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A portrait of Hawke's Bay farmer, peace activist and political organizer for the left Bill Youren, capturing his visits to China during the Cold War period and his DIY farming techniques.
Director: John Chrisstoffels
Director: John Chrisstoffels
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AprendizadoTranscrição
00:00:29Transcribed by ESO, translated by —
00:01:05Unfortunately, the world is not a peaceful place, and Homo sapiens often seems to me
00:01:11to have been programmed to self-destruct before even he began to evolve out of the primeval
00:01:17slime. However, one has to live in the world as it is, there being no other, unfortunately.
00:01:39Harold Wilfred Yoram, or Bill to his friends, posed something of a conundrum to the New
00:01:45Zealand government security agents tasked with monitoring his activities in the 1950s,
00:01:5160s and 70s.
00:01:54How could this intelligent and cultured man hold such unorthodox views?
00:02:05To visit China in 1952 would almost be akin to going to the moon. It was highly unusual.
00:02:12China was effectively at war with US forces and New Zealand forces in the Korean peninsula.
00:02:18It had kicked out most of the foreigners there, the missionaries and the likes.
00:02:38There's always been progressive farmers in New Zealand, people who can think outside the
00:02:42square. It's partly the nature of the job. You know, you've got to be a bit of a loner
00:02:46and an individual anyway to survive out there in the land, sometimes far away from regular
00:02:51communication, particularly in the area in which he lived. This is way before the net
00:02:55and so on.
00:02:57It would have taken a strong person to come up with the views that he did and be prepared
00:03:01to say them publicly. Certainly in the 50s, which was a very narrow time for New Zealand's
00:03:07thought, he was somebody who broke that mould and was something of a role model for others.
00:03:20Something not far short of McCarthyism at second hand also prevailed here. People who had first-hand
00:03:26knowledge of China received small encouragement to speak or write about it, and those who did
00:03:32so soon found themselves subjected to the bumbling surveillance of the forerunner of the SIS.
00:03:39Rowe Alley became an un-person, but the Cold War hawks received all the publicity they desired.
00:03:46It was not a period to be looked back upon with any pride.
00:03:52Some people had to do the very hard yards, and I think he would have done some of the hardest
00:03:57in New Zealand at the time.
00:04:16ORGAN PLAYS
00:04:32New Zealanders everywhere knew him from letters and public journals
00:04:36over that familiar signature, H.W. Yiren.
00:04:41As a keenly incisive commentator on international affairs,
00:04:45he was always well-informed and prepared to argue progressive views
00:04:49with moral force, impeccable logic and clarity of expression.
00:04:56A lucid mind combined with a dedication to peace
00:04:59was just what this country was needing in the uneasy years
00:05:03after the end of World War II.
00:05:06No doubt there were many such people scattered about,
00:05:09but few had the independence and intellectual force
00:05:13to speak out effectively.
00:05:25He was not a big person, but he was of wiry stature,
00:05:29so he was quite strong physically and fit, of course, being a farmer.
00:05:34Dark-haired and a bit weather-beaten.
00:05:39He had a lopsided smile because when he was a young man,
00:05:43he and a friend built a little bomb,
00:05:47which I think they might have fired something at,
00:05:49and a little bit of shrapnel lodged just in his cheek,
00:05:53so it gave him a little bit of a slightly cockeyed smile.
00:06:02In the late 1940s, Bill purchased an 8mm film camera.
00:06:09He not only captured the family activities,
00:06:12but he also became very adept at creating short farming films
00:06:17that highlighted technical breakthroughs of the day,
00:06:20and this many years before the era of television.
00:06:36In the interests of promoting world peace to the people of Aotearoa,
00:06:40Bill would take his film camera with him on his journeys all over the world.
00:06:45In particular, he was invited three times
00:06:48to visit the People's Republic of China.
00:06:50China, the first in 1952, soon after the Communist Revolution,
00:06:55and for the last time in 1960,
00:06:58six years before the Cultural Revolution.
00:07:05China's not only a great power today,
00:07:07but it's one of the greatest and most original sources
00:07:10of civilisation on this planet throughout the ages.
00:07:20In his view, Chinese culture was continuous and unchanging,
00:07:27and he saw that continuous culture expressed in the art.
00:08:01Chinese civilisation and life
00:08:03have always shown great strength and power
00:08:07to recover from terrible setbacks
00:08:09of a kind that have often finished other civilisations forever.
00:08:12ever.
00:08:26ORCHESTRA PLAYS
00:08:42Bill was born on the 23rd of April, 1910.
00:08:46As his father worked for a bank,
00:08:48it was necessary for the family to move around the country.
00:08:52From Tikueti, where he went to a primary school,
00:08:55to Invercargill, that's where his interest in farming came from originally
00:09:00because he spent a lot of holidays with a farming family they knew
00:09:04and he loved the outdoors.
00:09:08At school and university, Bill excelled academically.
00:09:13In 1933, he completed his law degree with double first-class honours.
00:09:24He did like motorbikes and he rode a Panzer motorbike
00:09:28and famously came off it rather dramatically
00:09:32right in front of all the university students in Kelvin Prairie at one time.
00:09:39He enjoyed studying law very much
00:09:42but sort of the whiskey cabinet side of it was not of much interest to him
00:09:47and he left the law partly because he did like to be free to express his own opinions.
00:09:54One of the defining moments early in his life
00:09:57came when he was counseled to a high-profile controversial murder case
00:10:04involving William Bailey who was accused of double murder.
00:10:07Despite, as Joran and others saw it, flimsy evidence,
00:10:12the man was found guilty and was hanged.
00:10:16I think he said a bell tolled at the time of the death of Bailey.
00:10:21He found that was a very traumatic experience.
00:10:26And this, I think, reinforced to him the importance of social justice,
00:10:31of being able to speak the truth
00:10:33and also of being able to engage in rational argument.
00:10:43When I was very young, my teachers used to tell me
00:10:46that one of England's greatest glories
00:10:49was the freedom of speech enjoyed by all alike,
00:10:52whether or not they agreed with established opinions or institutions.
00:10:57Later, I came upon John Milton's famous argument,
00:11:00let truth and falsehood grapple,
00:11:03whoever knew truth put to the worst in a free and open encounter.
00:11:19Soon after the Bailey case in 1934,
00:11:23Bill took time out for a few months and drove across Australia.
00:11:27On his return home, he resolved he would no longer practice law.
00:11:33The Depression led to a fundamental sort of questioning
00:11:37of the economic systems at the time.
00:11:39On the one hand, you had sort of fascism,
00:11:42and on the other hand, you had communism.
00:11:45Which one was it to be?
00:11:46I'm often asked, what did my mother die of?
00:11:50And I always reply, poverty.
