A dictionary definition
of 'bearing witness' reads: to show by your
existence that something is true. This seems
to me to be only part of the story.
Bearing witness is one
of the founding principles of Greenpeace,
up there with Direct Action. Unlike direct
action however it doesn't rely on directly
stopping something bad from happening. Its
power comes from the story it tells, and
poignantly for me, the empowerment it brings
to those who see the story and then feel
compelled to act. So while it doesn't offer
the instant gratification for the activist
chained to the bulldozer its affect can
be broader, quicker and more powerful
inspiring millions of people who simply
look at a photo and are awakened to something
that they didn't necessarily know even existed.
Once they know they usually act and often
in numbers.
Once you have witnessed
an injustice, you cannot claim ignorance
as a defence for inaction. You make an ethical
choice: to act or not. - Ben Metcalfe,
one of the original Greenpeace crew.
Bearing witness, while
being a philosophy, is also a tool just
like direct action, and every tool has the
right application at the right time bearing
witness isn't always the right tool for
the job, neither is direct action, or a
court case, but sometimes it is perfect.
The best example I can
think is the drift net campaign back in
the 1980's. Here was a practice which was
happening thousands of miles out at sea,
which was indiscriminately killing millions
of fish, marine mammals and birds but not
a lot of folks back home knew about it.
They just enjoyed the obvious canned results
on rye bread, with mayo.
There were a bunch of
NGO's, Greenpeace included, who ran a fantastic
and sustained direct action campaign against
these 'walls of death'. Hindering net setting
operations by various direct means, cutting
trapped animals out of the nets, and literally
pulling hundreds or thousands of kilometres
of 'ghost nets' out of the water to stop
the killing. This all contributed to the
eventual win, but I reckon the biggest contribution
probably came from a camera. Activists got
onto drift net boats and covertly filmed
this horrendous practice, the images they
captured travelled the world and woke tuna
eaters up to the ugly side of their lunch.
People back home didn't know but when
they saw the images they got well and truly
mad and wanted to do something. And they
joined the efforts of all these groups,
direct actions, political work, consumer
work (dolphin friendly cans!). Finally the
UN General Assembly adopted a resolution
which banned drift net fishing in international
waters - effective in December, 1992.
My experience of bearing
witness has really woken me up to the power
that can come from being at the scene of
a crime and letting people at home know
all about it with photos and video. In 2005,
I was aboard the Rainbow Warrior in the
middle of the Tasman sea. We had been campaigning
on Bottom Trawling for a year or two already
and were looking for a break through. Like
drift netting, bottom trawling happens miles
out to sea, places where only the fishermen
go, and it is unlikely that they would volunteer
their personal snaps of the destruction
they cause. So there we were, in an inflatable,
surrounded by ocean, and albatross, documenting
a bottom trawler picking up its nets. Then
BAM, a huge Gorgonian fan appears in the
net, is taken on board, and then, requiring
two solid fisho's to lift its massive weight,
is thrown back in the sea dead after 600
years of living. The day before, the industry
had told the public that they didn't hit
the bottom with their giant nets, and when
they did, there was nothing of any value
down there anyway. Click click click of
the camera and the lie was exposed. 20 minutes
later the image that really brought the
horror of bottom trawling to the world was
beamed straight into the UN General Assembly,
and then people's homes, and the industry
took a nice upper cut to the chops.
Today I am back on the
Rainbow Warrior at sea, but this time I
am sitting off a beautiful Taiwanese Island.
We have divers down and are taking pics
of some of the beautiful coral that has
been saved from destruction buy smart, forward
thinking conservation regulations.
Today we are bearing
witness in a nice way showing the world
what can be saved, rather than what is being
killed. Of course the dark side to all this
is that this may be the last chance to see.
Lets hope we are not some of the last to
bear witness to this beauty.
