To: David McTag­gart

Hon. Chair­man, Green­peace Inter­na­tion­al

Umbria

Dear David,

About half an hour ago, I heard that Japan can­celled its 2014/2015 voy­age to the South­ern Ocean to kill whales for “Sci­en­tific Research,” an announce­ment which would have sent you over the moon with jubi­la­tion.

The first image that flashed into my head was the pic­ture at right from July of 1982. You were cel­e­brat­ing the hard-won vic­to­ry in the Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion, when they declared a mora­to­ri­um on com­mer­cial whal­ing — the cul­mi­na­tion of years of work that you, Green­peace, and dozens of oth­er groups and indi­vid­u­als had done in pub­lic, as well as behind the sce­nes, below the decks, and under the table. At the time, you thought that was it, that you’d won, and that Japan’s whal­ing pro­gram­me was over.

It wasn’t, of course. Japan would sim­ply dis­guise their pro­gram­me as sci­ence. You and Green­peace would fight on — you to the end of your days, Green­peace for decades after you passed, along with an entire move­ment that sprung up from those first mist-shroud­ed voy­ages to save the whales.

Today’s announce­ment means that whales in the South­ern Ocean won’t be hunt­ed for the first time in 110 years. We don’t know for sure that Japan has given up entire­ly. They’ve said they’ll “com­ply” with the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice rul­ing which declared their cur­rent pro­gram­me, in effect, a sham which con­tribut­ed noth­ing to sci­ence and killed more whales than sci­ence would need. The Japan­ese Fish­eries Agen­cy could still, as they did in 1982, find a loop­hole big enough to fire a har­poon through, but not this year. The har­poons will stay hood­ed, the fac­to­ry ship Nis­sh­in Maru will remain moored, and thou­sands … tens of thou­sands… mil­lions of peo­ple who worked for this day will cel­e­brate.

If you were alive, I can only imag­ine how many rum and cokes and bot­tles of cham­pag­ne you’d pow­er through tonight. But I know right now you’d be on the phone, and writ­ing let­ters, and crow­ing to the press, and say­ing thank yous. You’d be thank­ing Paul Spong for con­vinc­ing Green­peace to launch a Save the Whales cam­paign in 1973, Bob Hunter for com­ing up with the idea of maneu­ver­ing tiny boats between the whales and the whalers and so launch­ing the issue as a glob­al “mind bomb” across tele­vi­sion sets the world over. You’d thank Paul Wat­son for the auda­cious courage he showed with Green­peace and with Sea Shep­herd to end the hunt (yes, you’d have swal­lowed a lot of pride, but you’d have done that), and while you were clench­ing your teeth you’d thank Pete Wilkin­son and Alan Thorn­ton who were great gen­er­als in the war for the whales even if you fell out over their resis­tance to your com­mand. You’d have thanked Rex Weyler and Fred Eas­t­on whose lens­es caught those first images of whales dying at sea and the hero­ics of those who sought to spare them. You’d have remem­bered how you and Bryan Adams leaflet­ed an entire the­atre in Japan when he was play­ing a con­cert there, urg­ing the young peo­ple of Japan to speak out again­st the whalers.

You’d have thanked oth­er musi­cians, from Leonard Bern­stein to Paul McCart­ney to Peter Gabriel to the Water­boys to Mid­night Oil to U2 to Steve van Zandt. You’d have appre­ci­at­ed how sup­port for this cause had cut across soci­ety, from the peo­ple in the streets to roy­al­ty like Prince Charles and Prince Sad­drud­in Aga Khan, adven­tur­ers like Jacques Cousteau and Sir Peter Scott. You’d have thanked Kier­an Mul­vaney and Sara Hold­en and Dave Wal­sh and John Bowler and Kar­li Thomas and Frank Kamp and Irene Berg and Grace O’Sullivan and Andrew Davies and Black Bob and Heath Han­son and Pete Bou­quet and every­one who ever sailed aboard a Green­peace ves­sel into those cold Antarc­tic waters to play cat and mouse with the catcher ships, every­one who ever signed a peti­tion or sent a post­card or donat­ed to IFAW or WWF or Friends of the Earth or Earth Island or the Cetacean Soci­ety or Green­peace or any of the NGOs that worked the trench­es to Save the Whales. You’d have told peo­ple to raise a glass to Sid­ney Holt and Camp­bell Plow­den and Michael Nielsen and Leslie Bus­by and Remi Par­men­tier and John Frizell, who ded­i­cat­ed most of their lives to this cause and spent end­less hours in hor­ri­ble meet­ing rooms count­ing votes and lin­ing up polit­i­cal sup­port for var­i­ous par­lia­men­tary judo moves in attempt to coun­ter the bribery and pork projects that the Japan­ese Fish­eries agen­cy brought to bear to buy votes they couldn’t win. You’d have tipped your hat to Steve Sawyer, Kel­ly Rigg, Pat­ti Forkan, Cas­san­dra Phillips, Domi­t­il­la Sen­ni, Michi Math­i­as, Anne Ding­wall, Elaine Lawrence, Cor­nelia Dur­rant, Lyall Wat­son, to Bill de la Mare and Justin Cooke, to the sci­en­tists who mod­elled whale pop­u­la­tions, the politi­cians who had won easy points and made tough stands, the film­mak­ers who had made films and the writ­ers who had writ­ten books and the artists who had cre­at­ed art. You’d have cov­ered your ass about all the names you for­got or left out by men­tion­ing the fact that you’d need an ency­clo­pe­dia to fit all the names of every­one who did their part, and every­one who walked for whales, fast­ed for whales, went to jail for whales, baked for whales, did Karaoke for whales, swam for whales, or ran for whales.

You’d have a spe­cial place for praise for the ded­i­ca­tion and sac­ri­fice of Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki of Green­peace Japan who endured arrest, ostra­ciza­tion, and ridicule in their own coun­try for expos­ing the theft of sub­si­dized whale meat to line the pock­ets of cor­rupt offi­cials, only to have them­selves accused of theft for pre­sent­ing the evi­dence. And you’d have thanked Peter Gar­rett and the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment of Mark Rudd for hav­ing the balls to go to court again­st Japan and the legal smarts to actu­al­ly win that high-stakes gam­ble.

And final­ly, you’d have told them all to do exact­ly what you scrawled across that 1982 pic­ture: “Cel­e­brate.”

Cel­e­brate a vic­to­ry for a threat­ened plan­et, and the hope it sug­gests that if we can save the whales, we can save the world. Cel­e­brate the pow­er of glob­al move­ments, and the patience and per­sis­tence it takes to see the arc of his­to­ry bend toward jus­tice. Cel­e­brate activism, dis­obe­di­ence, speak­ing up and act­ing out. Cel­e­brate courage, and cre­ativ­i­ty, poet­ry and song.

That would have been rough­ly the let­ter you’d have writ­ten, or dic­tat­ed to me to write for you.

Rest easy, David, and let’s just say you wrote it. Now, let’s you and me go get a drink, know­ing there’s a bunch of peo­ple out there rais­ing a glass in return to you, and to the cussed ded­i­ca­tion with which you worked for this day.

Cheers, you old goat. We won.

Awebest,

Bri­an