Arts/Review

False premise behind
book on East Germany

GERMANY EAST. Dissent and Oppos-
ition. By Bruce Allen. Published by
Black Rose Books.

Germany East opens with the false
premise that the German Democratic
Republic is an artificial creation and a
satellite of the Soviet Union. In line with
this. the heading of the first chapter lab-
els the emergence of the GDR as the
Stalinist Revolution.

This new book contains no factual
and objective account of the process that
resulted in the emergence of this member
of the socialist community in Europe.
The fact remains that it was Britain, the
United States and France who fought
against the re-establishment of a united
Germany after the war, at every confer-
ence during the war at which the future
of Germany was discussed and during
the post-war years leading up to the
establishment of what is now the Federal
Republic of Germany, in October, 1949.
The GDR came into existence after the
Western powers established the Bonn
regime in violation of the principles of
the Potsdam agreement. +

The Soviet Union called for a united,
independent Germany. It blocked the
American plan to split Germany into five
parts and opposed the Churchill-Eden
plan to split Germany into three parts.
But it was unsuccessful in persuading its
wartime allies to agree to an all-German
government after the Potsdam agree-
ment was signed. Following that, the
wartime alliance soon gave way to the
international cold war.

Author Bruce Allen ridicules the idea
that the GDR is a “peace state.” He
argues that its “unofficial” peace move-
ment is the true voice for peace. Accord-
ing to his version, the opposition
(meaning anti-government) movements
are largely influenced by the ecological,
feminist and anti-nuclear movements of
the Federal Republic of Germany.

He tries to make the case that concern
for peace in the GDR was instrumentai
in giving birth to a new political opposi-
tion, placing that issue at the top of the
agenda for political change. In doing so,
he questions, by implication, the legiti-
macy of the existence of the GDR as a
sovereign state.

Written like a thesis for a university
degree, it quotes many sources hostile to
the government of the GDR. There is no
attempt to weigh up what has been
achieved in building developed socialism
in that country over the past 40 years.

Neither is there any reference to official
documents of the Socialist Unity Party,
the largest in the five-party coalition that
governs the country.

In his foreword the author tells us that
one of the reasons for publishing the
book is “to encourage sustained political
action in solidarity with the East Ger-
man opposition.”

This book has no programmatic pers-
pective and it closes with a negative ref-
erence to the so-called “neo-Stalinist”
leadership of the GDR. 5

The opinions in Germany East are in
obvious contrast to an article in the Feb-
ruary, 1989 issue of World Marxist
Review by Erich Honecker, General
Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and
Chairman of the State Council. He
states: “While we have every right to
assume that our concept of developed
socialist society has justified itself, we
must be clearly aware that it is not con-
summate. In accordance with the dialec-
tics of continuity and renewal, it needs to
be steadily and creatively enriched and
developed in order to discern in due time
and successfully solve the new problems
that arise.”

Judging by the December, 1987 date
below Allen’s introduction, Germany
East was written in that year. I wonder if
he would write differently now, consider-
ing the current Soviet peace and disar-
mament proposals and their unilateral
reductions of troops and _ military
equipment in Central Europe — partic-
ulary since this process, warmly sup-
ported by the GDR government, has
won so much public support in the Fed-
eral Republic of Germany.

And I wonder if Allen would be
impressed by the fact that Mikhail C‘or-
bachev is the most popular foreign _lit-
ical leader in the Federal Republic .ne
world is changing before our very eyes
and I hope that the author, whose book
was released by Canada’s major pub-
lisher of anarchist literature, is able to
appreciate the change.

Will there be one, united Germany? In
my opinion, yes. But it can only be
brought about by agreement between the
two Germanies, and not by outside pres-
sure, interference or meddling in the
internal affairs of the GDR. That is the
reality of the situation, which is sup-
ported by a number of relevant, interna-
tional treaties and the international
recognition of the GDR.

— Jack Phillips

Good politics, but bad
script mars bio film

LE PALANQUIN DES LARMES. Star-
ring Tu Huai Qing. Directed by Jacques
Dorfman. A Canada/France/China co-
production. At Cineplex Odeon theatres.

With the current crackdown in China, a
new film made in China with French and
Canadian participation might seem to have
been made to fit the bill.

It wasn’t, of course. It’s just coincidence
that Le Palanquin des Larmes (which
loosely translated means, “The Sedan Chair
of Tears’’) was released for Canadian distri-
bution at the time of the military suppres-
sion, ordered by the entrenched sector of
China’s top leadership, of students and
workers demonstrating for a more open
political system.

Yet the political background to this true
story of pianist Chow Ching Lie may serve
as a necessary reminder, both for China’s
out of touch leaders and those protesting
the violent suppression, of dissent, of the
time when the People’s Liberation Army
brought a new way of life to the oppressed
subjects of an ancient empire.

Based on a best-selling autobiography,
Le Palanquin des Larmes relates the forma-

_tive years of Chow Ching -Lie, born in
Shanghai in 1936 and raised during the
Japanese occupation. For Chow — who
reflects on this life while giving a concert in
Paris in 1981 — things change forever
when the school her father runs is destroyed
by Japanese soldiers.

