Remembering Ben White

posted 08/09/05
I am neither activist neither did I know Mr. White - I heard of him only through word of mouth. I am however a member of this wonderful earth and since I lost my daughter I have a need to get everyone to "celebrate life" I helped write a song - and to all those who knew and who loved Ben - I offer only the last two lines:

"His memory will bring Joy to my life
His memory will bring strength to my life"

I feel for you all so deeply.

Peter Bates

Dear Editor,

posted 08/08/05
Thank you for affording us the opportunity to share our love for Ben.

We encountered Ben 15 years ago when he cut the fence to dolphins that had been captured in Abaco. He instantly became our hero and one of our favourite people on Earth.

He was, a friend, a leader, an inspiration! - he delighted in messing with the "machine." Ben was so full of grace and beauty. I wonder if he has any idea how many spirits of the revolution he' motivated over the years? His incredibly generous spirit will continue to light the path for so many. His philosophy about life and profound respect for the Earth is something, which he was able to spread around the world.

In today's world where greed and money reign supreme Ben was a real hero. The fact that he had the courage of his convictions to put his own freedom at risk for those with no voice, speaks volumes of the kind of person Ben was. As Grayling writes, "Some think that sentimental do-goodery over animals is a distraction from more significant moral matters... but a person's integrity is never more fully tested than when he has power over a voiceless creature... "

Thank you Ben for your love and compassion your tireless energy and spirit, all you've taught and shared with us, we are all that much brighter for having spent sometime on this Sweet Earth with you. We shall miss you terribly.

The Earth has lost a Great Warrior and Protector. It has been an honour and privilege to have known and worked with Ben. His leadership and conviction of purpose will always help guide us as we continue to meet the challenges that face the voiceless.

Our deepest sympathy to Ben's family and his "far-flung tribe."

To live in hearts we leave behind is to never die.

Love and Revolution

Sam and Tony Duncombe

Dear Editor,

posted 08/08/05
I would like to thank the world, our island, and especially Ben's family for sharing Ben with us all. As the dirt settles over the grave of this fine fine man, we are left here with an Island Minus Ben, and that is too sad to contemplate. But carry on we will. Let's all join at least to protect our local whale pods. Here is one activist who pledges to Be There for any action. In solidarity for freedom and justice.

Rebecca Barnard

Dear Editor,

posted 08/08/05
Thank you for the memorial column to Ben White. He was a very special person. He was unafraid of everything, even death. I have been on protests with Ben and he also was on my television show that I produced here in San Jose. He is truly unforgettable.

Judy Jones

Dear Editor,

posted 08/08/05
I met Ben a few times in the 1990s, apart from having respect for him as an activist, I remember at one gathering in London, what a truly remarkable speaker and voice for the animals he was. I am sad.

Alan Cooper
http://www.cetaceadefence.org

The Promise

Dear Editor,

posted 08/05/05
I first met Ben White near Pine Island, Florida. It is so many years ago, I can't remember the date. We called ourselves "The Dolphin Rescue Brigade," and we were there to disrupt the dolphin capture that was about to take place for the National Aquarium. In those early days, almost all of the dolphins captured for amusement parks in the United States and Europe were taken from Pine Island or Mississippi Sound.

Since that time, Ben and I shared many excellent adventures, and a few jail cells, too.

Today, no more dolphin captures take place in US waters, thanks to Ben and this small band of environmentalist activists.

Think about that for a minute. NO MORE DOLPHIN CAPTURES IN THE UNITES STATES. I think that's a really big deal. All because Ben and his friends showed up to do something. It was not the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Marine Mammal Commission, the marine mammal scientific community, not even the animal welfare industry that stopped these violent dolphin captures. It was done by the direct action of Ben and a small band of activists. They showed up and disrupted the capture process, got arrested, went to jail and went on a hunger strike; all of which caught the attention of CNN and other international media. The international media exposure caused the captivity industry to back off. They didn't want the public to see the captures on TV. They wanted the uneducated public to think that the captive dolphins came from the sky or that God put them there. Ben was determined to show the world the truth. Disrupting the dolphin captures exposed the violent capture process for the first time since they began in the United States in 1938.

Ben stands out as one of the most altruistic, honest and brave persons I have ever met. He came to our home in Miami November 16, 2003. We asked him to sign our guest book. Here is what he said: " Ric and Helene -- Here is for the big march opposing FTAA, yet another anti-Earth trade pact. On Thursday, 200 of us will march as dolphins. Thanks for the warm welcome to your warm home -- the perfect sanctuary from your travels saving the world. Keep on, stay healthy, keep the faith. I love you guys. Ben White."

I talked to Ben just a few days before he passed away, and assured him that the kind of direct action he stands for will continue on after he is gone. We will continue to show up and do what needs to be done to keep dolphins free and safe from harm. That was the promise I made to Ben before we said I love you and goodbye to one another for the last time.

