“This is something only men could think of, right?
It was the end of the world as they knew it, and these women did not feel good at all.
The protesters came from all over the Maritimes, carrying signs and body bags and dressing up as clowns and doctors. On Feb. 29, 1984, which was a leap day, they stood outside the gates of Camp Debert and chanted. Camp Debert was the only government fallout shelter in Atlantic Canada that was built to withstand a nuclear attack.
On that day, about 329 people were supposed to go into the Debert bunker and take part in a nuclear war dress rehearsal. The only people who could go inside were high-ranking government and military officials, as well as some members of the media. Almost all of these people were men.
The women outside were angry about who the government thought was important enough to protect.
Many of the women who protested that day were connected to the famous Nova Scotia activist Muriel Duckworth and the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace. In July 1983, a small article in The Chronicle Herald told them about the event.
They started making plans for a set of direct actions that would all happen on the same day. The goal was simple: to remind the people who were inside the bunker that day of what nuclear war would cost.
Sue McManus, who was with a group from Prince Edward Island that came to the protest, asked, “What happens to the families of those men who are going into the bunker?”
How will they feel when they have to leave their homes and leave their wives and children behind? Who will be blown up, burned, vaporized, and radiated? It makes me angry. “I’m here today because of this.”
Many of the women dressed up as people who had been poisoned by radiation and had burns on their faces to show how terrible the aftermath of a nuclear attack would be. They carried the dead with them in white body bags, showing how bad an attack would be and how unlikely it was that many people outside would survive.
There were five different groups that all had different ideas that worked well together.
One group, which was made up of only men, cooked and took care of the kids that day, while another group, which had clipboards, clown wigs, and lab coats, pretended to be researchers coming up with a different nuclear survival plan.
That morning, Pat Kipping, an activist, was on CBC Radio’sMorningsideas Dr. M. Mutandis of the Debunk Debt Research Associates, her alter ego in that group.
She suggested an alternative plan to the government’s official plan for dealing with the fallout from a nuclear war, which was called the Continuity of Government program. Debunk Debert’s plan was less about keeping a government run by men in power and more about keeping the human race alive.
“We suggest that the 329 places that are now reserved for older men in the military, government, and media be given to 329 women of childbearing age, and that the bunker also have a place to store sperm,” Kipping told host Peter Gzowski.
Her group wasn’t picky about the kinds of men who could donate, either. They just had to meet a few small requirements.
“No man in today’s society who has had any authority or power would be eligible,” she said. “We’re afraid that we can’t keep putting out that kind of content.”
This counter-offer was, of course, a joke. But to many people who heard it, it sounded much better than the official plan of the government.
“It’s something that only men could think of, right?” Kipping spoke about the protest almost 40 years after it happened.
“They really weren’t thinking when they thought that government could go on without another generation.” and that made us really crazy. But it just made women take so many different actions and join so many different groups.
‘Announcer of doom
Don Connolly, the former longtime host of CBC Radio’sDetailsGood morning, Nova Scotia.
Inside the shelter was a copy of a CBC Radio studio. This was made so that the government could get their message to the people who weren’t allowed in the bunker that day.
Connolly was on his way to becoming what he called the “announcer of doom.” Then a former CBC reporter named Bette Cahill, who used to work with him, called him one day, and he changed his mind.
” She said, “When the flag goes up, you’ll leave Maureen, Molly, and Kathleen at your house, right?” You’re going to go to Debert, leave them there, and wish the nuclear attack luck?” Connolly thought back.
“I told her no; of course I won’t do that.”
What we can learn from protest
The protest lives on in a movie made by filmmaker Liz MacDougall. The movie is calledDebert Bunker: by invitation onlyy.
When Kipping looks at the world as it is now, she knows that the fight for peace, equality, and a future for our planet is still going on. She thinks that future activists who want to deal with our fears about the end of the world would do well to look at what Debunk Debert did.
Kipping said, “I think it’s very important to question those in power.” “I think it’s important for activists to be creative. “I think a sense of humor is very important, even if it’s just to keep the people who are taking action happy so they can keep going.”
Even though it took another 10 years, the activists who worked on Debunk Democracy got what they wanted in the end.
Camp Debert was officially shut down by the government in 1994, when the Cold War was over. It was later sold, and now there are laser tag and escape rooms there.
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