00:11:54The cruelty in those days, and it didn't even have to be,
00:11:57this is the thing that bugs you.
00:11:59That type of cruelty to the working class
00:12:06was quite accepted by the so-called elite.
00:12:11As the Great Depression worsened and unemployment grew to about 15%
00:12:15of the workforce in 1932,
00:12:17and there was riots and so on,
00:12:18the communists started to make some headway in New Zealand.
00:12:21But then Labor stepped in and basically redirected the unemployed
00:12:26away from communism towards the Labor Party
00:12:28to more moderate alternatives.
00:12:34Borrowing on his inheritance,
00:12:36he looked around Aotearoa for a suitable farm.
00:12:39In 1935, he found a hill country sheep and cattle farm
00:12:44in the Hawke's Bay region on the east coast of the North Island.
00:12:48An elderly Māori tōhunga named July August,
00:12:52well established as a shepherd on the land,
00:12:55taught Bill much in the early years
00:12:57about working with the peculiarities of the property.
00:13:01And much later, the family recalled
00:13:04how Bill often thought about
00:13:07how Old July would have tackled certain challenges as they arose.
00:13:14It was a difficult farm to begin with
00:13:17because it was divided into three parts by two deep gorges,
00:13:21one of which couldn't be crossed,
00:13:23and so the stock had to be taken by the next-door farm
00:13:26to the back paddocks.
00:13:29And so my father thought this has to be overcome.
00:13:34So he went out on the roads
00:13:36and studied some suspension bridges
00:13:38and decided he could make one himself.
00:13:41So he started off by throwing a stone attached to a string
00:13:45across the shortest distance he could find across this gorge
00:13:49and built a bridge which could carry tractors and flocks of sheep.
00:13:54So that brought the farm together as a much more farmable unit
00:13:57and he fenced it beautifully
00:13:59and it turned into a very efficient farm of 760 acres.
00:14:21My mother actually had come up from Southland to visit a friend of hers
00:14:26who was a karatane nurse with a family just up the road from my father's farm.
00:14:31And so they met at the sports grounds and one of the events was a car turning event
00:14:38where the car had to move between objects and I think a tin can or something had to be picked
00:14:44off each.
00:14:45So my father asked my mother if she would stand on the running board and pick these objects off.
00:14:50So she was quite an athletic person so I think they did very well.
00:14:54So my mother went back home down to Wyndham in Southland
00:14:59and the next thing my father was knocking on the family door.
00:15:12She was a nice person and a very good cook.
00:15:15Nice middle class New Zealand woman who'd had a comfortable background
00:15:21and who was following her husband I think a little puzzled by her husband.
00:15:38Although my father did most of the photography and filming
00:15:42my mother would occasionally seeing an opportunity rush into the house and get the camera.
00:15:48In this case the old Massey Harris got thoroughly stuck in the gully in front of the house.
00:16:07Bill and Leela would take the camera with them whenever they travelled around Aotearoa
00:16:12especially to visit family and friends in the South Island.
00:16:23In the late 1940s Bill served on a number of commissions for the sheep and the New Zealand meat and
00:16:29wool industry.
00:16:34His 8mm film camera accompanied him to many remote areas of the motu
00:16:39documenting new developments in farming.
00:17:11This interest in farming innovation and improvement
00:17:14would stay with him throughout his life.
00:17:19In 1962 Bill and a handful of other farmers
00:17:23joined forces to overcome unreasonably high prices charged by local agents.
00:17:29They formed the Economic Trading Society
00:17:32now known as Farmlands
00:17:34the largest farmer owned rural supplies co-op in Aotearoa.
00:17:59I remember he always described Hooks Bay and the huge blue skies that seemed to be
00:18:08so clear that he could see forever.
00:18:11In fact I think he was very dependent on sunshine to keep himself cheerful.
00:18:17He did suffer from seasonal depressions.
00:18:21He had very intense feelings and emotions and he always found it very hard to see animals in distress for
00:18:28example.
00:18:33He stood for parliament in the early 40s as a labor candidate.
00:18:38He also stood for social credit and that concern with justice and also a more equitable society would remain with
00:18:48him.
00:18:52So in 1946 Winston Churchill gives a famous speech where he talks about an iron curtain having descended over Europe
00:19:00dividing as he saw it the free world from the communist world and into the 1940s and 1950s the Cold
00:19:07War spreads.
00:19:11Eastern Europe has never had political freedom.
00:19:14If the Cold War cools down no doubt there will be a growth of the liberty we enjoy.
00:19:20There's much good in those countries and it's not always as the situation is presented to us.
00:19:28To me Hawke's Bay in the 1950s was a wonderful place to live.
00:19:33Hastings was the second richest town in New Zealand for the retailing profession and we had virtually no unemployment at
00:19:42all.
00:19:43Nobody went without reasonable housing because of the state housing program.
00:19:47So it was a social democrats paradise really.
00:19:52That's from my point of view.
00:19:56Oh I thought this is a beautiful country.
00:19:59Because here there are not many people, everything's clean, beautiful, clear sky, you know.
00:20:09We arrived here in 1951 and we found it incredibly Edwardian, but delightful.
00:20:17At the same time it was very inward looking, it didn't accept ideas very easily.
00:20:26Whether it was school uniforms or how you socially behaved, there was a lot of discipline about our society
00:20:33and we didn't like it when people started questioning this or rebelling against it.
00:20:39Well the 1950s were really a time of quite conflict in New Zealand.
00:20:43There was the Springbok tour, there was a waterfront strike.
00:20:49We lived off our prejudices.
00:20:52New Zealand was buoyed at that stage by very high agricultural prices which were in fact a derivative of wars.
00:21:02The 1951 waterfront strike seemed to bed in some of the fears about concerning communism
00:21:09because some of the leading activists in the 1951 waterfront strike were communists.
00:21:15And so it was very easy for Sid Holland and the national government of the day to blame them
00:21:20to call a snap election and entrench their power, all building on fear of sort of militant labour.
00:21:27The great bulk of the population didn't want the new prosperity disrupted.
00:21:31They'd been heaven's sake, they'd been through a long, long depression and then a long war.
00:21:57The New Zealand
00:21:57While Bill balanced his political activities with his work on the farm,
00:22:01he still found time for another great passion, motor racing and high performance sports cars.
00:22:08Here we can see his beloved Jowett Jupiter being put through the paces at a race meet.
00:22:21The thing that struck me most about Bill was his pure integrity.
00:22:28He had this amazing sincerity and intellectual honesty so he would explain all his motivations without reservation.
00:22:38Bill was strongly against military aggression, especially after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the intense military rivalry of
00:22:49a cold war,
00:22:50which had two superpowers with the capacity to destroy the world facing off against each other.
00:22:57He may have been a founding member, I think, of the New Zealand Peace Council and certainly he was active
00:23:04in marching protests in Wellington mainly, I think.