Richard O'Barry
Marine Mammal Specialist
One Voice-France

Dear Editor,

posted 08/05/05
Ben White died of cancer last week. People all over the planet will miss him, but no-one will miss him more than his two kids. Julia and Ben Jr. are too young to lose their dad.

Many people spoke at his open-air service yesterday, so many that I can't remember who made the comment that has stuck with me. They said that when Ben moved to Friday Harbor years ago, he foresaw the comings and goings required by his work and made a conscious effort to pick a community that would surround, protect, and help raise his kids. Hardly a season went by for Ben which didn't include an overseas trip to protect an ancient forest, or a group of wild animals in their habitat, and he couldn't take his kids along on all of them.

My first memory of Ben is a Saturday morning six years ago when he called to say he heard we had built a rope swing in our woods. His only plan for the day was to volunteer his time to somebody on the island and he offered to erect a platform for the rope swing, so people could get a better ride. He explained that the community always seemed to be giving to him so he often chooses a Saturday to give back. He arrived around noon with four kids, two of his own, and two that he was caring for. He explained he was a little late because he had fed them all a big pancake breakfast. Then he proceeded to build us a king sized platform, 8 feet off the ground, guaranteed to give every leaping swinger a thrill.

When my daughter Maria started hearing the lore of Ben White and his nonviolent actions to protect animals around the globe, she was greatly inspired that he actually lived here amongst us. At age ten she spoke out at a county commissioners meeting about the fact that she didn't want to see a cell tower go up on the mountain top property adjoining ours. Ben pulled her aside later, and promised her not to worry. "If they build it, I'll take it down," he said with a conspiratorial wink. She fell into worship of him and his style.

Ben took Maria along for a tree-sit in the Redwood forest when she was only 14. She came back having learned more about what it takes to engage in an act of civil disobedience, and what it takes to find common ground with people on two sides of an issue, than if she had spent years in classroom discussions. I can't imagine where I found the trust to send her off to the redwoods like that, but somehow I felt that if she was with Ben White, it was okay.

Last year when she was 17, Maria woke up on Father's Day with the realization that although she had no living father to celebrate and honor, there are many men who have provided love and guidance in her life. By 9:00 a.m. she was making phone calls to all the men who had parented her, and Ben was one of them. Aside from her two uncles, there were seven men, and they all live on this island, each one a powerful presence in her developing years.

At the end of the day's celebrations for Ben, after his body had been sung into the grave and we returned to the waterfront lawns of Mariella Inn for feasting, my heart filled with feelings of gratitude for this Friday Harbor community. As marimba music performed by friends filled the air and dusk began to settle, I spotted a darling little baby held on one hip by a young father who was trying to fill his plate in the potluck line. This is the season for salmon and blackberry cobbler, and there was plenty of food. I asked to hold the baby boy, and walked away with him in my arms to dance. A friend was captivated by my pudgy, contented armful, and asked for a turn. We didn't even know that baby's name, but that was okay, he was a Friday Harbor baby, one of our own.

Only much later did I realize how amazing it is, that there is still a place on the planet with this level of trust. I have traveled to three continents this past year, spending time getting to know people in villages and being invited into their homes, meeting their families, eating their food. Yet, it is at these age inclusive gatherings of our community, here on San Juan Island - at a memorial service, or a wedding, or a birthday, or an anniversary - that I feel most connected and alive.

You chose well, Ben. I can say with assurance, although you never planned to leave your kids for quite this long, you found the right nest.

Liza Michaelson

Dear Editor,

posted 08/04/05
Although I live on San Juan Island, most of my time is spent off-island on environmental campaigns and regrettably I found myself in Alaska when Ben White was laid to rest.

As his pall bearers brought him with honor to the cemetery, I was at the Hubbard Glacier where the cold air cracked with the sound of calving icebergs.

And I thought of Ben when the two of us walked 13 miles over the heaving, cracking ice fields of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to protect baby seals.

Ben and I had many adventures together, some were dangerous and some were fun. We shared many of the same interests and loves. When I think of Ben, I will remember him swimming with dolphins off Key West. I will remember him walking with me on the lonely beaches of the most remote Aleutian Islands. I will remember him swimming with me with the pink dolphins in the Amazon. I will remember him when he and I confronted the Prime Minister of the Faeroes to protect pilot whales. And I will remember him clad in the cardboard armor of a turtle as he took to the streets in Seattle.

Ben White was a lover of life who lived life with the joie de vie that was both rare and inspiring. He has left this dimension in spirit, his body returned to his beloved Earth, having contributed more than he took from it, which is also both rare and inspiring. He has left us with two children blessed with a father who taught by example and inspired thousands. He will be remembered, and he will be recognized as one of the great environmental warriors of his generation.

