Life Onboard LAST UPDATE  April 26, 2009
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March 22, 2009 Tahitian Activist Gabriel Tetiarahi's 34 Year Struggle
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Tahitian activist and vanilla farmer Dr Gabriel Tetiarahi
Growing up on the small island of Tahiti, no one ever told Dr Gabriel Tetiarahi (Gabi) about the dark side of nuclear testing. To him, his family, and the rest of the Tahitians, the nuclear activity conducted by the French government was a blessing: it brought wealth and prosperity to the tiny island. Once, when Gabi was nine years old, some French soldiers took him and a few of his schoolmates to see the testing sites in Hao, an area on the island. To this day, he remembers the vibrant explosions over the Pacific Ocean. “I think it’s still the most beautiful color that I’ve ever seen in my life,” he told participants. “More beautiful than the rainbow.” It wasn’t until Gabi was 19 years old and living in France, having left Tahiti to attend university, that he realized the horror concealed by the beauty. Seeing pictures of the atomic bombs that had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the young student began studying the effects of nuclear activity—cancers, illness, unimaginable pain and suffering. The year that he saw those pictures, 1975, Gabi found his purpose in life: “I realized for the first time in my life that [nuclear testing] is a crime against the mothers of my country. It means to put a bomb in the belly of any mother in my country. It was my dream to make my country free of the bomb.”
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Participants scamper to take home a pod of Dr Tetiarahi’s fragrant, organic vanilla
Some might be intimidated by the thought of being an anonymous Tahitian teenager fighting against the military agenda of one of the most powerful nations in the world, but not Gabi. What some might mistake for arrogance is the determination and confidence that was required to take on the French government when no one—including his fellow countrymen and even his own family—would fight with him. When he first came back to Tahiti in 1978, after declaring his dream of a nuclear-free Tahiti, “my mother was so sad about me. ‘What are you doing in France?’ she said. You’re supposed to be there to study and have a good job. Not to be causing demonstrations and protests.’” His mother might have had cause for worry; almost overnight, her son had become a media celebrity for his anti-France graffiti and demonstrations in Europe. “I don’t know how many times they put me in the police station in that tiny cell in Bordeaux,” said Gabi. “But it was worth it.”
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Gabi shows a young woman how to tie a Tahitian Pareo
Without support —French or Tahitian—Gabi drew his strength from the recordings of his village elders that his uncle forced him to make before he left the island to study in France. At the time of the recordings, Gabi barely listened to the words that his Maohi elders spoke into the tape player. But in lonely and overwhelming France, he began to listen constantly to the oral histories and take comfort in his heritage. He realized that it was the history of his people that the French were systematically destroying with their nuclear contamination. “I was not an activist at all,” he says of his youthful graffiti days. But, inspired by the recordings, “I was just claiming justice. I was saying, you are killing our mothers, you are killing our culture, you are killing our elders.” Gradually, Gabi did grow into a fully-fledged activist. First, he sent petitions to every European leader he thought might be able to make a difference. He visited parliaments, spoke with politicians, campaigned endlessly, and led demonstrations all over Europe. Back in Tahiti, he embarked on a campaign of public education, explaining the sicknesses and cancers that come from nuclear contamination. As test site workers began dying, Tahitians began listening.
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Participants crowd around for a taste of Gabi's homegrown vanilla
His work in Tahiti culminated in the biggest demonstration the island has ever seen, when thousands of people marched from one end to the other in opposition to the French nuclear testing. Finally, in 1996—21 years after he set out—Tahiti was declared nuclear-free by then-President Jacques Chirac. It was a victory that Gabi had fought long and hard for, first entirely alone and then, eventually, with his country behind him. While he was on the ship speaking to participants of the 64th voyage, Gabi won another victory: French President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed to pay retribution to test site workers and others directly affected by the nuclear testing in French Polynesia and Algeria. While the French government hasn’t been entirely cooperative with the demands from organizations like Gabi's NGO Hiti Tau—for example, the medical documents of Tahitian test site workers and French military stationed at the sites will not be released until all of them have passed away—the 10 million Euros promised by the French government to Tahiti will surely help in paying for some of the damage done. But Gabi is not yet satisfied. His country is free from nuclear testing, but not free of what he sees as French oppression. He and the members of his organization Hiti Tau continue to fight for the independence of Tahiti, which remains a French territory despite the liberation of other Pacific nations in recent years. He says his experience fighting nuclear testing will provide a road map for his fight against France’s occupation of Tahiti, and urged participants to take his lessons to heart. “Just do it. Don’t make it complicated. Just do the things you feel like will make everything better. I didn’t believe in 1975 that it would be possible to make a nuclear-free Tahiti. We have done it. The power was us!”
Guest Educator Profile
 Gabriel Tetiarahi, Founder of NGO Hiti Tau
 Dr Tetiarahi is the founder of Hiti Tau, an NGO that strives to restore the indigenous Maohi people’s identity and to regain their independence in French-ruled Tahiti. He has organized protest movements against French nuclear testing in the South Pacific and promoted economic independence among the Maohi. He is also active in training young leaders and working with them to cultivate organic vanilla and taro using traditional methods in order to build a brighter future for Tahitians. By exporting native crops, Tahitians can shift from dependence on French aid to economic independence.