- More than 200 people braved
the rain and the cold to turn out to
the concert, ‘‘Bread and Roses,”’
marking International Women’s
Day in Vancouver last Sunday —
and their repeated applause in-
dicated they were well rewarded
for their efforts.

The concert’s sponsors, the
Canadian Congress of Women
and the International Women’s

something unique in the way of.
celebrating this day set aside for
women and their struggle for
equality, and the program, which
wove together singing with narra-

. tion, reflected it.
Happily, they were able to
draw on the talents of local folks-
e ingers: Diane Campbell, Joyce

Day Committee were after

Chong, Val Dean, Ket Eakle,
Tommy Hawken, Lorraine
Helgerson, Tami Lundy, Lynn
McGown, Ross McRaie, June
Simpson, Linda Uyehara-
Hoffman and narrator, Karen
Dean.

Although the songs and
spoken material dealt with a wide
range of women’s issues, the con-
cert maintained a cohesive unity
by its development of a key
theme: women want their bread,
but they want their roses too.

This was the essence of the de-
mand of women textile workers
in Lawrence, : Massachusets
when they went on strike in 1912
for better wages and conditions.
It was their historic struggle which
gave birth to the song, and theme

of the evening, ‘‘Bread and
Roses.”’

The evening proved that many
songs have been born out of
many struggles since then. These
songs include: ‘‘Housewive’s La-
ment,”’ ‘‘Rosie Jane,’’ “‘Bridget
O’Riley,”’ ‘‘Mill Mothers’ La-
ment,’’ ‘‘Bosses Lament
(Secretaries Song)’ and “I’m
Gonna Be An Engineer.”

Lynn McGowan’s a cappella
rendition of ‘I’m Gonna Be An
Engineer’’ electrified the au-
dience. It captured what the
struggle of women to into non-
traditional lines of work, mean in
very human terms. The song,
written by Peggy Seeger, carried a
political message with humor and
intelligence, as did the songs,

Concert echoes demand of 1912 struggle

“‘Swallowed a Lie,’’ “‘Different’
but Equal,’’ and “Little Red
Hen.”’

The narration supplemented
the songs with a variety of quotes
from sources:as diverse as Stats
Can, National Health and
Welfare Reports, Barry Broad-
foots’ Ten Lost Years and others.

Eunice Parker, president of the
Canadian congress of Women,
B.C. chapter, offered four
resolutions to the audience, which
were unanimously endorsed.
They included the right of women
to equal pay for work of equal
value, the right of all women to
daycare facilities and the right to
sufficient GAIN rates by those on
welfare.

The fourth resolution called on
the government to withdraw
from NATO, cut back the arms
budget, oppose the neutron.
bomb and participate in the
Moscow summer Olympics.

“The objective of the Cana-
dian Congress of Women is to
press for equality of women in all
aspects of life and to rally and
unite women for social advance,”
Parker said.

She noted that “‘we are all
witness to growing economic
pressures, rising unemployment
and rip-off prices.’? Women and
children are the first victims of
such pressures, and the ‘“CCW is
committed to turning that

around,”’ she said. ia

wes

7

Chance (Peter Sellers) and Louise (Ruth Attaway) Brag) to go out
into the world in a scene from Being There.

Garden full
in allegoric

Being There traces the meteoric
rise of a simple-minded gardener
called Chance to the top corporate
echelons of American society in a
series of comic episodes which
won’t fail-to amuse its viewers.

It is a movie which not only ex-
ploits the idea that a man need only
bein the right place at the right time
— a gift which Chance, played by
Peter Sellers, is hilariously fitted
for — but adds several other pro-
vocative dimensions as well.

Chance is peculiarly a product of
the 20th century. He grows up with
aconstant diet of television viewing
while living in a house closed off to
the outside world. His only reality
is the television screen and the
garden he tends for his benefactor,
an old man.

When the benefactor dies,
Chance is forced to leave the house
and the garden for the first time.

It is aremarkable sequence in the
movie when Chance steps out of
the house and collides with life as it
actually is, not as it appears to be in
television’s distorting, unreal

From this point, Chance’s
odyssey becomes quite fantastic as
he meets the wife of a wealthy in-
dustrialist while playing with his
image in a TV screen on a city
sidewalk.

Eva Rand, played by Shirley
MacLaine, takes Chances to the

of laughs,
Ashby film

BEING THERE. Starring Peter Sellers,
Shirley MacLaine and Melvyn Douglas.
Directed by Hal Ashby. Showing at the
Vancouver Centre Cinema.

sprawling Rand mansion where he
meets her dying yet still alert hus-
band, Benjamin, played by Melvyn
Douglas.

An allegory which Being There
plays with constantly should be a
familiar one to Shakespeare buffs:
the garden as an allegory of society.

