Despite the apparent anguish of her coach, Eduard Gufeld, chess
champion Maya Chiburdanidze went on to win this match — part of
the 1977 chess championships in the Soviet Union — and to take the
coveted prize of USSR women’s chess champion. The International

Chess Federation followed that honor by naming her a chess grand -

master — making her, at 16, the youngest ever to hold the position.
She still attends school in Tbilisi, Georgia.

—Tass photo.

SWAPO presses campaign
to isolate apartheid rule

SWAPO

By DAN KEATON
Armed resistance and world
condemnation are eroding South
Africa’s illegan control over
Namibia (South West Africa),
according to representatives of the

occupied country’s popular
liberation movement, the South
West African People’s

Organization (SWAPO).

“But we are still under the op-
pression of the obnoxious apar-
theid laws, based on the ideology of
racism,” Aaron Shihepo and Lyllie
Envula told a Vancouver audience
February 2. The meeting was
organized by the Vancouver-based
Southern African Action Coalition.

But all elements of Namibian
society are uniting under SWAPO
to oust the South African regime
which is propped up only by the
large multinational corporations
exploiting the country, said the
SWAPO representatives on the
first leg-of their 45-day speaking
tour.

Namibia has been ruled by white
minority governments since
Germany first occupied the
country in 1884, Shihepo told the
meeting. ,

South Africa held Namibia under

a mandate from the League of :

Nations following World War I, but
refused to surrender its hold when,
followirig World War II, the newly-
created United Nations ordered
that the, former colony be placed
inder its trusteeship.

The UN declared South Africa’s
occupation illegal in 1966, and in
1971 the International Court of
Justite ruled that the racist regime
was under obligation to withdraw
from Namibia.

“It is precisely South Africa’s
stubborness and disregard of

Voices of Latin America

For perhaps a generation, the
people of this continent have
probably heard of Latin American
revolution through the voices of its
poets. And it is fitting that it should
be so. For in Latin America, poetry
is very much a part of the speech,
the idiom — and the struggle — of
the people; only in a country such
as Chile could a poet read his verse
to a meeting of railway workers —
as Pablo Neruda did — and, at the
end of an hour, find them moved to
tears. :

And in Latin America, the tumult
of revolutionary change that has
been heard across the continent
has aroused scores of new poets in
addition to those already writing.

Unfortunately, for the most part
the work of these poets has been in-
accessible to the majority of people
in this country because of the
language barrier. And aside from
translations of such giants as

Warm greetings
and love
to our beloved comrade

MCEWEN

on the occasion
of his 87th birthday

Lily, Ray, Karen, Louise
Toma, Roy and Carrie

A FIST AND THE LETTER.
Revolutionary Poems of Latin
America. Translated by Roger
Prentice and John M. Kirk. Pulp
Press. Paper, 119 pp. $3.50.

Neruda, there has been little done
to make the poetry of Latin
America, especially the revolu-
tionary poetry, available in
English. -

Now, however, thanks to the
resources of Cuba’s Casa de las
Americas and the efforts of trans-
lators Roger Prentice and John M.
Kirk, the work of 21 Latin
American ‘poets now appears in
English in a new book, just
published by the Vancouver-based
Pulp Press, A Fist and The Letter.

As Prentice and Kirk point out,
the book was possible in large
measure because of the work of
Casa de las Americas — the Latin
American cultural institute
founded in Cuba after the revolu-
tion — which, in addition to
providing ‘‘a powerful stimulus to

TOM |

NEW WESTMINSTER

NORMAN BETHUNE
MARXIST CLASSROOM
SERIES
“Perspectives for the
Labor Movement”

with JACK PHILLIPS
Class begins 7 p.m.,
Room 308-D, Douglas
College, 8th Avenue and
McBride Boulevard.

February 12

Sponsored by North and
South Fraser Regions, CPC.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 10, 1978—Page 10

the writers of many countries,”
published the books and
periodicals from which most of the
poems were taken. But the tran-
slators took the job from there.

As is the case with the trans-
lation of virtually all poetry, theirs
was a formidable task. Because
words have different shades of
meaning, because images evoke
different associations, particularly
in a poetry written in images of
blood and fire, struggle and op-
pression, the translators had
virtually to recreate the poems.
Fortunately in A Fist and The
Letter they have done that; we can
read the poems in English and still
hear the voices of their Latin
American authors.

Among the poets whose work is
included in the collection are many
who are already leading poets in
their countries — names such as
Nicolas Guillen, renowned as the
“poet of the revolution” in Cuba,
and Roberto Armijo, a major
figure in the literature of El
Salvador.

Others, such as Omar Lara,
jailed after the coup in Chile, and
Cristina Perri Rossi, a Uruguayan
writer, are new poets. Still others
are nameless, identified only by
their native countries which
continue to oppress their people
but cannot stifle the voices of their
poets.

