The Pacific as "Australia's Backyard": Anti-Nuclear Activism

These two images were taken at an anti-nuclear demonstration by John Ellis, a prominent photographer of left-wing events in Melbourne (fig. 1 & fig. 2). With numerous links to Melbourne-based activists, Ellis was heavily involved with the international peace and nuclear disarmament campaigns.[1] This archive is considered the largest individual collection of photographs of the Australian left.[2] Listed by John Ellis himself, this collection indeed points to a wider desire to document the spirit and character of the various leftist movements across Melbourne.

Public opposition to French nuclear testing in the Pacific was readily marked by the pervasiveness of anti-nuclear activism throughout the 1980s. From the 1966 onwards, the Pacific islands of Moruroa and Fangataufa would become France’s testing ground for nuclear weapons. Whilst this was met with international protests, Australia’s perceived proximity to these French Polynesian islands had distinctive implications for the nature of its opposition.

Captured at a Melbourne nuclear-free Pacific demonstration on the 25^th of February, 1981, these selected images reveal both the breadth of opposition to French testing, as well as the centrality of women in the peace movement. As Strauss suggests, the revitalisation of the Australian nuclear disarmament movement in 1980 was spurred by a greater concern for the threat of nuclear war.[3] The protesters in the first image (fig. 1) consist of members of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. This anti-war organisation has its roots in its opposition to WWI, and has long promoted peace on a global scale. In the context of this 1981 demonstration, their presence critically underlines the ways in which the women’s and anti-nuclear movements intersected. As Harvey writes, feminist peace activism throughout the 70s and early 80s was predicated on the connection between institutionalised violence and violence against women, whatever that institution may be.[4] For these women, military violence was deeply tied to the subjugation of women. Visible on the women’s t-shirts in the first image, peace was “[their] business”, and this is readily reflected the key role they would play in advocating for the end of French nuclear testing in this Pacific region. 

The breadth of opposition can also be acknowledged once we take into account this second image (fig. 2). Here, the nuclear free pacific banner is held by a member of the International Socialists.  This concern for justice beyond the issue of purely class is reflective of those New Left trends throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Initially established in 1971, this neo-Trotskyist organisation oriented themselves alongside the wider anti-war movement.[5] The prevalence of political organisations hints at the scale of anti-nuclear sentiment. In this demonstration, long-standing peace groups are reinforced by various political bodies who also take an issue to the testing. Within this expanding organisational effort, the grassroots commitment to opposing French nuclear testing in these images point to a broad nuclear disarmament movement characterised by overlapping ideologies. 

Viewed together, these images illustrate the relevance of transnational organising at a period whereby Australians increasingly recognised the importance of the Asia Pacific region. Moreover, they affirm a social movement that transgressed national borders and in doing so, offer an insight into Australia’s attitudes to the Pacific. Protesters emerge as guardians of the region in both these sources. Whilst the roots of this intense opposition cannot be traced solely through these images, they do reinforce a prevailing public belief that the Pacific area needed to be protected. As Alomes highlights, Australians have long seen the Pacific as naturally their area.[6] This can largely be traced back to the Monroe Doctrine, which viewed the Pacific as a region of Australian political and economic activity.[7] Such a paradigm is undeniably furthered by the centrality of women in both these images. By way of their gender, Ellis’ photographs hint at the link between maternalism and the anti-nuclear movement. Female presence at this protest thus heightens this existing notion of protection by conveying a sense of care and moral intervention.

 At the same time, it must also be acknowledged that these images present a narrative of humanitarian solidarity that masks those broader imperial relations attached to the movement. Indeed, this female activist chronicle is one that fails to problematise the ways in which opposition to French nuclear testing was partially rooted in the belief that the Pacific region was ‘theirs’ to protect. What we come to see instead is a narrative that portrays the Pacific and its inhabitants as victims of French aggression.  Within this, the tale of Melbourne based anti-nuclear activism comes to obscure the voices of those inhabiting the Pacific.

