Greenpeace vs. Sea Shepherd: An Unfortunate Conflict
Greenpeace issued a lengthy statement on their website in an attempt to further distance themselves from Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd yesterday. With an aim at setting the record straight, Greenpeace made the statement out of frustration with what it claims are lies and falsehoods propagated by Watson, compounded by a general public misconception that Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd are associated with one another.
Greenpeace takes issue with what they describe as a fundamental difference in the anti-whaling tactics practiced by each organization. It is interesting to note how Greenpeace characterizes and differentiates their tactics versus that of Sea Shepherd, particularly their characterization of what constitutes violence.
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For Greenpeace, violence constitutes doing something that might put a human being in jeopardy, something they say Sea Shepherd and Watson are guilty of.
However, in their attempt to illustrate how proactive they are in the fight to save whales, Greenpeace makes reference to how in the past, Japanese whalers run from their ship at high speed when faced with a potential confrontation.
Regardless of Greenpeace’s non-violent policies, would the Japanese ship run from them, or resort to bringing the coast guard, if there wasn’t a perceived threat of violence? The success of Greenpeace’s anti-whaling efforts is clearly connected to the willingness of Sea Shepherd to take tough action and thereby instilling fear of the protesters in the whalers’ minds.
And anyway, is there a huge difference between sabotaging a propeller or sinking an unmanned whaling vessel (Sea Shepherd tactics) and blocking a harpoon vessel from shooting a whale with your ship (a Greenpeace tactic)? All these tactics are designed to achieve the same result, namely to prevent or reduce the killing of whales, and none particularly put lives at risk. Can’t we all just get along?
Image credit: Michael Dawes at Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
It’s not the fear of violence that makes whalers run from Greenpeace, it’s the monitoring of their actions. Greenpeace continually films and publishes what goes on during the hunt, so the whalers do everything they can to reduce this including putting up their own banners on the decks of their ships and like you mentioned, running. Greenpeace has a very well known, 30-year history of non-violence, so I don’t see how the whalers running automatically implies “fear of violence”.
I wouldn’t call Sea Shepher violent by any means, but it certainly crosses a line Greenpeace does not wish to.
Gabe has it right, Jeff has no idea obviously.
When an organization like Greenpeace takes issue with violence of another “earth-centric” organization, you *know* something is amiss. As aggressive as Greenpeace is, their distancing themselves from the Sea Shepherd is a clear indication of being too aggressive.
While I agree that whaling is a horrible concept, I have to say that after watching the Whale Wars show on Discovery channel, the Sea Shepherd’s are basically pirates. While I admire some of them for their resolve, I find some of their actions completely stupid and bordering on a death wish. It is only a matter of time before a confrontation is going to happen with the outcome being death for a number of people. Their actions have made me consider them as a group I would not want to be associated with and will not support.
- Jim
what a worthless article, barely any content or information
This is the most ridiculous conflict ever. For one, each organization has fervently dedicated their resources to the charitable act of species defense, where each person involved is sacrificing their time in energy in accomplishing this.
Another thing is that whatever bickering and naysaying happens, those resources and energy are now directed inward.
Be it that the Japanese perception is that the two organizations are in collaboration, or that the rest of the world’s is, both are trying to nonviolently end whaling.
BUT
If Greenpeace is saying that it’s violent for Sea Shepherd to confront the Japanese whaling vessels because it endangers THE SEA SHEPHERD’S crew, then that’s like calling them Kamikazes.
What a weird twist on an otherwise gripping, and profound drama.
Bean- As opposed to your one liner contribution to this discussion, which you filled with facts, thoughtful counterpoints, and sources?
Meta4- To purport that it is unacceptable to even bring ethics discussions into direct action is pretty absurd. I am not condemning the Sea Shepards by any means (in fact, I’d say i pretty whole-heartedly support them), but the whole point of protests is to get those in power to act more ethically.
Therefore, it is imperative that we constantly call into question our own ethics in regards to our actions. Becoming our enemy is the scariest thing that could happen. While we can’t be free of all unethical actions, and sometimes we have to be content committing small acts that counter our ethics for the sake of the greater good, we must also not carry a blind “ends justify the means” attitude.
The Sea Shepherd practices piracy plain and simple. Just the act of trying to foul a propeller to disable a ship in the Antartic should be grounds for the whalers to use violence in return. A Greenpeace person on the show itself said it best “…have set back diplomatic relations…”. It is only a matter of time before one of the propeller lines works or they hit some worker in the face with their acid bombs.
I would also like to note how much of a coward the captain and the first mate are. They constantly play on the volunteers emotions. Manipulating them into taking all the chances and all the dangers. It is criminal that two fat old men with an agenda are risking the lives of kids in a useless attempt to stop something that has been happening for hundreds of years.
Not to mention that driving all over down there in a big boat near the whales helps the whales lose their fear of humans. And makes it so they won’t run from the whaling vessles.
The Sea Shepherd people are criminals that should be treated as such.
Both are extremist eco-terrorism groups if you ask me. Thus, they are in the same category anyway.
I for one think whale meat is delicious