"O! pardon me, thou bleeding piece of Earth, that I am so gentle and mild with these butchers."
~ from "Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare
"Thus Bob Hunter, George Korotva, Fred Easton, and I found ourselves in front of a Soviet harpoon boat in June, 1975, as eight magnificent Sperm whales fled before us in a frenzied panic ~ a desperate race for their lives. We both smelt and felt their hot breath as they spouted in quick bursts, their gigantic lungs taxed to the limit as they tried to outrun the deadly killing machine bearing down on them.
As I looked at the Russian whaling fleet scattered around my tiny boat I wondered what was motivating them? They were killing these magnificent, intelligent, socially complex, warm blooded sentient beings for what?
And it occurred to me that one of the products they were coveting from the whale was spermaceti oil, a high heat resistant lubricant used in sophisticated machinery including the production of inter continental ballistic missiles and the revelation came to me that we were killing such perfect beings for the purpose of obtaining an oil used in the production of a weapon designed to exterminate large populations of human beings.
And that was when it struck me. Is man really this insane?"
~ Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace and founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
There are a lot of things of which I simply just don't care enough. Conversely, there are some of which I am exceedingly passionate, and yet through the unexpected twists of life, endless distractions, and unexpected burdens of my recent overwhelming reality, I have lost track and touch with the bits of life that drive my soul, leading to a floating lack of direction, absence of intrinsic joie de vivre, and desperately-needed perspective. Thank goodness, then, for gifts which come in unexpected ways; reminders of things which make us whole. Things which makes us care. And thank God for the people around us who also do.
To be quite honest, the amount of things of which to care deeply about is really quite staggering: the impinged rights of people to live their lives with choice and dignity, the ability of each person to live without fear of rape and any kind of violence, the health of the planet and all of her citizens, the disappearance of indigenous and earth-revering cultures, of knowledge and wisdom gleaned from thousands of years of oral tradition, of entire species, of the value of life itself... especially when imparted with meaning, connection, and given any depth of consideration.
In the face of these very present, very real struggles and tragedies, occasions arise when we, as individuals, may find ourselves faced with the most extraordinary, unbelieveable choices; in a split second, we can propel our bodies into some kind of forward action in situations we can only project or reflect upon with some amount of disbelief in an attempt to exact some form of focussed, single-minded protectionism... and yet, at the time, it seems the only thing we could possibly do, short of stepping back in fear and relinquishing any last bit of hope. Or fight.
At points like these, it's simply not a matter of choice. You're not being brave, you're not being strong. You're just following the only course available to your heart, your conscience, and your truth. In the case of the Sea Shepherds against illegal poaching, a throat-jamming sight might involve a whaling vessel ~ with its harpoons cocked and ready ~ trailing a pod of endangered, protected whales. At that moment, you're facing a ship hell-bent on breaching international law under the guise of research, and a group of curious, social mammals. What are you going to do?
are dragged onto the whaling ship. (Australian Customs Service)
On Friday evening, Paul Watson posted from aboard the Steve Irwin an account describing an encounter earlier in the day between his vessel and a Greenpeace ship, the Arctic Sunrise. Relations between Greenpeace and Watson, one of the organization's founders, had cooled over the years. "Peaceful direct action" is Greenpeace's catchphrase; Watson, however, describes Greenpeace now as "a mega-international eco-corporation run by career eco-bureaucrats, and it is the nature of bureaucrats to compromise."
On the other hand, while still working within legal parameters, Watson operates with far less patience with poaching and will, for instance, send Sea Shepherd divers beneath fishing boats in unprotected international waters to cut nets of illegal catch with no hesitation. Of the unplanned meeting, Watson wrote:
It was actually quite nice to have the two ships together and as we closed in on them a pod of dolphins appeared and began riding the bow waves of both the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin and the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise. My fellow Greenpeace co-founder, the late Bob Hunter, would have surely taken that as a sign for us to work together.
The Arctic Sunrise radioed us and asked what our intentions were and we said we were simply doing a photo-op, and by the way how about joining us to come save the fish.
“Arctic Sunrise, this is the Steve Irwin. We’ve located a cage with about 800 illegal fish in it and this will be a wonderful opportunity for our two organizations to work together,” said Steve Irwin First Officer Locky MacLean.
After a moment’s hesitation, the captain of the Arctic Sunrise Joel Stewart radioed back and simply said, “That’s a negative.”
“Ok,” said Locky, “Arctic Sunrise, thanks for the photo-op, have a great day. We’re off to save some fish.”
It was evident that the Arctic Sunrise did not want an aerial shot of our two ships together side-by-side so they began to go in circles to prevent it. However, the superior speed of the Steve Irwin allowed us to get the picture and then we broke off.
As we headed southward, I connected my iPod and played “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as a tribute to Robert Hunter, and all my old Greenpeace shipmates and marveled at all that we had accomplished since that day when Bob and I blocked that Soviet harpoon with our bodies in June 1975 in the cold waters of the North Pacific. Since then, so much has happened, both positive and negative, but most importantly, some of us have never lost that dream that each of us have within, and that is the power to change the world. All we need to do is dare to make a difference, and to understand that sometimes it takes doing the impossible to achieve the possible.
What strikes some as an extraordinary and unbelievable action ~ like the usage of oneself as a human barrier between a Soviet harpoon and a sperm whale ~ is not necessarily so unreal when you are there, in the heat of the action, having boarded a vessel to the Arctic with a fire in your heart to stop the greed of humankind from further dessimating endangered wildlife, or chaining yourself to a massive, ancient tree marked for death in a last-ditch effort to stop loggers from clearcutting pristine, preserved rainforests in the Carmanah Valley for toilet paper and credit card application forms.
While some of our actions may seem peculiar and our situations surreal, we may find ourselves short on choices and resources and we do the best we can, all while trying not to lose our integrity, our fire, and our humanity. It's also integral, unlike like Greenpeace and myself as of late, to bear in mind our dreams, visions, and why we even exist. That sometimes, if need be, it is absolutely necessary to do whatever necessary for the sake of others, if even it means mortal sacrifice in the face of no other alternative. Not for glory, not for martyrdom, but because it is simply worth the risk to protect the vulnerable from materialistic greed, and to be worthy stewards of our fragile planet and its voiceless inhabitants.
Because yes, Mr. Watson: Man really is this insane.
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