Arts/Review

Plea to demilitarize Arctic a must-read

THE ARCTIC: Choice for Peace and
Security. Proceedings of a Public Inquiry
by the True North Strong and Free Inquiry
Society. Gordon Soules Book Publishers.
$12.95 paperback.

Reading a collection of 21 speeches on
peace and security of the Arctic may not
sound like hot entertainment for a Saturday
night, but don’t pass up on this book.

Readers will recall the enormously suc-
cessful 1986 “The True North Strong and
Free?” inquiry into Canadian defence pol-
icy and nuclear arms which drew over 5,000
people. Because of the concern shown

Iran film
fest coming

The Vancouver East Cinema urges
us to forget the Ayatollah Khomeini
and the Salman Rushdie affair, set
aside our outrage and concentrate on
the real cultural delights Iran has‘to
offer. These are revealed, the Van
East folks say, through seven features
in its film special, Iran: In the Spo-
tlight, which runs Feb.16-22.

The banning of Western films and
the state-religious control of enter-
tainment — coupled with govern-
ment funding of Iran’s own film
industry — has ironically resulted in
a rejuvenated, New Wave cinema in
the often misunderstood country, the
Van East Cinema states in its release.

The flagship entry is The Runner,
about a group of street kids “yearning
for escape from a chaotic, desperate
life.” The schedule is as follows (first
film at 7:30 p.m., second at 9:30): Feb.
16, The Cyclist; The Runner; Feb. 17,
The Runner; The Peddler; Feb. 18,
The Spell; Bashu, The Little Stranger;
Feb. 19, Stony Lion, Captain Khor-
shid; Feb. 20, The Cyclist; Stony Lion;
Feb. 21, The Peddler; Captain Khor-
shid; Feb. 22, The Runner; The Spell.

Separate admission is required for
each film. Series passes, non-transfer-
able, are available for $25 in advance
at the cinema.

* * *

Concerts: The Rogue Folk Club
presents England’s Pete Morton and
guests at the W.I.S.E. Hall (1882
Adanac St.), Friday, Feb. 16, 8:30
p.m.; Irish Celtic band Altan, same
venue, Tuesday, Feb. 20, 8:30 p.m.;
and Bob Brozman & the Brozophonics,
swing music, same venue, Friday, Feb.
23, 8:30 p.m. Prices vary, but it’s
cheaper for members. Phone 736-3022..

* * *

Vacuum Tube: Knowledge Network
airs NFB Theatre’s Holding Our
Ground, concerning a group of
women in a squatter community in
the Philippines pressing the govern-
ment for land reform, on Monday,
Feb. 19, 9 p.m. and Wednesday, Feb.
21, 10 p.m. (In that connection we
mention the Vancouver Philippine
Women Centre is hosting a dinner-
dance and cultural presentation on Fri-
day, Feb. 23, 7 p.m. at the Scottish
Cultural Centre, 8886 Hudson St.
(near Southwest Marine Drive).
Admission is $15, phone 731-1062 or
464-7899.)

KCTS U.S. public television tackles
the Exxon Valdez incident on its Nova
series. Entitled, ’The Big Spill’, the
one-hour program examines how
technology went awry at each stage of
the incident. It airs Tuesday, Feb. 27, 7
p.m. and Wednesday, Feb. 28, noon.
Closed-captioned.

10 ¢ Pacific Tribune, February 12, 1990

about the grave threat of nuclear warfare in
and over Canadian territory, a second
inquiry with the theme “The Arctic: Choi-
ces for Peace and Security” was held last
March in Edmonton.

Twenty-one distinguished speakers in-
cluded not only Canadians — such as
Mary Simon, president of the Inuit Cir-
cumpolar Conference, and Thomas Berger
who has headed a number of royal
commissions — but also Ambassador Esko
Rajakoski of Finland, Norwegian defence
minister Johan Holst, Capt. James Bush
— Associate Director of the Centre for
Defence Information in Washington, D.C.
— and Alexei Rodionov, Soviet ambassa-
dor to Canada.

The inquiry dealt with the special posi-

tion of Native peoples, Canadian sover- .

eignty in the Arctic, resource extraction and
environmental, political and military con-
cerns.

This book contains each of the speeches
as well as the provocative questions posed at
the need of each of the four sessions which
were moderated by Stephen Lewis and
Adrienne Clarkson.

