Protest surrounding the anti-Vietnam war movement took on various forms including mass mobilisations (commonly referred to as "mobes"), marches, hunger strikes, music festivals, theatre productions, speeches, mass productions of flyers, posters, leaflets and magazines, and the more recent additions of
sit-ins and teach-ins.
sit-ins and teach-ins.
Sit-Ins:The sit-in is a form of non-violent protest in which the participants occupy an area as a form of direct action protest. Typically the protesters will be in an area of significance to their protest movement or at times in areas that will cause people the most inconvenience and therefore attract the most attention. For many Wellington protesters, Parliament began a focal point for marches and sit-ins, whereas for much of the rest of the country places like public parks, embassies, main streets (especially Queen Street, Auckland), and other public domains.
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Police begin removing a group of anti-Vietnam War demonstrators who staged a sit-in outside the Prime Minister's suite of offices in Parliament buildings in June 1965.
~ Alexander Turnball Library, photograph by Morrie Hill. |
Teach-Ins:Pioneered in the US a few months before reaching New Zealand protesters, teach-ins were a typically university-based activity which consisted of an extended forum in which opposing speakers would debate key questions raised by the war in Vietnam and the controversy surrounding it. After the wave of protest surrounding the initial announcement of NZ involvement in Vietnam there seemed to be a lull in activity, and so with the introduction of teach-ins a new dynamic was instilled into the movement which would promote its public profile.
New Zealand's first teach-in took place at Victoria University of Wellington on July 18th 1965, organised by the Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association. The teach-in lasted over 14 hours and hosted a capacity audience of about 1000 people. As an innovative development of its time, parts of the teach-in were also televised the following day. |
First-hand account of the Teach-in at Victoria University of Wellington:
VIETNAM TEACH-IN
Prof. Keith Sinclair - (Professor of History at Auckland University)
Wellington, 1965
Victoria University students put on New Zealand's first 'teach-in', ably organised by Helen Sutch, daughter of the historian Bill Sutch. The teach-ins in New Zealand were not simply anti-government rallies. Some of the speakers outlined historical, geographical and other background information. Cabinet ministers and Opposition Labour MPs took part. I have never attended such exciting meetings. Often the atmosphere was electric.
I was asked to speak and, before I left for Wellington, received a long and surprising telephone call from Tom Shand, the Minister of Labour. I wondered whether he was trying to put me off; certainly he was sounding me out. But I think he was sincere in explaining to a reporter that he simply wanted to find out whether a good number of students would be present and that the government was not going to be an Aunt Sally.
About a thousand people, not by any means all students, sat for fifteen hours listening to the debate. There was a great deal of heckling of pro-government speakers. Sir Leslie Munro, a National MP, said that such a meeting would not be allowed in Hanoi; my interjection, 'Or Saigon', was widely reported in the press.
One journalist, Ian Templeton, reported that 'the critics clearly won the day' but the presence of Tom Shand, Minister of Labour, and D.S. Thompson, the Minister of Defence, gave the meeting a dignity and seriousness that it would not otherwise have had. Indeed, I doubt whether such a serious debate on foreign policy had ever occurred in New Zealand. When Walter Nash, a former Prime Minister and our senior salesman, spoke, he received tumultuous applause. A former MP, Ormond Wilson, said to me that he had never heard Walter speak so clearly about anything.
When I spoke I began with our war graves. I had stood in the cathedral at Amiens and read a notice commemorating the thousands of Australians and New Zealanders who had died in defending the town during the First World War. 'My feelings when I read that notice were very emotional and not those of satisfied patriotism. Amiens is a scruffy-looking town and I wondered why those men had been there.' In Lebanon, not long before, driving from Beirut to Byblos I had come across a cemetery: 'War graves: Australia and New Zealand.'
When would this end?
Most of my speech consisted of criticisms of the government's arguments for joining in the war. Sir Walter had made a couple of errors about SEATO. Shand and Thompson had not attacked him, but waited till I had finished and then questioned me about SEATO. Anticipating questions, I had put the text of the treaty in my pocket and now brandished it, saying that I always carried it about with me in case, like South Vietnam, I should need aid.
The academics were certainly not inferior to the politicians as speakers. Bill Oliver from Massey and Keith Buchanan from Victoria were excellent. A man later wrote to Nash saying that he had enjoyed the 'spate of wonderful oratory from the “intelligenzia” of the university'. Only a few years earlier it is doubtful we had possessed an intelligentsia, but we had the beginnings of one now. This was the first occasion on which academics had taken a lead in public dispute and, indeed, proven a force with a little political clout. Of course, before the Second World War there were not enough academics to possess any force.
~ 'The Penguin Eyewitness History of New Zealand', Bob Brockie, 2002