Feature une’s nam = By DEREK MACKIE , f it’s true that death comes when least expected, in the case of Dr. Norman Beth- une, it also came filled with ironies. Lying in a squalid village in northern China sweating with fever, he must have felt profound frustra- tion knowing that much of-what he’d set out to accomplish would now remain uncom- pleted. For he was, after all, a man with a tremendous lust for life, who viewed it as a gift, devoting his entire career as a physician to maintaining health and longevity for working people. For this reason alone, his situation was galling: a brilliant surgeon who understood illness in all of its nuances, afflicted with blood poisoning largely because he refused to take care of himself, driving his body recklessly off the precipice. Up until then when he’d played craps with the inevitable, he had won. This time the dice had been thrown askew. Fifty years ago, on Nov. 13, 1939, the 49 year-old Bethune died. He will be recog- nized for both his exemplary medical track record and devotion to working peoples’ many struggles. Yet the 1980s seem an odd decade to reflect on his career. We live in cynical times where political activists who try to emulate his sort of commitment are often rewarded with derision. An era in which the exalted ambition of many is the self-seeking accumulation of material goods, while the murky ideological waters — where left and right often seem indistinguishable — make it hard to believe there was a decade like the 1930s when the issues were more readable and the class lines drawn firmly in the dust of battle. For many progressives, Bethune remains a heroic martyr symbol — sort of our very own Gandhi. Still, he was unusual: a Cana- dian whose fame spread to a global arena, emerging more well loved abroad then he did here in his native land. Now his life will be retold in a soon-to-be-released Holly- wood and Chinese government-backed film starring Donald Sutherland. Ironically, though, Bethune was also a man some may have felt uneasy about. He had a mercurial temperament and was somewhat of a loose cannon. Indeed, by dint of his volatile personality, many were probably confused by the paradoxes he embodied: an often outspoken and emo- tional person whose willingness to push the boundaries of risk appeared needlessly reck- less, though it was the source of his medical innovations and success. But the very fact that Bethune became a communist is a testament to his social con- science, especially in lieu of the courting he was subjected to by Montreal’s upper crust, a wooing he firmly rejected as his talents strengthened. Bethune recognized that treating the poor over the rich gave his very existence greater meaning. Indeed, the very fact that he died for a foreign land’s cause reflected this deep-seated hankering to side with the oppressed — one which did not escape notice. “What kind of spirit is this that makes a foreigner selflessly adopt the cause of the Chinese people’s liberation as his own?” wrote Mao Zedong. “It is the spirit of internationalism, the spirit of commu- 22 « Pacific Tribune, December 18, 1989 nism, from which every Chinese Commu- nist must learn.” When he entered the University of Toronto, he wanted to become a doctor, though World War I interrupted his studies. Bethune went to France as a stretcher- bearer and saw first hand the charnel house that was war. Returning home, and having finished his studies, Bethune became an amateur art dealer while enjoying the idle life of Paris, London and New York. This ended in 1923 when he met and married Frances Penney, a reticent upper-class Scot, and set off for Detroit to establish his first practice. Bethune had heard that this bustling Amer- ican city was the place to be. But Detroit was disappointing, containing all the brutal characteristics of early industrial towns, scarred by ghettos, disease and impover- ishment. Here, Bethune saw what a scourge tuber- culosis was for workers. In 1926 he too fell prey to the disease. Bethune’s battles with TB would domi- nate the rest of his life. He entered a sanito- rium in New York, ostensibly to await death, as most TB patients did in those days. But he stumbled upon an article in a medical journal which suggested that col- lapsing the diseased lung could enable a TB patient to recover. He demanded the operation and within two months had checked out of the clinic, determined to rid the world of TB. He returned to Montreal and devoted his immense energy to inventing new surgical methods and instruments for TB treatment. Still, when