00:23:10People then were very aware of the hideous dangers of the nuclear testing that was going on.
00:23:16This is one of my very earliest memories of handing out pamphlets outside Linus Pauling's meetings.
00:23:23So I must have been barely at high school at that stage.
00:23:27We were really very much inspired by that very British example of the formation of the campaign for nuclear disarmament.
00:23:35I think it fitted very well with the thinking of people here because they thought,
00:23:39well, least we can do in our remote part of the world is be completely out of the nuclear arms
00:23:46race, have no connection with it.
00:23:51It is essential to save peace.
00:23:54No one wins a war.
00:23:56We're supposed to have won two world wars, but each has left a legacy of problems that can't be solved.
00:24:03And I think Build Your End was very much focused on we have to build bridges, we have to find
00:24:09things that we have in common and build on those rather than worry about the things that are different.
00:24:17I come to New Zealand before the Communists took over, but I have a very progressive sort of a teacher
00:24:28in China in my last year.
00:24:33This year of education.
00:24:35And he really opened my eyes and see what this, you know, this new Communist Party can do for China,
00:24:49which is get rid of all the corruption, etc.
00:24:53And I'm all for it, you see.
00:24:57On the 1st of October 1949, the People's Republic of China, or PRC, was proclaimed from the balcony of the
00:25:05Gate of Heavenly Peace in front of the old Imperial Palace in Peking.
00:25:09For the first time since the fall of the Manchus in 1911, China was united under a single government.
00:25:17Taiwan alone remained to the nationalists.
00:25:22It's a delicate question, actually, if you have two governments both claiming to represent the same country.
00:25:28You don't necessarily immediately say, well, this one which we've been conversing with all these years is now out of
00:25:34power.
00:25:34You may well wait for a short time to see how things pan out.
00:25:40It's a bit of a problem if you recognize one government one day and the next day the other government's
00:25:45back in power.
00:25:48And then along came the Korean War.
00:25:51And at that time, China was on one side and fighting against New Zealand troops in the United Nations force
00:25:59on the other side.
00:26:00And that meant that there was no great inclination, I think, to, you know, risk making a fool of yourself
00:26:07internationally by moving quickly towards recognition of the PRC, particularly since we were at the same time working hard to
00:26:17become part of a defense arrangement with the United States.
00:26:34He was the farmer in the community, always seemed to be the first one to have aerial top dressing or
00:26:40had an incinerator which made silage from one of the few flat paddocks we had.
00:26:46So he was always a bit of an innovator.
00:26:53That's the wonderful thing that I particularly treasure about growing up on a farm is all the activities that the
00:27:00whole family joined in together.
00:27:06760 acres in that time was big enough for a family farm plus a shepherd.
00:27:11And my two brothers at different times and together helped run the farm too.
00:27:19Being a socialist, Bill liked all people to have a good life and be paid well for their skills.
00:27:26A highlight of the farming year was a visit by a hard-working shearing gang known as the wakaruru whānau.
00:27:34As well as the joy they brought, they were fondly remembered by the family for both their long back-breaking
00:27:40hours
00:27:40and the importance they placed on the kai they prepared each day.
00:28:00In the 1950s, the price of war, which I suppose was a bit of a spin-off from the Korean
00:28:05War, suddenly went very high and a lot of farmers were prospering quite well at that time.
00:28:13Farmers can afford to have the best cars available, whether British or American, and to improve their physical comfort, but
00:28:22they also increase productivity enormously.
00:28:25Particularly with the advent of aerial top dressing, which enables us to become one of the leading producers of frozen
00:28:33meat, at least, and butter in the world.
00:28:42If anyone has any original ideas about peace and democracy, pretty heavy pressure is used to keep them quiet.
00:28:50This is happening in Australia. It can happen here if we don't watch out.
00:28:56He was a determined person. If he had an idea or believed something, he really stuck to that belief, and
00:29:12so he wasn't a changeable person.
00:29:15Being rather left in his politics put him in a rather strange position as far as his fellow farmers were
00:29:22concerned because, of course, they were generally inclined, in those days anyway, to be quite conservative in their political thinking.
00:29:30So, he was always regarded as being a bit of a square peg in a round hole in a way.
00:29:38He was living with a fair bit of hostility from the ones who just didn't like any nonconformity.
00:29:47It wasn't a good place to be for a nonconformist or even for a true intellectual.
00:29:56War is never inevitable.
00:29:59And something that could be done by everyone to help prevent it is to understand the peoples of other countries.
00:30:09In 1952, Bill had the opportunity, as Vice Chairman of the New Zealand Peace Council, to go to the Asian
00:30:16Pacific Peace Conference held in Beijing, sponsored by the Chinese government.
00:30:25It's one of the most important events of our time, and a sincere attempt by reasonable people to find a
00:30:32basis for friendship with the new neighbours we've suddenly found.
00:30:38China was not flavour of the month, and for a group of people to say that they wanted to go
00:30:43to a peace conference must have struck a lot of ordinary New Zealanders as a rather quaint idea.
00:30:48It was an act of some courage, I think, under those circumstances, to get on the plane and travel to
00:30:54China in the interests of informing themselves about what was really happening there.
00:31:00I'm aware that, for instance, Margaret Garland, who was one of the delegation, several friends tried very hard to persuade
00:31:08her not to travel.
00:31:09And I believe that one or two academics found that they just couldn't be granted leave from their academic studies
00:31:17in order to be part of the delegation.
00:31:18Yes, it was a Round 2.
00:31:27When 색 ganz a floydig of the creation
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00:31:31что ли она была allí
00:31:37в 1925 квадратный
00:31:43noveк
00:31:43в 1125 квадратный
00:31:47ему
00:31:47And so they proceeded through China on this very grand train
00:31:58to as far as Beijing and to the peace conference.
00:32:01And this was an amazing experience for him, a totally different culture.
00:32:07He was astounded at the countryside, which was so beautifully cultivated,
00:32:12every possible bit of it, of course, producing food.
00:32:15He was blown away by the enthusiasm of the greetings,
00:32:19which, of course, were probably a little bit stage-managed, but still.
00:32:59You must remember that the Korean conflict, and MacArthur at that stage
00:33:05was seeking permission to use a bomb.
00:33:10And he would have dropped it on North China,
00:33:12because that's where he reckoned the resistance and supplies were coming from.
00:33:17Now, if that had happened, goodness knows what would, you know,
00:33:20because the Soviet Union couldn't have just stood by.
00:33:24And it had the bomb, too.
00:33:27Trying to make the world anti-nuclear was pretty high up on one's calendar.
00:33:38The damage Joe McCarthy is doing is real and continuous.
00:33:42Moreover, he has plenty of imitators, both inside and outside the U.S. Senate.
