1978: Bloody Friday
September 4, 2021
By AHNZ
On 9 June, 1978, Southland farmers took desperate measures to protest the industrial chaos across the meat industry, exacerbated by the worst drought much of the province had seen since 1956.
Farmers ran 1300 ewes down Dee St before slaughtering them on a Victoria Ave section as a public spectacle.
These are Honour Culture people protesting in an Honour Culture New Zealand time period. There would be absolutely no sympathy for this form of protest, for example, in the 2020s. We’re more likely to see vegan activists in supermarket stormings of the meat section of the supermarket. Or, affluent cyclists storming the Auckland Harbor Bridge.
The old times are gone. But they will come around again.
“”We had hungry sheep. Farmers were very stressed, there was not enough food and the sheep desperately needed to be killed.”
Southland Times former chief reporter Clive Lind said it was a significant news event and there was a sense of excitement the night before the protest.
It was a “glorious piece of civil disobedience” that was called for in the times, he said.” Ref. Stuff
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Image ref. Russell Miller of Oreti Plains, THE SOUTHLAND TIMES/FAIRFAX NZ
Ref. Bloody Friday farmers praised for bravery, Stuff (2013)
Ref. Bloody Friday – An Account of the Southland Farmers’ Protest, June Slee (1979)
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