COMMENTARY: By Saige England
Being passive must come after being passionate and active.
Some know this. Some don’t.
So many people still don’t know this. I keep hoping they will learn, know, care and do something.
I recall a line about journalism many years ago, that good journalists write the truth about social issues so that the right people will read about them and do something to change those social issues, the terrible wrongs against humanity. But instead the news is read by the wrong people who continue to do the wrong things.
And I would add to this by so many who retreat into a zen state of “what I don’t see doesn’t affect me” or believing that if they pray to some great consciousness the ripple effect will go out.
I say we need both. We need to write about wrongs, read about wrongs, be active about those wrongs, then retreat and meditate so we can come out again and continue to forge a positive rather than a negative cycle.
Dr David Robie and a small number of other journalists have been doing this for decades.
Decades.
David was a journalist activist on the last voyage of the Rainbow Warrior.
Seven months after the Rainbow Warrior was bombed in Auckland harbour in 1985, David Robie’s book Eyes of Fire was published.
The book tells the story of the Rainbow Warrior’s last voyage and the bombing. David won the 1985 New Zealand Media Peace Prize for his coverage.
David Robie’s 2025 talk to Greenpeace activists in Matauri Bay. Video: Greenpeace
Several editions followed
Several editions of the book have followed, each providing updates to the events. To mark the 40th anniversary of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in July last year, Little Island Press released an updated edition of the book with a prologue by former NZ prime minister Helen Clark.
It is a brilliant moving account of an incident we should never forget. An incident our children should know about. A terrorist action by a country against our country.
Why? Because the French were bombing the Pacific, testing nuclear bombs in the Pacific, ruining the habitat of indigenous people. Not giving a fig about them. I love so much about France it pains me.
When I lived in France I asked French people who supported nuclear testing why they didn’t test nuclear bombs in their own harbours they shrugged. Some followed up by racist stuff about people in those islands.
Of course there were — and there are good French people — against the racism and the war on nature. But many did not know about it, many did not hear about it. Many did not think about it.
Like here, like now.
David’s book Eyes of Fire needs to be taught in schools. Read it, buy it, share it. It is our history. And one we should never forget. Lest it happens again. Because it is happening.
Chain in supply of sniper guns
Right now we have a NOIA building in Ōtautahi Christchurch. NOIA makes armaments. It supplies armies. It is a chain in the supply of sniper guns used by Zionist terrorists to kill little children in Gaza.
Here in Aotearoa. The worst leaders still cause the worst damage and they raise soldiers on nationalist propaganda. And we support those toxic leaders by supplying their armies with arms.
And the war is still being waged against nature. Because nature is not treated as a friend, a mother, a lover, by these people. She is bombed to smithereens.
So stand up and then retreat. Speak up and then retreat. Subscribe to independent media like Asia Pacific Report or Café Pacific, buy Eyes of Fire.
Buy books by Palestinian authors and anti-Zionist authors who speak out about the genocide, how it was a long term plan to get rid of the Indigenous people of the land, how the massacres started decades ago and never stopped.
Some of us have been there and we know. Some of us have not been there and we know, just as we knew apartheid was wrong without witnessing it in action.
The one good thing about social media is we can turn away but we can never say we did not see. Those poor children. Those poor aid workers. Those poor journalists. The truth about this.
Can we do something? Yes!
We can do our bit first then retreat. Earn the retreat.
You are a representative of peace. You are a representative of humanity. You are a representative of nature.
Then when you look at the sun sinking or rising over our placid ocean you know you have done your best for the people on the other side, for the people on this side, and for nature.
Breathing in the peace you are helping to protect is far healthier than breathing in peace that you are doing nothing to protect.
Good independent media include:
Asia Pacific Report
Scoop
Double Down News
Democracy Now!
The Intercept
Caitlin Johnstone
George Hazim
Michael West Media
E-Tangata
Adding in thanks to a helpful contributor:
Owen Jones
Medhi Hassan – Zeteo
George Galloway
Bassem Youssef
Amy Goodman
Medea Benjamin – Codepink
Eugene Doyle – Solidarity
Saige England is the author of the highly acclaimed debut novel, The Seasonwife. In her previous career as a journalist, Saige won a number of Qantas Media Awards for feature writing and the New Zealand Media Peace Award. She has worked in various conflict zones including Romania, the former Yugoslavia, and the Middle East.
