NZ needs to be the voice of peace and mediation
As Albert Einstein once said, one cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. He’s right. We have to make a choice. We have to prioritise what sort of country we want to be in the world.
In an increasingly troubled international arena, Aotearoa New Zealand needs more than ever to be a voice of peace and mediation among the forces fuelling tension and violence.
We know we can play this sort of role effectively. Our role in helping broker the Bougainville peace deal in the 1990s is a prominent example, but there are many other examples where New Zealand has played and is playing crucial roles without fanfare.
There’s a reason why the Defence Industry Association Forum in Palmerston North was shielded from public scrutiny.
No doubt on carefully considered public relations advice, the organisers consciously didn’t want to tell us who the main sponsors were. This is because for the past few years the main sponsor has been Lockheed Martin, which manufactures missiles to deliver nuclear weapons. How can that sort of sponsorship even be legal in a nuclear-free country like Aotearoa New Zealand?
And if the illegal nuclear weapons weren’t bad enough, Lockheed Martin is also the manufacturer of conventional explosive bombs that are being used in the Saudi-led bombardment of Yemen, which is a large scale humanitarian crisis that almost never makes our TV screens.
Lockheed Martin might be in the business of mending trucks in New Zealand, as the journalist chaperoned through the conference reported. We definitely have truck mechanics in New Zealand that don’t make their money by producing weapons of mass destruction. Shouldn’t we use their services?
With partners like Lockheed Martin, the forum is about preparing for war and state-sanctioned violence, whether the companies are selling apples and toilet paper or whether they are selling guns and targeting systems – it’s about sustaining the industry that facilitates violence and armed conflict.
It’s an industry tightly intertwined with a commitment to militarism and we should be honest about that.
Rather than shielding it from scrutiny and hiding behind police, private security and literally blacked-out barricades, the forum organisers and the New Zealand Government delegates should engage in an open and public debate about how this homegrown industry contributes to our role as a country in the world.
What are the implications of our involvement in war and the arms industry?
What are the hidden costs of promoting this sort of business? As speakers pointed out at the public demonstration, the good that could be done at home and overseas with the money flowing into the defence industry is immense.
Whatever your views on the forum in Palmerston North, we should be able to have a democratic debate about what sort of domestic industries we want to prioritise and which areas we want to boost with central and local government support.
We should be supporting industries we can all be proud of – clean energy, housing, much-needed infrastructure and local manufacturing.
There are countless options for peaceful and prosperous business pursuits – let’s support them.
The choices we make as a city and as a country really do matter.