00:33:48The hard truth is that McCarthyism has penetrated American life so deeply
00:33:54that no political thought or action is untainted by the fear of it.
00:34:00Recent manifestations of this psychotic atmosphere
00:34:03of Senator Nolan's threats to go it alone in Korea, whatever the consequences,
00:34:09and the U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Twining's statement
00:34:12that the atom bomb may be used, even though there's no target for it in Korea.
00:34:18Moral and political irresponsibility could hardly go further.
00:34:42The broader peace movement was always just a titch weary
00:34:47of the New Zealand Peace Council.
00:34:49And that is because they saw it, rightly or wrongly,
00:34:55as being a little bit aligned with the communist world
00:34:58and therefore a little less likely to speak out strongly
00:35:02against the role that the Soviet Union was playing in the nuclear arms race.
00:35:09China was not at the time interested in, well, they didn't,
00:35:13weren't, as far as anyone would know anyway, building nuclear arsenals.
00:35:18They seemed to be more promoting themselves as a peaceful country,
00:35:23as a non-aggressive country.
00:35:35In the letter home, Bill, unlike other New Zealand peace delegates,
00:35:39wrote that he found the long speeches rather repetitive and boring.
00:35:45I'm getting very fed up with repetitive oratory
00:35:48that adds nothing to our knowledge.
00:35:51The more so as we leave Peking on the 15th of October for Shanghai.
00:35:55And there are many things I want to see before our departure,
00:35:59including a North China village and a state-model farm.
00:36:21Of course, they showed us what they wanted to see,
00:36:24but we were allowed to go wherever we liked.
00:36:53Today, we visited the summer palace
00:36:55and simply mingled amongst the happy crowd of families out for the day.
00:37:00We lunched in a pavilion from where the emperor used to watch
00:37:03the performance of the opera in the theatre across the way.
00:37:10When he visited Beijing in the 1950s,
00:37:14so much of the old city was still intact.
00:37:18He visited the former Forbidden City, the Palace Museum,
00:37:22and a number of the other great sites around the capital
00:37:27at a time when few Westerners did.
00:37:30The Forbidden City had become the Imperial Palace Museum
00:37:35and had lost a huge number of its greatest treasures to the nationalists.
00:37:41And these had been taken to Taiwan.
00:37:44And his images of the Palace Museum
00:37:47show a place which feels empty and forlorn.
00:37:56The amount of wealth that was extracted from the Chinese peasants
00:38:01by the ruling regime must have been absolutely stupendous.
00:38:07You know, the Winter Palace is just pavilion after pavilion after pavilion
00:38:13filled with all the most beautiful artworks you can think of,
00:38:19pottery and carvings.
00:38:23And, of course, there's the Summer Palace,
00:38:26which is a lovely place with, of all things,
00:38:31a boat made out of marble must have cost millions.
00:38:38No wonder the poor peasants were in such dire straits.
00:38:44So the phrase New China in this period was really an important one
00:38:49as people genuinely felt and were enthusiastic
00:38:53towards the promises of material and cultural freedom
00:38:57that the Chinese communists would bring.
00:39:01I suppose they had a simple programme.
00:39:04One was peace, of course, and the other was land.
00:39:10Chinese democracy, or a people's democracy,
00:39:13would not be suitable in New Zealand.
00:39:16But it is a system which has arisen historically in China
00:39:20and is well suited to the conditions there.
00:39:25This was the first opportunity that Bill had
00:39:28to meet the New Zealander Rewi Ali,
00:39:31who had been living in China since 1927.
00:39:34He was well known to the people of Aotearoa in the 1930s and 40s
00:39:39as a humanitarian worker in war-ravaged China.
00:39:43He, by this time, is involved with Joseph Bailey,
00:39:47who's an educational reformer,
00:39:49and whose ideas really chime with allies.
00:39:51And these are to give these Chinese children
00:39:54a practical education,
00:39:55teach them about motor skills,
00:39:57teach them about manufacturing,
00:40:00and take these back to their hometowns
00:40:03and basically improve their welfare,
00:40:06improve their standards of living.
00:40:09He moves the Bailey School into Gansu,
00:40:11which is basically near the Gobi Desert,
00:40:13in the middle of nowhere,
00:40:14essentially to get away from the influence of the nationalists.
00:40:20By the time I got there in 1948,
00:40:24it was a poverty-stricken...
00:40:31Kids up to the age of, I don't know, 12 perhaps,
00:40:34only ever had one garment.
00:40:36You've never seen so many patches on clothes,
00:40:39patches on patches, really.
00:40:41When they were doing well,
00:40:43they ate wheat made into noodles.
00:40:45When they weren't doing well,
00:40:47they ate millet.
00:40:49And millet is pretty bloody unpleasant,
00:40:51but I guess it's nutritious.
00:40:55Meat.
00:40:56I think probably they'd...
00:40:58A family wouldn't have touched meat
00:41:00more than several times a year, you know.
00:41:02There'd be some wedding
00:41:04or some celebration,
00:41:07and...
00:41:12Yes, the poverty was awful.
00:41:28Rewi is a delightful, unaffected chap,
00:41:31full of love for all decent humanity,
00:41:34but hating war, aggression and injustice.
00:41:38He's told us of the abominable cruelties
00:41:41of the old landlords in the villages he knew,
00:41:43and of the satisfaction with which he saw them
00:41:46brought to trial by the people
00:41:47and promptly shot.
00:41:52It's a way in which Mao unlocks
00:41:54the sort of pent-up energy and power of the peasant.
00:41:57Over a series of centuries, if not millennia,
00:42:00peasants have been exploited by the landlords.
00:42:03And what the communists do
00:42:04is they give the peasants a chance
00:42:07not only to get back their land,
00:42:09which is really important,
00:42:11through a land distribution program,
00:42:12but also to uplift the populace at large.
00:42:15And this means bringing electricity,
00:42:18it means infrastructural projects,
00:42:20very often mega projects,
00:42:22you know, large dam building.
00:42:23And this brings quite remarkable material benefits
00:42:27to many Chinese.
00:42:32The countryside is serenely beautiful.
00:42:36It's one never-ending but ever-changing green garden.
00:42:40Lovely even in the rain,
00:42:42which falls almost continually.
00:42:44Everywhere are terraced rice fields
00:42:47with patches of beans, lotus, sweet potatoes or yams,
00:42:51as well as many other crops I can't identify.
00:42:54The little hills are still covered with soft verdure.
00:43:02He was just so impressed with the Chinese countryside,
00:43:06the beauty of the landscape,
00:43:09the dignity of the people.
00:43:12And it was that impression
00:43:13that he saw mirrored in their art.
00:43:30I suppose you couldn't get a greater contrast
00:43:33than between New Zealand and China.
