand's environmentalist identity, former Labour prime minister Mike Moore told the BBC.
"This was a deep emotional issue to New Zealanders," he said. "He was of a generation born out of the anti-war movement."
You talk to Kiwis... and they think that clean, green nuclear-free New Zealand was their contribution to world peace
Mike Moore Former NZ prime minister
After the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, New Zealand ended up "with the highest percentage of Greenpeace members in the world.
"This is a very deep, deeply-held New Zealand belief," Mr Moore told the BBC's World Today programme.
"Go to any classroom and there's always pictures of whales and the nuclear-free New Zealand, it's more of an identity thing than a security thing."
New Zealand, with its relatively brief history, and the lack of a strong Republican movement like that seen in neighbouring Australia, found identity in that 'green movement', Mr Moore said.
Far-reaching reforms
"You talk to Kiwis... and they think that clean, green nuclear-free New Zealand was their contribution to world peace," he said.
So important was that stance that National, New Zealand's leading right-wing party, have never felt able to change it while in government.
"No political party in New Zealand will change that policy... and success in politics is when you get your enemies to accept your policy, because they know it can't be changed."
Lange's administration introduced dramatic reforms
Lange's Labour government also set up the Department of Conservation in 1987, which oversees national parks and protects New Zealand's many bird species.
Lange's reformist Labour government was also "New Labour when Tony Blair was still at school", Mr Moore said.
Led by the free-market thinking of finance minister Roger Douglas - quickly dubbed 'Rogernomics' by headline writers - Lange's government was responsible for the biggest economic reforms in New Zealand's history.
The reforms, which included selling off state-owned assets, alienated the party from many of its traditional working class voters. Farmers were also upset at an end to agricultural subsidies.
But the reforms have been seen as a blueprint for the centrist policies of Blair's New Labour administration.
You're probably making a good point here, but I'm sorry to say I don't quite understand what you're saying.
Are you saying NZ has an "ethnic heritage" that's hostile to the defense of Western values and Western culture for some reason?
Are you saying that they're trying to stay on the good side of countries who buy their export goods and who are hostile to the defense of Western values?
And look where it got them - they get to play Middle Earth in a movie.
A Third World country can also be characterized as inhabited by non-Western cultures who perceive themselves as discriminated against. New Zealand ( except perhaps for the Maoris) does not fulfill that condition, so there is the disconnect
What we may be seeing is a nation that is fulfilling a strong geopolitical tendency to align itself one way, even in spite of its ethnic heritage, just as in the case, of say, the Bahamas, we may be seeing the opposite.
I think I catch your meaning here.
We have people like this in the U.S. -- folks who have a Western ethnic background and who enjoy all the wealth and freedom of Western life, but who nevertheless align themselves with anyone they see as the enemy of the West.
They're called liberals, and thank heaven they haven't come to dominate our politics here, they way they seem to in places like NZ and Canada.
There are real similarities between New Zealand and Canada on this - both feel they can neglect their own defence and focus on feel good policies rather than face the harsh reality of the world, because they are aware they have more powerful neighbours who just about have to defend them if it ever becomes necessary.
"We will become incredibly wealthy by buying and selling tulip bulbs carbon credits" - Helen Clark
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.