Allan Dick - Peter Bethune: Saving the Whales While We Do Nothing

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I can’t believe what I heard on Kerre Woodham’s radio show last night. Caller after caller, as well as the host herself, all putting the verbal boot into Peter Bethune, the New Zealand anti-whaling protester.

Have we turned into a nation of whimps, cowards and Japanese boot-lickers?

Lets look at the issues.

• As a nation we turn out in our hundreds each time there is a whale stranding, mostly in a vain effort to save these lovely creatures from their own wrong-doing. We gather on the beaches, talking to the stranded whales, calming them, stroking them in an effort to save them. This is a spiritual moment.

Obviously, New Zealanders love whales. Just look at the whale-watching at Kaikoura — it’s one of the tourist attractions that we are most proud of.

• We back, to the very hilt efforts to try and stop whaling altogether and we look on Japanese claims of whaling as research for the lie as it is and we hate the Japanese duplicity.

• We seethe when the Japanese flout international law and convention and sail their ghastly whaling fleet into “our” part of the world and start slaughtering “our” whales in a whale sanctuary.

• As a nation we say we like direct action, people standing up for what they believe in, courage, dignity and achievement.

For my money, Peter Bethune stands up for all of these qualities that we say we admire.

• Against all odds, he persevered with mechanical troubles and cash-flow issues to create the marvellous piece of water-based technology “Earthrace”, risked his life but set a record for the fastest ever circumnavigation of the earth by boat. I’m not into boats, but I realise and appreciate the scale of that achievement.

But he wanted to do more. Outraged, as well all claim we are, at the Japanese killing of whales in our back yard, Bethune decided to do more than just bleat and wring his hands about it.

He sold Earthrace to the anti-whaling organisation Sea Shepherd — a deal funded by wealthy American Ady Gil, hence the name change — and went down to the southern ocean to play tag with the sleazy, lieing Japanese whalers.

Given our love of whales, our hatred of whaling, our admiration for courage and integrity — and in the face of absolutely nothing from our government — I would have thought Bethune’s activity would have been applauded.

This was the same as us, as a nation, standing up to the United States over our anti-nuclear policy.

Nobody knows for absolute certainty what occurred in the wilds of the southern ocean — a place where only brave men go and even braver men play chicken against Japanese in big whaling vessels — but the result was the Japanese ship Shohan Maru 2, rammed the Adi Gil, carving it in two and putting Bethune and his five crewmembers at deadly peril.

Bethune boarded the Shohan Maru 2 with the intention of making a citizen’s arrest of the captain.

Now comes the part where New Zealanders start behaving like chickens with their heads cut off.

“Bethune committed an act of piracy.”

“Bethune is guilty of trespassing.”

“Bethune brought it on himself, I have no sympathy for him.”

Well, he certainly brought it on himself, but piracy and trespass?

No!

If someone deliberately rammed your car, almost killing you and your family, I am sure that you would be so outraged you would want to, at the very, very least, confront the driver of the other car. Possibly you’d do more than talk . . .

Which is what Bethune did.

Getting aboard the Shohan Maru was a task that in its own right was incredibly dangerous and fraught with the risk of death — again, something I would have thought most New Zealanders would have applauded. A single man, in the dark, armed only with his own courage, braving the southern ocean and a network of anti-boarding spikes. Amazing stuff.

Marine law experts say Bethune has done no wrong. The Shohan Maru 2 rammed — deliberately or not — the Ady Gil, sinking it. The captain of the Shohan Maru 2 then had an obligation to pick Bethune and his crew up and “rescue” them.

The marine law experts say because the Japanese captain didn’t do that, there is nothing illegal about what Bethune did in boarding the ship. Making a citizens arrest of the captain was something that was never going to happen, but, again, I would have thought New Zealanders, would have applauded Bethune for having the balls to try.

Instead we whinge, bleat and say he deserves all he’s got coming to him.

I just don’t understand it.

Everything that Peter Bethune has done contains the very elements that New Zealanders believe we are incredibly passionate about.

He’s brave, committed, an achiever, he’s trying to save whales, taking the war to the Japanese — a nation we still don’t entirely trust or like — and yet we cast him aside like he’s somebody we should be embarrassed by.

To me — and I have been to a beach to help with a whale stranding — he’s a real hero and one of the bravest New Zealanders to have been in the news for a long time.

I would be really interested in feedback on this as to why I seem to be a minority voice on this issue.
 

Published 16th Mar 2010

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