Demonstrations Defended

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31304, 25 February 1967, Page 21

Demonstrations Defended

Peaceful demonstra-

tions are a reasonable form of self-expression for law-abiding citizens, according to a statement released by the general secretary of the National Council of Churches in New Zealand (the Rev. D. M. Taylor) on behalf of the executive committee of the council, in Christchurch.

He said the authorities should be ready to believe that some demonstrators were serious citizens with a valid point to make, who should at least be listened to. “In political affairs, citizens in a democracy have the right to express their views. One of the ways of expressing views is by making a public demonstration. “We are concerned that this right shall be maintained,” said Mr Taylor. “Personal opinions as to the effectiveness and advisability of demonstrating will always vary. Members of our council often decide that we have more effective ways of exercising influence and that it is not necessary or advisable for us to participate in a particular public demonstration.

“But if we do refrain, it does not follow that we are critical of all demonstrators, or in agreement with their detractors,” he said. “We recognise that those who publicly demonstrate against a particular policy of our New Zealand government, e.g., on the war in Vietnam, belong to several groups.” On this issue, the most obvious groups were (i) Communists, (ii) pacifists, (iii) citizens who were neither Communist nor pacifist but were strongly opposed to New Zealand’s active military Support of the United States in Vietnam, said Mr Taylor. “We insist that all these

groups have the right to protest and to demonstrate in orderly fashion. “Whether they have the right to demonstrate in a disorderly fashion is debatable. And there may be honest differences of opinion as to whether any particular form of demonstration is disorderly or not

“But it must be agreed in a true democracy that those who demonstrate peacefully, and in an orderly manner, all have this right, whether they be Communists or pacifists or returned soldiers or housewives or students,” he said. “It is false and unjust to say that the violence of some demonstrators shows the hypocrisy of pacifists associated with their demonstrations. “Those who become violent under tension and provocation are usually not pacifists, but persons who believe in violence, as most men do; they are protesting against one particular war, which they think New Zealand should not be fighting. “Those who join in a demonstration from sincere political or religious motives know in advance that the choice, for them, is whether to remain silent, Inactive, unnoticed and ineffective, or to enter a controversy and be blamed for other people’s behaviour,” said Mr Taylor. “We protest at the way a Minister of the Crown dismissed these demonstrations as futile and childish, while other influential people wrote them off as disgusting, Vietniks, Communists.” As long as a government continued to pretend that only a tiny percentage of the people oppose its policy on Vietnam, when in fact many thousands of its most honoured citizens do, it was inevitable that some of these would seek ways to make their views plain and public, “If disorderly, quiet demonstrations (walking with banners) are ridiculed by government, it is no wonder that some, who feel deeply, should

turn to other methods,” he said. “At the World Conference on Church and Society in Geneva in July, 1966, Christians, mainly laymen, from all over the world, debated whether it is a Christian’s duty to take part sometimes in violent revolution. Many Christians in some countries are convinced by painful experience that peaceful, lawful demonstrations are constantly brushed aside by the governments under which they live.

“The Government and members of Parliament should take heed of this warning. Peaceful demonstrations are a reasonable form of selfexpression for law-abiding citizens.

“If, however, demonstrators are constantly belittled and brushed aside by governments, this constitutes a provocation to such persons to turn to more active, and less lawful, forms of selfexpression,” said Mr Taylor.