Raising a Pacific Anti-Nuclear Consciousness in Canada

Abstract

The capability to enact devastation that defied borders of the nation-state begged larger ethical and existential questions of nuclear power. Iterations of these moral questions found a place at the epicentre of the anti-nuclear movement in Canada from the 1950s-1990s. The South Pacific People’s Foundation (SPPF) was established in 1975 in Victoria, British Columbia in response to the growing presence of nuclear violence in the Pacific world. It propagated tenets of Indigenous sovereignty, solidarity, anti-colonialism, and peace within the Pacific. While anti-nuclear activism was already well established in Canada, it was limited in its focus on the potential threat that nuclear power posed to Canadians and neglected to confront Canadian participation in nuclear testing throughout the world. In 1982, the SPPF began publishing the journal Tok Blong (talk belongs). This paper argues that the SPPF brought an acutely Pacific perspective to the anti-nuclear movement in Canada as demonstrated through their work in Tok Blong. Particular attention is given to the SPPF’s coverage of Canadian shelling of the sacred Hawaiian island, Kaho’olawe, and representations of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movement. The paper is situated within post-colonial scholarship on Kaho’olawe as well as secondary literature on the anti-nuclear movement within Canada drawing particular parallels with the movement to make Canada a Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone. The paper will disrupt the associations of youth, whiteness, and Canadian passivity that often get assigned to anti-nuclear activism in Canada and counterculture more broadly.