That means Chow must attend the
European-run school where she begins her

fascination with the piano. Her father, him=

self a person of new ideas who eschews
traditional Chinese dress and feudal man-
nerisms, indulges his daughter by purchas-
ing a new instrument and installing it in the
family home.

Fortunes have improved for the family
after World War II, but at a price. The
ambitions of Chow’s forward-looking
father have been reeled in by his inability to
re-establish his school. Denied funds from
his father and uncle, he has been forced to
join the family business, an unknown but
obviously somewhat shady enterprise for
which he has no passion.

His most burdensome compromise is
when he agrees, under family pressure, to
force Chow Ching Lie into an arranged
marriage to salvage the family’s failing bus-
iness. It causes a rift that threatens to
estrange father and daughter forever.

All of this takes place against a back-
ground of radically changing times. It is a
cruel irony that Chow’s marriage happens
in 1949 when the People’s Liberation Army,

LE ,
PALANQUIN

There’s still time to get early bird tickets
for the mid-July Pete Seeger Concert
sponsored by End the Arms Race. Tickets
purchased early are
only $12, as com-
pared to $15 at the
door, and are avail-
able at VTC/CBO
offices, the Mari-
time Labour Cen-
tre, End the Arms
Race (the Fairview
Baptist Church on
West 16th Ave.)
and various union
offices. Unemploy-
ed persons pay $12 irrespective. Not to be
missed, the concert is at the Orpheum
Theatre, Thursday, July 13, 8 p.m.

eS hic ow

He wowed them at the Tribune Labour
Festival last Sunday with his original, B.C.

SEEGER

Seeger tickets
cheap; photo
copy cowboy art

content songs. Now we find out Lindsay
Kenyon is an artist — a photocopy artist,

to be specific, and he’s having a show June’

15-29 at the Clochard Gallery, 3505 Com-
mercial St., Vancouver. It’s called Photo
Copy Cowboy, includes music and poetry
(with special guest Sheri-D Wilson) and is
open from 9 p.m.

* * *

Entertainment in a tube: Knowledge
Network presents Chautauqua Girl, con-
cerning the efforts of a government
worker to get a Twenties-era prairie town

to muster the cash and will to sponsor a
travelling “chautauqua” or variety show.
The two-hour movie is on Saturday, June
24, 9 p.m. Also on Knowledge is Cross
Currents: Twelve Minutes Over Tripoli, an
investigation of Reagan’s bombing attack
on the Libyan capital in 1986. It’s on
Thursday, June 29, 9 p.m. and Monday,
July 3, 10 p.m.

KCTS public television meanwhile airs
Making the News Fit, a 30-minute special
on U.S. news coverage of the strife in El
Salvador, on Friday, June 30, 10:30 p.m.
Also on is The Soviets at the Crossroads, a
one-hour each, five-part series beginning
Saturday, July 1, 10 p.m. and continuing
weekly in that time slot. We’re not sure
how balanced this series is. It purports to
discuss the effects of glasnost in several
countries, including Cuba, Ethiopia and
Afghanistan. The U.S.-Canada co-produc-
tion is hosted by former CTV newscaster
Harvey Kirck.

10 ¢ Pacific Tribune, June 19, 1989

DES LA SEMAINE PROCHAINE

TU HUAI QING ... personal and politi-
cal liberation.

having emerged victorious in the civil war

with the reactionary forces, marches into”

Shanghai.

Le Palanquin leaves no doubt as to where
its sympathies lie. The new administration is
like a broom sweeping out the old feudal
order. Its youthful cadres stage street skits

|

decrying arranged marriages. Under itycare —
Chow is able to perform with a full orches-

tra, conducted by a Soviet maestro.

And when Chow is betrayed by her in-

laws, who refuse to transfer the piano to her
new household as promised during the

i

engagement, it is the young liberators — led —

by Chow’s brother — who deliver the
instrument.

Chow herself facilitates her personal lib-
eration. She refuses to bend to the wishes of
her despotic mother-in-law, rejecting the
role of the passive housewife. Denied access
to her piano, she jimmies the lock on the

|

instrument and defiantly plays in the a.m. —

hours, waking the entire household.

It’s not hard to see that Chow’s liberation
is symbolic of that which swept all of China. —

Although she now lives in Paris, her leave-
taking of China — we’re told — was due

to personal reasons, and not because of —

political objections. The revolution, then, is
depicted as the catalyst for the unfettered
development of human potential.

What an irony, given current events.
Le Palanquin des Larmes is, unfortu-
nately, not an artistic accomplishment. It

does contain beautiful photography, most _

over the hills outside Shanghai.

But much of the dialogue is stiff and
unconvincing, like a badly written play.
Possibly this is due to the fact that mest of it
is dubbed in English, which seems unneces-
sary given that good subtitles would suffice,
and allow a more natural feel to the scenes.
At other times, the film appears to have
been edited without regard for continuity,
and while the passage of time can be
inferred from the aging of the characters,
the changing scenes lack dates to place the
story in context.

This film has some emotional pay-off,
but the interest it manages to exact in-spite
of artistic shortcomings is owed to the polit-
ical dimension to Chow’s struggle for
emancipation.
— Dan Keeton

‘notably when troops from the PLA pour