Captain Paul Watson
Founder - Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Dear Editor,

posted 08/04/05
Ben White. A man with courage, integrity, humour and a gentle heart. He will have the "kick ass" party he asked for to commemorate his life and his "flying leap into oblivion" as he put it. He was a big part of our planet, protecting it, educating people about it, belonging to it. Very hard to say good bye to such a wonderful soul. Bon Voyage Ben! You are missed.

Ellen Johnson

On The Passing of Ben White

Dear Editor,

posted 08/03/05
Ben White was one of the most effective animal protectors of our time. His genius was tactical, possessing a unique ability to simplify complex issues to cast a spotlight onto public consciousness. His bottom line was always to uncover the brutality that always seems tro arise whenever humans (Ben referred to them as the usual gang of greedy males) feel a need to kill, eliminate, bulldoze, cut, and market the other beings that inhabit this planet with us.

He is probably best known for inventing and leading the "turtles", at the celebrated WTO debacle in Seattle. Another campaign of his, getting jailed and then leading a very public hunger strike, showed the world the violent methods that US Oceanariums employ to capture dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico. It directly resulted in an end to the capture of dolphins in US waters.

Ben White had been a member of the board of directors of Interspecies.com for the past three years. Perhaps because of our own focus on art for nature, I viewed him primarily as a master of polemical theater. This description always brought a smile to his face, because he once confided to me that he served as a clown for animals. To me, his true work was closer in spirit to Abby Hoffman and Walt Whitman than to Greenpeace.

Ben was my friend. Although we both traveled a lot, He and I did our best to have lunch together two times a month for the past four or five years. I got to experience his deep intellectual curiosity, his love of literature, his keen interest in tree morphology, his studies to build a home for himself and his children utilizing Japanese and indigenous forms.

We both attended the International Whale Commission's meeting in Japan three summers ago. Afterward I led him to a remote hot springs village deep in the mountains. For two days we got to walk the streets wearing our bathrobes and carrying our towels back and forth from our little bamboo Inn to the famous healing waters, where we shared the bath mostly with old people we soon learned were survivors of the Hiroshima bomb. The memory of Ben smiling broadly, dressed in his woolen Hapi jacket over a Ukata bathrobe, and pointing at the ceramic penises for sale in every store, is the vision I carry of Ben White.

Ben died last Saturday of cancer. For the past two weeks I'd visited his bedside four times to play an Indian raga, and watch him slowly recede before my eyes. The last time, Friday night, he was breathing at such a slow rate, I couldn't imagine his body getting any oxygen. It was difficult to play that evening. Trying to figure out how to introduce exotic sound into that silent room took all of my musical experience and strength.

Yet despite the fact that everyone present knew that death was already living in the room, Ben managed a weak smile midway through the performance. I like to think of it as a sign from Ben the geographer, Ben the canny ambassader, offering us a hint that the other side is as interesting as the life he was exiting.

Jim Nollman

Dear Editor,

posted 08/02/05
Ben White was a shipmate of mine for the '1982-'83 Harp Seal Protest aboard the Sea Shepherd II. He was a friend, mentor and teacher, well beyond the scope of that endeavor. I thank God for his presence in my life experience, and remember him fondly as a hero. He always made fighting the "good fight" seem effortless. Thank you Ben, for being a leader and a beacon for myself and countless others.

John Miller

Ben White - the Dad

posted 07/31/05
I have always explained Ben to my friends as the only full-time activist since the sixties that I know. I have always envied and respected Ben doing whatever it took to follow his convictions - all of which I agreed with, but didn't have the courage myself to give up "all else" to try to help talk some sense into the world.

I have to admit, I was critical of Ben leaving his children so much for the "fight", even though they were always left with wonderful caring families here on San Juan Island. His last trip to Mexico, however, changed my mind. He came home very sick, but the first words out of his mouth when I asked him how the trip went were, "I fell in love with my son."

You see, he always tried to have his children join him on his travels. He showed them the world and opened their minds to many different cultures, economies and issues - not just the ones in our neighborhood. His children, Julia, 19, and Ben, soon to be 16, have become amazing young adults. They are totally different. I think Julia will continue the passionate fight.

Ben definitely has potential of becoming a major leader in our times in bringing consensus among those that are so close to agreeing but just need the right mediator in pointing out the obvious. He has gained incredible diplomacy and has an amazing understanding of how things truly work in this world.

If you want to do something for Ben, support his children. You'll see them in the community for at least another few years, and I think you just may hear of them for many years to come. Ben gave them more in his way too short years then any other parent I have ever known.

Finally, I cannot help but believe that the invasions on our natural environment which flow through to our bodies - the issues Ben fought so hard for - is what killed him - killed my Husband - killed my Father etc. etc. Too many people are still dying of cancer.

Cathy Cavanagh

news @sanjuanislander.com

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