As.a glimpse of the poetry that is
transforming the literature of a
continent, A Fist and The Letter is
valuable reading for progressives
striving to change their own
culture. It’s available at the
People’s Co-op Bookstore, 353 West
Pender St. in Vancouver.

—Sean Griffin

’ themselves

human race which has led the
people of Namibia to organize
into a_ liberation
movement to free the country,”
said Shihepo. :

Since mass strikes of workers in
1971 and 1972, a popular alliance of
workers, students, women and
church representatives has arisen,
and enjoys the support of about 80
percent of the population, as well
as that of the African National
Congress and free African states,
he said.

In addition, seven of the 11 ethnic
organizations in the country,
formerly antagonistic, have
disbanded and joined SWAPO, he
noted.

As well as its Peoples’ Liberation

Army of Namibia,
maintains education centres, in-
cluding large settlements in neigh-
boring Angola and Zambia. —
The SWAPO Women’s Council,
organized in 1969, has the difficult

task of organizing Namibia’s

women, many of whom work as
domestics, Emvula explained.

Despite those difficulties, the
SWAPO representatives em-
phasized, the fighting forces aré
made up of both men and women.

Shihepo, deputy minister of
foreign affairs for SWAPO, and
Envula, secretary of the Women’s
Council, also had meetings in
Victoria and Nanaimo before
leaving for Alberta and other

centres as part of their cross-

Canada tour.

John Constantine, Vancouver,
writes: I, like Mike Gillan (Open
Forum, Jan. 27) disagree with
Lester Cole’s interpretation of
Bertolucci’s film 1900, according
to which ‘‘the class struggle will
live for as long as man himself
does.’’ On the other hand, I think
that Mike missed the point as
well, although he did suggest a
better and more realistic inter-
pretation of the film’s conclusion.
According to Mike Gillan: ‘‘The
movie ended in a struggle that
was quite different from that in
the beginning. To begin, there
was no peasant power. In the end,
at least, there was an active
challenge for power.”’

In my opinion 1900 went even
further as to identify who the
ultimate victor of the class
struggle was and, in that sense,
the message of the film was
revolutionary as it gave a sense
of direction, a stronger con-
viction that victory will
ultimately be on the side of the
forces of progress.

This view is supported by two
scenes following the class
struggle episode in which Berto-
lucci projects a few flashbacks
the central element in which is
the ‘red locomotive’ of the
revolution. Those scenes show
Alfredo, as an old man, lying
flattened against the railway ties
while the train, covered in red
flags, charges full blast towards
him. This scene is immediately
followed by a mole digging its
way up to the surface of the soil
(the rising proletariat). And
finally, the very last scene of the
film shows the red train again
going over Alfredo but the
audience is startled to see that it
is only the young boy Alfredo as
in the beginning of the film.

In my opinion the scenes
suggest that 1900’s message is
that, although victory is
ultimately ours, we, the people of
today, have to struggle for the
realization of the ‘‘dream”’
visualized by Bertolucci.

As for Mike Gillan’s assess-
ment that the partisans’ giving
up the guns to the national
liberation coalition government
and not killing Alfredo -was
correct leadership, I think it is
false. Although I agree that it was
not necessary to kill Alfredo I
believe that the handing over of
the guns. narrowed _ the
possibilities for the transfer of
power to the progressive forces.
However, I think that Bertolucci
was attempting to match his
‘Gaia with actual history —

‘Another view presented |
on Bertolucci’s ‘1900’

because the partisans did ac-

tually give up their arms
following the Nazis’ retreat.

Alfredo’s survival meant that}

capitalism was to survive. But
Elmo’s refusal to kill him
signified that the progressive

forces do not fight ‘‘a personal}

war of revenge” but fight to
change economic and social
relations in favor of the working
class.

If I were to characterize 1900 1}

would not hesitate to say that it is

a film of socialist realism. I} —

would also say that the film is a

direct blow to the theory of ‘‘two}

extremes” (according to which
both communists and fascists are
working from different angles to
destroy democracy).

The film makes clear that the
rise of fascism, while it is a

QeeCn
FORUM

“negation” of
democracy, is the direct product
of the same forces which under
normal circumstances back
traditional democracy but when
faced with the power of the
progressive forces, do not
hesitate to set fascism on the
stage. On the other hand, it very
plainly shows that communists
do not fight to destroy democracy
but to advance and extend it.

Finally, as for the controversy
surrounding the censorship of the
film, it is worth noting that the
original censored version was 5-
1/2 hours long. The version shown
to Vancouver audiences was only
4-1/4 hours. And according to
European audiences, the Van-
couver version did not include!
important episodes such as the
following:

e One half hour of filmy footage |

in Part I showing the organiza-
tion of the fist strike of
peasants; : °

e An episode in which Elmo
appears to be going to war, but in
reality was taking part in a 1908
uprising of peasants in which
many of the people from his
village participated;

e Ascene focusing on the Com-
munity School in which a good

discussion on political economy |

takes place between Elmo, his}
wife and four old men;
e The disruption of a funeral

rally by fascists and police. :

bourgeois |