Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible

A break in the silence for a short while...

A few months ago we in NZ mourned the loss of David Lange. As I mentioned at the time, probably the most memorable moment of David Lange's time as Prime Minister was his speech to the Oxford Union in 1985, arguing for the motion that Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible.

Now you can download an mp3 format file of that speech, made available under a Creative Commons license at Public Address:

David Lange - Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible

This recording is remarkable because in a sense, this is an audio recording of a nation "coming of age". It captures the very moment that New Zealand stood up for itself for the first time in the world, becoming a rare voice of dissent in the Reagan-era Cold War.

I was barely out of kindergarten at the time, but even at seven years old, I remember how the anti-nuclear movement in New Zealand was something very palpable, even at a community level, as suburbs, cities and boroughs around the nation declared themselves independently "nuclear free".

The music placed behind the speech is by Andrew B. White.

David Lange at the Oxford Union, 1985