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Name: Dave
Position on board: Logistics co-ordinator
Nationality: United Kingdom
Hi, my name is Dave and I deal with logistics on board. I'm 51
and have been with Greenpeace since 1983 mostly sailing as a mate
or dealing with logistics.
Up to my early 20's I was quite reactionary - even to the point
of
being decidedly pro-nuclear. Gradually though I started to ask
questions, particularly about nuclear issues. The more questions
I
asked the more unsatisfactory were the answers I received.
Eventually, I became more and more angry with the lies I had
been
fed up until then. So angry that I decided that I wanted to do
something about the nuclear industry. I started by getting
involved
with local anti-nukes groups in the UK. After awhile I started to
get
disillusioned and frustrated with this approach; everything had to
be done by consensus and so much time and energy was lost as
a
result. At about the same time I'd started to hear about
Greenpeace (they were still relatively unknown back in ‘83) as
being
a group who got off their asses and rattled cages. Having served
in
the merchant navy and being qualified as a mate I thought I
could
be useful. Also my marriage had broken down and it seemed
that
fate had pointed me towards Greenpeace.
On my second trip, the campaigner came up with a plan for a protest that I considered to be completely unworkable.
When I
expressed my opposition to the plan he simply replied "OK, if
you
think you can do better you try it" (the structure was much
simpler
then!). So that was my introduction to logistics!!
Since then I've been contaminated by an accident at the
Sellafield nuclear processing plant; immersed in
toxic discharges; kicked and beaten by police on numerous
occasions (even prosecuted for injuring a policeman's foot - the
judge threw the case out); arrested in a variety of countries on a
variety of charges (including three times for spying); had shots
fired
at me; tear gassed; stun grenaded; and pelted with a vast range
of
missiles by angry workers. And all to assuage my anger!
And is my anger assuaged? No, more controlled perhaps, but
having
witnessed at first hand the level of destruction in the world's
forests
and the effects of climate change, since I first joined, it is
impossible to view all this with anything other than anger. I
want to at
least try to do my very small bit to hand my children a
reasonably
safe planet.
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