00:43:35Here we have wild, natural landscape
00:43:39and no real respect for each other's foibles.
00:43:42Whereas there,
00:43:43you have an ancient and continuous civilization,
00:43:45a harmony between man's work and nature's
00:43:49and the millennial experience
00:43:50and enjoyment of human society.
00:43:59This afternoon,
00:44:00Courtney, Rowie Alley and I
00:44:02went off and spent a couple of hours
00:44:04in a little lane of quaint shops
00:44:06where all manner of crafts were practiced.
00:44:09Brush making,
00:44:10violin making,
00:44:12ink making
00:44:12and many more,
00:44:14but we'd come for the antique shops,
00:44:16dozens of them.
00:44:17The wealth and profusion
00:44:19of antique artifacts is incredible.
00:44:21For a few pounds,
00:44:23one can get a perfect,
00:44:24undamaged,
00:44:25Neolithic urn
00:44:26that must date back
00:44:27at least 10,000 years.
00:44:30Funeral jade furniture
00:44:31from the Chow dynasty
00:44:33of about 1,000 BC.
00:44:40The 1950s was a good time
00:44:43to be buying art in Beijing.
00:44:45It came after a long period of turmoil
00:44:48when families had been forced
00:44:52to sell their treasures
00:44:54and these came onto the market.
00:44:58He saw Chinese art
00:44:59as a way of introducing
00:45:01New Zealanders
00:45:02to a great ancient civilization,
00:45:07a continuous age-old cultural expression
00:45:14and a way of breaking down
00:45:16barriers of misunderstanding.
00:45:29When I meet the Chinese peasant
00:45:31face-to-face like this
00:45:32and see his delight
00:45:34at these small improvements
00:45:35in his hard life,
00:45:37makes me feel mighty humbled indeed.
00:45:44I've often thought
00:45:45that the Chinese peasants
00:45:46were the best farmers
00:45:47in the world.
00:45:48I mean,
00:45:49the same patch of land
00:45:50produced a crop
00:45:52for God knows how many thousand years,
00:45:54you know,
00:45:55and to keep that land fertile
00:45:56all this time,
00:45:58I mean,
00:45:58that takes a great deal
00:45:59of work and skill.
00:46:00Given the right tools,
00:46:04there's nothing
00:46:05that they wouldn't be able to do.
00:46:07In the old day,
00:46:08the land is divided
00:46:10by a little pocket,
00:46:12you know,
00:46:12it's just a lot of section
00:46:13and you can't use mechanical means
00:46:18to afford irrigation.
00:46:20You can't afford it.
00:46:22Rice needs a lot of water,
00:46:24so to water it,
00:46:26you duck it well
00:46:27and you use a bucket.
00:46:31Now, of course,
00:46:32you know,
00:46:33they're completely different
00:46:34because all the land
00:46:35belongs to the communes
00:46:37and they can use
00:46:38the mechanical pump,
00:46:41which is something
00:46:43completely new to me,
00:46:45you see.
00:46:53China can take a lot
00:46:54of our goods
00:46:55in return for which
00:46:56we can take her silks,
00:46:58tongue oil,
00:46:59pig bristle
00:47:00and handicraft wear,
00:47:01etc.
00:47:02A population of 400 million
00:47:04with a rising standard
00:47:05of living
00:47:06offers an immense market.
00:47:10On his arrival home,
00:47:11he was just
00:47:13totally amazed
00:47:16by having encountered
00:47:17a culture
00:47:18he knew nothing about
00:47:19and very inspired
00:47:21to learn more about it
00:47:22and also inspired
00:47:24by the fact
00:47:25that China
00:47:26had chosen
00:47:27to promote peace
00:47:29at this time
00:47:31when, of course,
00:47:32the Korean War
00:47:32was raging.
00:47:34There was this dreadful
00:47:36tension between
00:47:36East and West,
00:47:37this Cold War,
00:47:38build-up of nuclear weaponry,
00:47:40which worried him hugely.
00:47:44He felt that
00:47:45his contribution
00:47:46could be
00:47:47to try and
00:47:48explain
00:47:49China's position
00:47:51with its
00:47:51historical perspective.
00:47:55Personally,
00:47:56my audiences
00:47:57have been most
00:47:57interested and attentive
00:47:58and have always
00:48:00asked plenty of
00:48:01sensible,
00:48:02truth-seeking questions.
00:48:04I'm not accustomed
00:48:05to speak into
00:48:06working men
00:48:06but had,
00:48:07for example,
00:48:08a most enthusiastic
00:48:09meeting among
00:48:10dockers
00:48:10at our little
00:48:11port of Napier,
00:48:12about 200 of them.
00:48:14At the same time,
00:48:15we've all of us
00:48:16had to face
00:48:17a cynical
00:48:17or hostile press
00:48:18which always
00:48:19prints the word
00:48:20peace
00:48:21in inverted commas.
00:48:37the standard
00:48:38of the people
00:48:39is improving
00:48:40and the society
00:48:42become a more
00:48:44fairer
00:48:45and open
00:48:46society,
00:48:49which is
00:48:51contrary
00:48:51to what
00:48:52the press
00:48:53say about it,
00:48:55you see.
00:48:58And the press
00:48:59had much
00:49:00to say
00:49:00about the spread
00:49:01of communism
00:49:02in Asia,
00:49:02in particular
00:49:03Vietnam.
00:49:07Conquest
00:49:08is no longer
00:49:09a legal,
00:49:09moral
00:49:10or valid
00:49:11mode
00:49:11for conquering
00:49:12territory.
00:49:12The only
00:49:14de facto
00:49:14government
00:49:15in Indochina
00:49:16was the
00:49:16Vietnamese
00:49:17national
00:49:17government.
00:49:18Hence,
00:49:19all the
00:49:19propaganda
00:49:20about rebels
00:49:20and bandits
00:49:21cannot conceal
00:49:22that this is
00:49:23just another
00:49:24old-fashioned
00:49:25colonial war
00:49:26of conquest
00:49:26with these
00:49:28differences,
00:49:29that it's now
00:49:30illegal under
00:49:31the Pact of Paris
00:49:32and the UN
00:49:32Charter,
00:49:33and that it's
00:49:34being waged
00:49:35with modern
00:49:35weapons of
00:49:36mass terror
00:49:37and destruction.
00:49:43Thanks to
00:49:43an invitation,
00:49:45Bill was able
00:49:45to return to
00:49:46China for the
00:49:47second time
00:49:48in 1956.
00:49:50And again,
00:49:51he was on
00:49:51an official tour
00:49:52party,
00:49:53and the
00:49:53attraction to
00:49:54Yoran,
00:49:55what were,
00:49:56I think,
00:49:56two or three
00:49:56things.