the Depression struck, it dawned on Bethune that TB was a disease fostered in the crucible of worker-capitalist divisions. Even while the methods for treat- ing it became ever more sophisticated, the Pe es At his desk in China writing an appeal for Canadian and American medical aid. fusion unit in Spain during the civil war. widespread poverty created by' the eco- nomic crisis swelled the ranks of TB suffer- ers. Bethune was shocked to find that what caused the ailment was not germs but the horrific living and factory conditions thrust upon workers. _the summer of 1936, the Spanish Civil War BETHUNE with his mobile blood trans- “There is a rich man’s TB and poor man’s TB,” he would later say. “The rich man recovers and the poor man dies. This succinctly expresses the close embrace of economics and pathology.” Thus Bethune examined capitalism’s mechanisms, leading him to admire the concept of socialized medicine. He travelled to the Soviet Union and marvelled at its TB treatment centres. He argued for a medicare-like health care system. By 1935 his radicalism had come full cir- cle. As demonstrations of the unemployed erupted on Montreal’s streets, he joined the Communist Party. Meanwhile, against the backdrop of the economic woes plaguing North America, a great struggle was awakening in Europe. In broke out, pitting the military might of fas- cist Italy and Nazi Germany against the left-leaning democratically-elected govern- ment of Spain. Here in Canada, the CP and other progressives sent international volun- teers to fight the fascists. And despite being at the peak of his success, Bethune felt com- pelled to offer his skills too. Under the aegis of the Committee to Aid Spanish Demo- cracy, he arrived in besieged Madrid in November, 1936, to help the Loyalist army. Bethune soon conceived of a mobile blood transfusion service that could collect blood from donors in the city andtransport it to wherever it was needed most. While he — would liken his roving unit to a “glorified — milk delivery service,” it was obviously a marvelous innovation in military medicine, responsible for saving untold thousands of wounded who would have otherwise died. Bethune worked tirelessly in organizing an — efficient medical service for the Loyalists. Yet, ultimately, the time he spentinSpain — was short. He felt he could be more effective in breaking the embargo that had been placed on Spain’s government by the West- ern powers. Exhausted, he returned to Can- ada in June of 1937, though he immediately embarked on a cross-country speaking tour to raise money for the cause. Bethune’s stay in Canada would be brief. That summer, Japanese forces invaded China, beginning the Second Sino-Japanese War. At the time, China’s government, led by Chiang Kai-shek, was trying to wipe out the Chinese communist forces. By the time Bethune arrived in China in early 1938, the — communists and Chiang had joined forces _ to fight the Japanese. Bethune met Mao ~ who-gave him authorization to set up a mobile medical unit for the Red Army, sim- ilar to the one he’d established in Spain. Bethune eventually travelledto Northern — China where the fighting was fiercest and began treating the endless procession of — wounded. He was one of the very few quali- — fied doctors, forcing him to teach others the basics of medical care, recognizing that this would have much greater impact. Between 1938 and his death in late 1939, — Bethune would traverse more than 3,000 — miles of China, dragging with him a porta- ble operating theatre on two mules. He had : incredible stamina, once operating on 115 — cases in 69 hours while under heavy artillery attack. Soon his Chinese name, Pai Chu En, — became so legendary that soldiers worked it — into battle cries. 4 Nevertheless, the pace he set took its toll, — aging him swiftly and making him gaunt, — exhausted and sallow. It was not surprising — when, in October of 1939, he became — infected while operating on a soldier, his — weakened body was unable to tolerate the — blood poisoning. Feverishly, he succumbed, ~ far from a hospital or his country of origin. — Since his death, Norman Bethune has ~ become a symbol of the revolutionary spirit. — As Mao noted: “Dr. Bethune’s devotion to — the common people is a lesson for all... It — should become a starting point for us to — become individuals useful to the people. An — individual may have great or little ability, but with such spirit they can become a per- ~ son of importance, of integrity, of virtue who forsakes self-interest for the interest of the people.”