The French Government conducting the tests must have known it could not win against such a show of people power. So a few minutes before midnight on July 10, 1985, French secret service agents struck in Auckland harbor, New Zealand.
They bombed and sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, one of the ships that was due to lead the flotilla into the nuclear test zone. The French agents murdered
Fernando Pereira, a photographer and crew member.
The government was mistaken if it believed that this would knock the courage out of a movement of millions. One of our supporters said it best: you can’t sink a rainbow.
Thanks to public protest, nuclear tests in the Pacific were abandoned. People power made history. Not all of those people clambered into boats. But they all took a stand. Some by writing, some by marching, some by signing a petition. Some volunteered, some donated, some challenged their friends and family. Others changed minds simply by telling people where they stood. Each one of those single acts, by people just like you and me, reached into hearts and minds and ultimately brought an end to nuclear weapons testing.
Today, we all face a different threat: climate change. Just as nuclear weapons threatened global catastrophe 30 years ago,
climate change threatens all of us now. Global warming means more flooding and bigger storms. We see severe weather events hitting the news with greater regularity. Millions of people suffer them first-hand, some losing their homes, livelihoods and even their lives.
It is already undermining security and is set to further exacerbate scarcities and tensions that fuel conflict.
Increasingly, people are standing up to the coal, oil and gas companies whose polluting products are
fouling the air we breathe, the seas we fish and swim in, and the habitats on which we depend. It’s partly due to the events of 30 years ago, where a wide and diverse group of people showed courage in standing up to the nuclear threat in the Pacific, that we know that people power can win.
People in the Pacific region are also standing up against climate change and the polluters. Filipinos are
calling on the country’s Commission on Human Rights to investigate the big carbon polluters for human rights violations linked to the impacts of climate change. In Australia people are
standing up to protect the Great Barrier Reef. On the 30th anniversary of the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, the third Rainbow Warrior will be campaigning to protect the Reef—the largest living thing on the planet—from the coal industry.
The French Government didn’t realize the strength of a people-powered movement. They thought two bombs could blow the movement away. They were wrong.
There are small and large acts that each of us can take to make the world a safer, cleaner, healthier, better place. To end the era of dependence on dirty fossil fuels and usher in the
age of renewables, where all the world has access to clean energy. Stand up for what you believe in in whatever way you can; celebrate those who do the same. It makes us all stronger.
As we remember Fernando Pereira, and dedicate this anniversary to the courage of the crew of that first Rainbow Warrior
, we are asking everyone to share their own story of courage to this site:
http://courageworks.tumblr.com.
Read about people just like you and me who oppose injustice and environmental abuse, and who are seized with infectious optimism for change, and a better future.
Being courageous is not always easy. But courage is contagious.#CourageWorks and the world has never needed all of us to find the courage to take action as much as it does now.
Born in 1965 and hailing from South Africa, Kumi Naidoo has been Greenpeace’s International Executive Director since November 2009. Follow Kumi on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/NaidooKumi
The TRUTH will set you FREE.
Footage appeared to show some protesters and security officers involved in scuffles
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