00:49:57Firstly,
00:49:57it was to see
00:49:58Riwi Ali.
00:49:59In the interim
00:49:59between meeting
00:50:00Ali in 52
00:50:01and returning
00:50:02to China in 56,
00:50:04their friendship
00:50:04had really
00:50:05developed,
00:50:05and he was
00:50:06fascinated by,
00:50:07I suppose,
00:50:07the socialist
00:50:08experiment that
00:50:09new China
00:50:10was undergoing,
00:50:11moving from
00:50:11a largely
00:50:12peasant-based
00:50:13society to
00:50:14an industrial
00:50:15one all in
00:50:16one go,
00:50:16and just being
00:50:18able to witness
00:50:18for himself the
00:50:19great reforms
00:50:20that China had
00:50:21undertaken in the
00:50:22few short years
00:50:23that he was there
00:50:24were great
00:50:25attractions to
00:50:26him.
00:50:27At present,
00:50:28and for some
00:50:29time past,
00:50:30China has been
00:50:30undergoing a great
00:50:31social revolution,
00:50:33perhaps transcending
00:50:34in scope and
00:50:35ultimate importance
00:50:36all previous
00:50:38revolutions put
00:50:39together.
00:50:40In the course of
00:50:41this transformation,
00:50:42all values and
00:50:43standards of
00:50:44behaviour are
00:50:45being brought
00:50:45under close
00:50:46scrutiny.
00:50:47The present
00:50:48communist-led
00:50:48government is
00:50:49in effective
00:50:50control of the
00:50:51whole territory
00:50:52and population.
00:51:03This afternoon we
00:51:04had the life
00:51:05story of a
00:51:05model sanitary
00:51:07worker of
00:51:07Nanking City.
00:51:09This lady,
00:51:10Lo Dahma by name,
00:51:12had had a terrible
00:51:13life in the
00:51:14former times,
00:51:15being a beggar
00:51:16and menial of the
00:51:17lowest order.
00:51:19What absolute
00:51:20rubbish one reads
00:51:21about visitors
00:51:22only being taken
00:51:23to see what the
00:51:24communists want
00:51:24them to see?
00:51:25They've taken us
00:51:26absolutely wherever
00:51:28we wanted to go
00:51:29and changed the
00:51:30plans repeatedly to
00:51:31meet our slightest
00:51:32whim.
00:51:33There is no
00:51:34censorship
00:51:34whatsoever,
00:51:36internal or
00:51:37external,
00:51:38and the various
00:51:39foreign journalists
00:51:40have really nothing
00:51:40but praise for the
00:51:41facilities they
00:51:42receive.
00:51:45I particularly
00:51:46wanted to see the
00:51:47university library
00:51:49to find out what
00:51:50had happened to
00:51:51all the books they
00:51:51inherited from
00:51:52Yen Chang Christian
00:51:53University, which
00:51:54they took over.
00:51:56They're all still
00:51:57there, and I spent
00:51:58ten minutes pouring
00:51:59through the card
00:52:00index just to see
00:52:01whether they'd been
00:52:02purged or censored.
00:52:07It was the most
00:52:08lovely city
00:52:09that ever was,
00:52:10quiet, clean,
00:52:12lovely little alleyways,
00:52:14hutongs they were
00:52:15called, with their
00:52:16carved doorways.
00:52:19And I can remember
00:52:21a camel train
00:52:21coming in and
00:52:22unloading their
00:52:23stuff, not very
00:52:24far from Tienam,
00:52:25and it's just a
00:52:26shame that that
00:52:27has been destroyed.
00:52:28I mean, I don't
00:52:29know how many
00:52:29people were there
00:52:30then, but there
00:52:31must have been no
00:52:32more than a million
00:52:33or two.
00:52:38Progress always
00:52:39has its price,
00:52:40and their price
00:52:41was the fabric
00:52:42and culture of
00:52:42the old China
00:52:43making way for
00:52:44the new.
00:52:49The more I know
00:52:51about Peking,
00:52:52the more I'm
00:52:53baffled about
00:52:53what's going on.
00:52:55They appear to be
00:52:56pulling down the
00:52:56whole city at once
00:52:58and rebuilding it.
00:53:00It's no longer a
00:53:01clean city, as in
00:53:021952, because
00:53:04everywhere there's
00:53:05debris of old
00:53:06walls and houses
00:53:07coming down, piles
00:53:09of timber, bricks,
00:53:10lime, and earth.
00:53:15You found that
00:53:16very difficult to
00:53:16understand and
00:53:18really to cope
00:53:19with made them
00:53:20very sad, I think.
00:53:26Today I've been
00:53:27thinking a great
00:53:28deal of you all
00:53:29at home.
00:53:30I dare hardly
00:53:31say I hope that
00:53:31all's going well.
00:53:33If good wishes
00:53:34can help, you had
00:53:35them all, and
00:53:36will have till I
00:53:37return in just
00:53:38over a fortnight
00:53:38now.
00:53:40China's a terrific
00:53:41experience, and I'm
00:53:42far better adjusted
00:53:43to foreign ways than
00:53:44I was on the last
00:53:45visit.
00:53:47But I realise you
00:53:48are paying a heavy
00:53:49price for my
00:53:50absence.
00:54:05In the mid-1950s, Bill
00:54:08left the farming
00:54:09activities behind
00:54:10Talila and the
00:54:10children, while he
00:54:11represented Aotearoa at
00:54:13a number of international
00:54:14events around the
00:54:16world.
00:54:16world.
00:54:17Besides his recent
00:54:19trip to China, he
00:54:20attended the
00:54:21International Federation
00:54:22of Democratic Lawyers
00:54:23Conference in Calcutta,
00:54:25and the World Council
00:54:26Peace Conference in
00:54:27Colombo.
00:54:28The World Council
00:54:30of the I
00:54:37WKYTEMIC
00:54:38The World Council
00:54:56of the I
00:55:00I'm off to Christchurch tomorrow to lecture in the museum hall.
00:55:05I'll be talking to the New Zealand-China Society and anyone else they can dig up.
00:55:10I'm taking a projector and about 200 slides.
00:55:20You will show those films to the local community
00:55:26and not only for Chinese but whoever is interested in China to come along.
00:55:34Sure, China was a poor country and people's life is terrible
00:55:41but he can see this is a new step forward.
00:55:56It's unusual in this well-fed and easy-going country
00:55:59to find people demonstrating about anything much
00:56:02so it's all the more pleasing to find students taking to the streets over a racial issue
00:56:07such as the rugby union's decision to send a team to South Africa next year without Maori.
00:56:15I remember standing outside Lancaster Park
00:56:19the night before a rugby game
00:56:22it was easing cold
00:56:24we did an all-night vigil
00:56:26I don't know why because probably nobody saw us
00:56:28but it was certainly a challenge
00:56:32you feel like how am I ever going to get this issue heard and understood.
