The Latest "I Hate the French" Rant!

The 'Official Secrets' 30 years is up and the French have now released their top secret classified documents from the 1970s and thus you can now get in to read about the French machinations in the Pacific during that decade. Green Peace is in there, doing the editing and translating for those of us who failed High School French, so great kudos to them.

As it turns out, my father was right.  The radiation levels from the bombing of Muraroa Atoll were over a 100,000 times higher than the official French announcements at the time. I've already told you how, when these tests were on, my dad was in charge of monitoring the radiation levels in Fiji's air and fish for the Fiji and British Governments, and how he was horrified by the figures he was getting and started ranting about what a filthy bunch of liars the French were, because radiation levels - in Fiji too - nearly a thousand miles away from Muraroa Island - were so many thousands of times higher than the French were supposed to be getting at Ground Zero in Tahiti. 

I've told this story in here before, haven't I. Let me find it: here!

Also turns out from a cursory read of these documents that it was a deliberate French policy to lie to the Pacific.  And also turns out they were expecting a future epidemic of thyroid diseases which is most odd because just about everyone I know in the Pacific has thyroid issues, so there's definitely a pattern emerging here and I think this now-released info will finally galvanise us into action.

This is early days here, folks, and I think this is going to end with us all demanding an apology from France for what they put us through, and maybe reparation for what we are now going through on the health front.

If I'd known back then what I know now, well, ... no actually, I wouldn't have done anything differently.  Remember what a grim-faced little Proto-Emo I was, forever desk-slamming and door-slamming and giving speeches to anyone who'd lend even half an ear, never shutting up about Nuclear Testing in the Pacific. 

And remember what a creepy little jerk I was back in High School and how I'd read Georgette Heyer novels during French class and, if the teacher protested, I'd say I was exercising my right to be Gandhi and this was my Passive Resistance and did she really want to "join forces with the evil people of the world" by trying to stop me. And also how I'd spend Maths classes reading about the previous American and British Nuclear Tests so I'd have some historical background to what the French were then doing, but that was really because I hated Maths.

And remember that High School Speech Competition I entered simply in order to spread the word and get others to join me in my personal protest and how I heard later that the judges had fought about me, with one lot wanting to award me the prize and the other lot calling me "a loose cannon", and how ultimately the prize went to that girl with the lovely smile who gave her speech about the importance of presenting yourself properly to the public.

And, hey guys, remember "Atom A-GO-GO"? That concert we put on at the Civic Centre to raise money for Rainbow Warrior's Peace Mission to Muraroa Atoll?  And remember just how GREAT it actually was; how almost by accident it came together like magic and we were all just amazing!

So, no, I wouldn't have done anything differently ... except maybe be less confrontational and do more about winning everyone over so they'd stop condemning me and join in with me and hate what I was hating and in the same ways I was hating.

Although, I'm sure, now that these documents are released and everyone knows what was actually going on, that personal histories are being rewritten and the folks who yelled at me back then are now claiming to be my loudest and most vocal supporters. 

Or even that they were me.

I'm shocked at how often that happens; how, throughout my life, the things I do and am condemned for are later so frequently appropriated by others and most often by those very folks who screamed at me the loudest.  Like, remember those shows I did with the Aboriginal kids in Outback Australia back in the mid '80s? Are you aware of how many folks who condemned me back then now have those very shows on their Curriculum Vitae. Yup, dozens of folk, most frequently my most vocal critics, are now out there claiming to be me, to have done what I did; to have written, directed and produced those very shows that I put on without any money, support and with a great deal of opposition, but which, in the end, turned out to be wildly successful - although the money we raised was stolen and we all know by who, although we couldn't do anything about it!  (Thankfully, they were jailed shortly afterwards although not for their crime against us!)

My mother wasn't quite right, you know, with her line "Make sure your inner compass always points to True North." She meant by that to always do what you know to be right, no matter how strange and outre it seems at the time. And she said that people would always end up following you and supporting you if your cause was true.

It definitely wasn't in her case.  She was condemned for the good she did in the world. And really, all that happens is that folks end up hating you, and when you're finally proved right, instead of apologising they just say "Oh, get over it!"  Or else your words and deeds are later appropriated and someone else ends up with the benefits that should be yours.

Gosh, this was meant to be a rant against the French and it's ended up being against the entire world.  I think I should stop now and get back to reading those documents.  And, yes, I'll pass on any more good stuff I find. See you later.