The Rand estate has a garden
dizwing in its proportions, with
thousands of flower beds and
shrubs. The ‘‘gardens’’ of the
poor, on the other hand, are filthy
backlots.

Chance doesn’t notice these two
gardens, these two social classes,
but more important, the viewing
audience does.

Finally, and whether one agrees
with the allegory or not — its great
for laughs by the way — is the
allegory of American society as a
garden, which has its growth
seasons and its fallow seasons.

In a key scene, Chance, along
with Rand, meets the president, his
theory on growing seasons is pick-
ed up and used by the president to
explain America’s economic hard
times.

Go see Being There. It is asubtle,
humorous and well-acted movie.

; —Janice Harris

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 14, 1980—Page 10

'No way to vote for equality’

in Quebec referendum ballot

The dilemma facing voters in the
Quebec referendum on sovereignty
association is that, contrary to the
declarations of the Parti Quebec-
ois, it isn’t possible ‘‘to vote for
equality.”’

To do that, contended author
and labor historian Ben Swankey,
would require a completely differ-
ent question on the ballot than that
proposed by Rene Levesque.

That is why Communists in
Quebec are campaigning to have a
different question placed on the
ballot, he said, but if that isn’t poss-
ible they will vote neither yes nor no
in the referendum.

The referendum debate and the
complex problems it poses for pro-
gressives in Quebec and across
Canada were the subject of the sec-
ond Bethune Forum, held last Sun-
day in Vancouver.

Swankey,- author of ‘several

books and pamphlets on labor his-.

tory and current affairs, compared
the referendum question in Quebec
to past referenda in Vancouver on
electoral reform. ‘‘It is framed to
make it easier to get the answer you
want,’’ he said. 3

The deception of Levesque’s
question is that it asks for ‘‘a man-
date to negotiate’’ a new political
relationship between Quebec and

Canada, with the promise that .

whatever results will go back to the
people in another referendum.

But what Levesque is really after
is definite and final and was spelled
out last year in the Quebec govern-
ment’s white paper on sovereignty-
association. The 100-page docu-
ment is not available in English, al-
though the courts have ordered an
English printing, but when it does
arrive in B.C., English Canadians
should endeavor to read it, said
Swankey.

The white paper is an interesting
study in the philosophy of the sep-
aratist movement, he said. It begins
with a history of French Canada
and of the failures of federalism,
before making a case for ‘‘an inde-
pendent autonomous state’’ which
would continue to have an ‘‘eco-
nomic and monetary union with
Canada.”

As the paper defines sovereignty
association, Quebec would be an

- independent state which would

make its own laws, levy its own
taxes, hold its own citizenship,
have its own judicial system and

courts, and maintain its own for-__

eign relations with other govern-
ments, including that of Canada.

This independent Quebec, the
white paper-stated, would stay in
NATO and associate itself with the
“security of North America and
the West. “‘All military bases pres-
ently on Quebec’s territory would
remain.

“Tt is basically a nationalist doc-
ument,’’ Swankey assessed. “‘No-
where are the enemies of Quebec
singled out as the multinational
corporations or the establishment.
In fact, there isn’t a single world of
criticism of foreign ownership.

“Those who are charged with
being guilty of denying Quebec its
rights are not the politicians or bu-
reaucrats in Ottawa, but ‘English

Canadians and anglophones.’ All .

of English Canada is put in the
same pot.”

Swankey was equally critical-of
the proposals of the ‘‘newly born’’
Liberal Party under Claude Ryan.
Ryan’s discussion paper calling for
a “new Canadian Federation,”’ is
mostly ‘‘an election ploy,” which

merely proposes to give Quebec’

more rights by giving all the prov-
inces more rights.

Quebec must have the right to.

separate, if it so chooses, Swankey

said unequivocally. But he warned

that separation at this time’“‘wo

be very harmful: for the working
people of Quebec and Canada. -

It would divide the working class

into fragmented nations when they

face acommon enemy, and make it

easier for the U.S. to absorb both Re |

Quebec and the rest of Canada.”

Unable to vote either yesornoto —

the referendum question currently
being debated in the Quebec na-
tional assembly, Communists in
that province are attempting to
have.a different option put to the
people, he said.

That question, placed in adver-

tisements in major Quebec newS-
papers in February, asks: ‘“‘Are you —

in favor of negotiation between

equals of a new constitution for
Cariada, based on the right of self _

determination for the two nations
and on the guarantee of their eco-
nomic, . social, cultural and lin-

guistic equality; this constitution —

would guarantee as well the right of
the Native peoples to self govern-

ment on their territories, and the -
right of national minorities. This

constitution would include a char-
ter of fundamental democratic

rights.””

Swankey’s lecture will be repeat-

ed March 23 in Surrey.

“

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