00:56:39Well I came home because the revolution was nigh
00:56:43you had the Soviet Union
00:56:44you had China
00:56:45and you had Vietnam
00:56:48slightly, you know
00:56:51you had the, you know
00:56:53the Americans were defeated in Korea
00:56:57there were student strikes
00:57:00in France
00:57:01you know
00:57:01there was a great deal of ferment in those early 50s
00:57:05and
00:57:09and with my optimism
00:57:11I thought I'd like to be part of the revolution in New Zealand
00:57:17and how naive can you be?
00:57:24By the late 1950s, 1958 in particular
00:57:29Mao initiates a programme called the Great Leap Forward
00:57:33and its aim is rapid industrialisation
00:57:37Mao becomes impatient with the pace of change in China
00:57:41he diverts most of the peasantry away from harvesting grain and the like
00:57:45to develop backyard steel furnaces
00:57:48and the reality of the situation was that
00:57:50peasants are taken from the fields
00:57:52and their labour was put into effectively worthless industrial steel production
00:57:58and if you didn't have iron ore you had cooking pots
00:58:01so you broke up your cooking pots in order to make iron
00:58:08that would be turned into cooking pots I suppose
00:58:11the reality is that Mao issues ever more unrealistic production targets
00:58:19and the cadres are too afraid to say no
00:58:23as a result of which the harvests are left rotting in the fields
00:58:28and starvation starts to hit the countryside
00:58:31modern technology just can't be grafted
00:58:35it takes time
00:58:36and of course in China was doing the right thing
00:58:39I mean there was technical colleges
00:58:40and you know the young people were getting educated
00:58:43and there was an enormous educated class growing up
00:58:48which would have changed things
00:58:50you didn't have to jump into this
00:58:53Indeed between 1959 and 1961
00:58:56estimates put the number of deaths in China
00:59:02as a result of this starvation and human caused famine
00:59:06to be around about 30 million
00:59:08and that these are conservative estimates
00:59:34and that these are conservative estimates
00:59:36in various centres around the North Island
00:59:41up until the time of his death
00:59:42in fact the last exhibition in Gisborne
00:59:46was just a few months before he died
00:59:58the end of the night
01:00:15and that this is a most tragic moment
01:00:15and that is when we heard
01:00:15as some people have heard
01:00:15Go to shivotee
01:00:15Go to shivotee
01:00:21In 1960, Bill made his last trip to the People's Republic of China.
01:00:26This time, he was joined by Leela.
01:00:32My wife and I are just off to Europe and expect to be away until about the middle of August.
01:00:37We're sailing to Naples. After that, we shall be for a while in France, and then on to England and
01:00:43Ireland.
01:00:44We hope to be able to organise our return by way of Moscow and Peking.
01:00:49Naturally, I'd love to visit China again.
01:00:58While in Europe, Bill attended the National Conference of the French Peace Movement in Paris.
01:01:20Congresswoman Thank you.
01:01:39Thank you!
01:01:53Indeed, they do get the opportunity to travel through Russia.
01:01:58In his journal, Bill compares the table-thumping Russians and the quiet Chinese.
01:02:24How peaceful it all was after the countries we'd come from.
01:02:28The traffic moved quietly, the people walked slowly, everyone seemed to have plenty of time to talk to his friends.
01:02:36As always, I felt we were in a very old country, amongst a profoundly civilized people.
01:02:43Could this really be the country of the astounding changes we knew about?
01:02:47The country of continuous revolution proclaimed by Mao Zedong?
01:02:52Yes, indeed. The changes are there, all right.
01:02:55We saw plenty of them later, but there's an enduring quality of special Chineseness about it.
01:03:09It was particularly when she went to China herself, she really fully understood my father's enthusiasms.
01:03:15She wrote in her diary, I remember, now I understand Bill's huge interest in the Chinese.
01:03:22In fact, as soon as we arrived, I felt he was purring with pleasure at meeting all these people he
01:03:30felt so connected with.
01:03:38Again, he's interested in trying to trace the changes, so he tries to visit exactly the same places that he
01:03:44was at in 1956 or 1952.
01:03:47He tries to talk to the same people that he talked to in 1952 and 1956.
01:03:52He's aware that as a foreigner, as someone who doesn't speak sufficiently good Mandarin to enable him to converse in
01:03:59sophisticated and complex issues, this places him at a disadvantage.
01:04:04He's aware that he's shown certain things that the authorities want him to see.
01:04:08And he concludes that, yes, there seems to be a tightening of the state and that certainly Mao as a
01:04:16figure, as a cult, is becoming much more prevalent.
01:04:19But by and large, the Chinese state and the Chinese people are much freer than what the Western press is
01:04:27alleging.
01:04:38But he did begin to sense that the political fist was tightening a little and his intellectual friends whom he
01:04:47had met in China were expressing worries, I think.
01:04:52And of course, then he didn't ever go back to China after that.
01:04:56He was disappointed in their rejection of their history, culture, even destruction of some of it, I think.
01:05:03He found that very difficult to understand and to really to cope with.
01:05:08It made him very sad, I think.
01:05:12Although he never went back to China, he did stay in regular contact with Riwi Ali for the rest of
01:05:18his life.
01:05:20I did a talk for the broadcasting service on peasants and intellectuals in China, which they accepted but later refused.
01:05:32It's not easy in those days.
01:05:34If you are sympathetic to a communist, you are one.
01:05:46I'm feeling very isolated just now in this neck of the woods as all our left-wing friends are leaving
01:05:51the district.
01:06:00In the 1960s, Bill was invited by two publishers to write textbooks about 20th century China, suitable for use in
01:06:09schools.
01:06:11And, true to his word, he presents as balanced a view as possible.
01:06:16According to one view, only the existence of the communes prevented a truly disastrous famine.
01:06:23Other observers believe that it was the disorganisation of the hastily constructed communes that led to the harvest failure.
01:06:33Yorin recognises the achievements, for example, of new China, especially when compared to the chaos, poverty, lawlessness and banditry that
01:06:42went on before.
01:06:43But he also recognises many of its drawbacks, notably the cult of Mao that was developing.
01:06:51China, during the last century, has had some hard lessons from the Western powers.
01:06:56Lessons that she's learned only too well.
01:06:59The first is that a weak China invites aggression and soon experiences it.
01:07:05The second is that a strong China is respected by the outside world.
01:07:10We Westerners taught this lesson to the Chinese, and we can hardly complain now that they've shown that they've learned
01:07:16it well.
01:07:21If you were in the campaign for nuclear disarmament, you were horrified at the idea that China would consider acquiring
01:07:27the atomic bomb,
01:07:28and deeply critical of China's moves in that direction.