The absence of Pacific perspectives in these two images thus points to the ways in which the historical archive is rooted in wider relations of power. As Burton suggests, all archives come into being through specific political, cultural and socio-economic pressures.[8] Given this, Ellis’ listing of this collection, and the University of Melbourne Archive’s decision to include it, need to be considered alongside the specific social climate that brought it into existence. It certainly makes sense that the voices of the Pacific peoples are excluded in a collection produced by an activist hoping to capture the rousing spirit of leftist grassroots movements of the 1980s. Yet they simultaneously signal the archive’s inevitable negation of certain perspectives. In these two photographs, the narrative of anti-nuclear activism, and women’s centrality within it, reinforces the Pacific as a region in which leftist groups articulated a vehement opposition to French nuclear testing. The inability for this view to account for a history from the standpoint of Pacific inhabitants demonstrates the limits of Ellis’ activist archive. Whilst the cultivation of a collection that negates Pacific voices may undermine the discipline’s capacity for historical truth, they also critically point to its intrinsic subjectivity. In this story, Australian anti-nuclear activism rests on the assumption that the Pacific region was ‘theirs’ to protect. Such a narrative inevitably relegates Pacific perspectives to the periphery by somewhat reasserting the Australian capacity to determine the needs and desires of this region. Thus, whilst this was in many ways an anti-colonial project that sought to resist French incursion in this region, it does run parallel to the paternal logic behind Christian missionary projects in the Pacific during colonial Australia.[9] Taken by a Melbourne-based activist and brought into archival existence through the University of Melbourne, the story told in these two images are a complex product of its archival location and its creator’s intention. 

[1] “CICD Celebration for John Ellis,” Labour History Melbourne, published March 2016, https://labourhistorymelbourne.org/2016/03/06/cicd-celebration-for-john-ellis/#more-1849.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Jonathan Strauss, “What Did We Want? Debates Within the Australian Nuclear Disarmament Movement in the 1980s,” Labour History, no. 115 (2018): 147.

[4] Kyle Harvey, American Anti-Nuclear Activism (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014): 70.

[5] “International Socialists (1975-),” Reason in Revolt: Source Documents of Australian Radicalism, published February 2007, http://www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/biogs/E000501b.htm.

[6] S. Alomes, “Middle Class Radicalism, the Monroe Doctrine and Media Frenzy? Australian Opposition to French Testing,” in French Worlds Pacific Worlds: French Nuclear Testing in Australia’s Backyard, eds. Stephen Alomes and Michael Provis (Melbourne: Institute for the Study of French Australian Relations, 1998), 66.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Antoinette Burton, Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and the Writing of History (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 6.

[9] M. Lake, “Colonial Australia and the Asia-Pacific Region,” in The Cambridge History of Australia Vol. 1, eds. Alison Bashford and Stuart Macintyre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 552-553.

LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 1. Ellis, John. Nuclear-Free Pacific demonstration- Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Members, 1981, Photograph, University of Melbourne Archives, Melbourne.

Fig. 2. Ellis, John. Nuclear-Free Pacific demonstration- Nuclear Free Pacific banner, 1981, Photograph, University of Melbourne Archives, Melbourne.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Secondary Sources

Alomes, S. “Middle Class Radicalism, the Monroe Doctrine and Media Frenzy? Australian Opposition to French Testing.” In French Worlds Pacific Worlds: French Nuclear Testing in Australia’s Backyard, edited by Stephen Alomes and Michael Provis, 65-82. Melbourne: Institute for the Study of French Australian Relations, 1998.

Burton, Antoinette. Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and the Writing of History. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006.

Harvey, Kyle. American Anti-Nuclear Activism. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

 Labour History Melbourne. “CICD Celebration for John Ellis.” Published March 2016. https://labourhistorymelbourne.org/2016/03/06/cicd-celebration-for-john-ellis/#more-1849.

Lake, M. “Colonial Australia and the Asia-Pacific Region.” In The Cambridge History of Australia Vol. 1, edited by Alison Bashford and Stuart Macintyre, 535-559. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Reason in Revolt: Source Documents of Australian Radicalism. “International Socialists (1975-).” Published February 2007. http://www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/biogs/E000501b.htm.

Strauss, Jonathan. “What Did We Want? Debates Within the Australian Nuclear Disarmament Movement in the 1980s.”  Labour History, no. 115 (2018): 145-165.