01:07:34It's no surprise to learn that China has the resources and ingenuity to manufacture nuclear weapons.
01:07:41To me, it's a source of sadness that our leaders have felt obliged to demonstrate this ability to a world
01:07:47that hardly needed convincing.
01:07:49Soviet and Chinese bombs are no less detestable than capitalist ones.
01:07:57The Russians, of course, were doing all sorts of dubious things in places like Hungary and Czechoslovakia and so on.
01:08:04And closer to home, as it were, things were going on in Vietnam in particular that people were worried about.
01:08:11I suppose people were sort of looking in every corner for somebody they could pin the label left wing or
01:08:18communist on.
01:08:20And we could see what Bill was, the gossip, and even the press had a very different opinion, which was
01:08:29that he was a dangerous left wing personality.
01:08:35Yes, there was a lot of journalism written about these reds under the bed.
01:08:40And there's a rather wonderful article from the Truth magazine, which I have describing my father's, well, he was described
01:08:50as an apologist for China.
01:08:52And the writer was sort of rather amazed that a person of such intellect could be in any way interested
01:09:01in understanding anything about this dreaded communism.
01:09:12The activities of the security service and the compiling of secret and unchallengeable dossiers upon people who cannot be charged
01:09:21with breaking any law seems to me repugnant to all our traditions as a free people.
01:09:26How do these activities differ, if at all, from those of the Kenpaitai, the Japanese thought-controlled police of hateful
01:09:33memory?
01:09:36They were recording every meeting or visit to either the Russian embassy, the Communist Party meeting.
01:09:44We used to have a little group, used to come in once a fortnight, once a month, and we'd talk
01:09:51about different things and have a meal together.
01:09:56And that was noted.
01:10:00As a young student at university, I noticed the impact of having an eye kept on me because of my
01:10:07name.
01:10:08My flatmate was interviewed by security services when she applied for a job in internal affairs.
01:10:15So, yes, they did have their fingers on what the family were up to.
01:10:21Though it must have been rather boring for them, I think.
01:10:29Jorin is a cultured and intelligent man and a substantial property owner, and his unorthodox views seem at odds with
01:10:36his position.
01:10:38He will probably continue to espouse lost causes, but it is most unlikely that he is now a communist sympathiser.
01:10:49I am not a member of the Communist Party, never have been, and regard the few remaining New Zealand communists
01:10:56as religious fanatics to be redeemed by conversion to democratic socialism.
01:11:10Over many years, Bill and Lila kept an open house for the mostly Asian foreign students coming to Aotearoa.
01:11:18Strong friendships were made, and they would return to the farm many times.
01:11:24Always involved in cultural matters, Bill lobbied local and central government over numerous projects, including improving concert radio in the
01:11:34Hawke's Bay area.
01:11:35And, as president of the Hawke's Bay Museum and Art Gallery, he sought approval and funding for the Century Theatre
01:11:43as part of the 1974 Napier Centennial Project.
01:11:49Although his early admiration for the Chinese political system waned after the 1950s, Bill's love of Chinese art and culture
01:11:59never faltered.
01:12:05I lectured at the WEA Summer Schools on Chinese culture, organised and set up exhibitions of Chinese painting, crafts, etc.,
01:12:14in most of the provincial towns in the area.
01:12:17I borrowed material from collectors and museums around the country, and I believe that some of the exhibitions were the
01:12:24best ever seen here.
01:12:37So long ago, while admiring the Chinese people and wishing them well in their long struggle to free themselves from
01:12:45backwardness and oppression,
01:12:47I stopped trying to follow the twists and turns of the ever-changing current political scene in China.
01:12:53I always felt that internal policy was for the Chinese themselves, and certainly not for me.
01:12:59I suppose this puts me down as a parlour pink of the worst sort.
01:13:05However, I did interest myself in the Chinese, their history, their arts, their crafts, their lifestyles, and pragmatic earthy philosophy.
01:13:15I think I helped to maintain an interest in and appreciation of the achievements of a great people,
01:13:22at a time where people here, and certainly most of those in authority, did not want to hear about China
01:13:28at all.
01:13:46It was pleasing for Bill that in 1972, the New Zealand government finally recognised the People's Republic of China,
01:13:55something he had been advocating since 1952.
01:14:09The world is full of dogmatists, from Pope John Paul II, to Ayatollah Khamenei, to Leonard Brezhnev, to Pol Pot
01:14:18and company,
01:14:18none of whom really seems to care a damn about how many innocent people suffer so long as his dogmas
01:14:25remain intact and more people are tormented or brainwashed.
01:14:32He didn't trust the Americans, though.
01:14:34In fact, he wrote a letter to the Dominion once, and he finished it by saying,
01:14:40I wouldn't trust the Americans with a pop gun.
01:14:45They've always regarded their allies as expendable.
01:14:49Recently, we saw how they saved the Vietnamese from communists by inflicting on them unlimited violence and corruption to no
01:14:57purpose whatsoever.
01:14:59Already, it seems without being told, we have played host to nuclear weapons in our ports.
01:15:05All involvement with nuclear weapons at any level is criminal madness, and the so-called defence pacts with nuclear powers
01:15:13make us accessories after the fact of indiscriminate murder.
01:15:22It wasn't really until the Vietnam War came that, for the first time, the political establishment had to listen to
01:15:31what people were saying.
01:15:33Some of us were thinking, well, why should we get conscripted and go and fight for war that we just
01:15:38don't believe and think it's nonsense.
01:15:42Opposition builds for the boomers, going to university, and then picking up that radical moment in 1968,
01:15:48which is coming out of Australian universities, American universities, and, of course, most famously, Parisian universities.
01:15:54And it's that 68 moment, I think, that starts to turn things around.
01:15:58And then street marches and activity and so on become quite common in New Zealand,
01:16:04so that by the time Labour comes to power in 1972, there's huge support for getting out of Vietnam.
01:16:19Throughout the 1970s and early 80s, Bill was able to see Aotearoa grow and mature as an independent nation with
01:16:29its own strong views on peace and justice.
01:16:33And as a country, we continue to strive to understand what it truly means to be a global citizen.
01:16:50The word peace unlocks every heart.
01:16:54It's a passport which wins one a cordial reception everywhere.
01:17:00...
01:17:06...
01:17:10Let's go.
01:17:38Let's go.
01:18:08Let's go.
01:18:38Let's go.
01:19:10Let's go.
01:19:39Let's go.
01:20:12Let's go.
01:20:38Let's go.
01:21:08Let's go.
01:21:41Let's go.
01:22:09Let's go.
01:22:12Let's go.
01:22:18Let's go.
01:22:19Let's go.
01:22:19Let's go.
01:22:20Let's go.
01:22:21Let's go.
01:22:55Let's go.
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