I was really impressed with Mary Sim-
on’s contribution as an Inuk from Quebec.
She disputes External Affairs Minister Joe
Clark’s 1988 statement describing security
in the Arctic as a NATO prerogative, not a
northern one. She points out that this
notion minimizes the role and responsibili-
ties of Canada as an independent and sov-

ereign Arctic state with its own particular
northern interest, and serves to ignore the
rights, concerns and priorities of Inuit.

She outlines 10 measures the Inuit Cir-
cumpolar Conference suggested be taken
by Arctic states and others to advance secur-
ity and peace in the Arctic, including the
need to promote internationally the illegal-
ity of nuclear weapons, to define security in
the broad terms of collective security for all
peoples, to establish the area as a zone of
peace and the need to respect the funda-
mental values and rights of Inuit and other
aboriginal peoples in the Arctic.

However, there are a few speakers who
echo Joe Clark by suggesting that the Arctic
is just one of a number of items for East-
West discussion. Maj.-Gen. David Hud-
dleston of the Department of National
Defence upholds the military invasion of
our northern area and suggests that Cana-
dian forces are “good corporate citizens”
when it comes to protecting the environ-
ment. As an example, he offers the flight-
testing base in Goose Bay, Labrador.

“The Innu hunting parties are requested
to advise the base of their planned move-
ments So that military aircraft can avoid
overflying their camps and can be diverted
around known locations of hunters and
caribou herds.” (The audience was not
impressed.)

Dennis Patterson, government leader of
the Northwest Territories, eloquently refutes
the notion that cruise-missile testing and

low-level flights are harmless, and stresses
that the enemy is the global arms race rather
than the Soviet Union.

“The problem surrounding the call for an
Arctic zone of peace is that the proposal
came from Gorbachev instead of. ..a West-
ern leader,” Patterson remarks.

The Finnish, Norwegian and_ Soviet
speakers also point to the significant
changes in relationships between circumpo-
lar nations since Gorbachev’s six proposals
for Arctic bilateral and multilateral co-
operation in 1987.

Worth the price of the book is the speech
by Capt. James Bush, who prefaces his
remarks by indicating that what he is about
to say is contrary to the beliefs of the
Department of Defence of the U.S. That

. turns out to be an understatement.

In a few words he demolishes the theory
of deterrence, pointing to the 15,000 nuclear
weapons the U.S. can launch against the
USSR while noting that in 1960 the feeling
was that 500 would be enough. Bush slams
the idea that it is necessary to have ships

with nuclear weapons in any port, nor is it _

necessary to even contemplate putting

nuclear weapons in the Arctic. And he

States that a path to nuclear disarmament is
to establish nuclear-free zones, including a
nuclear-free central Europe.

So if you want a good jolt to your intellect
and adrenalin, do yourself a favour and buy
this book.

— Betty Griffin

Black’s role in Civil War hailed -

GLORY. Directed by Edward Zwick. Star-
ring Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washing-
ton and Morgan Freeman. At Famous
Players theatres.

Glory is a stunning war epic, very likely
the best movie about the U.S. Civil War
that has ever been made. It captivates and
enfolds the audience with its lyrical imagery,

at the same time that it painstakingly:

recreates truthful historical detail. But, most
important, Glory restores to the historical
record a momentous event torn from its
pages: the heroic, sacrificial struggle of

black people for their own liberation from

slavery.

In a system notorious not only for its
legacy of racial segregation of people, but
for its segregation of truth as well, the fact
that African Americans were not passively
handed their emancipation but fought and
died for it in enormous numbers (constitut-
ing 10 per cent of the Union army) is omit-
ted from the U.S. education curricula.

Glory pays tribute to the 54th Regiment,
the first black unit of 1,000 volunteers, most
of them runaway slaves. Led by Col. Robert
Shaw, a young white man, the regiment was
founded by Shaw’s father, a Boston aboli-
tionist. The character of Frederick Dou-
glass, whose own two sons joined the
regiment, says in the film, ““We offer pride
and dignity to those who have known only
degradation.” (Douglass’ is a regrettably
underwritten part.)

Glory traces the evolution of Shaw (Mat-
thew Broderick) from a naive young solider
fired with romantic notions about war until
sobered by its massive horrors of death and
dismemberment, to a hardened military
leader obsessed with discipline, formality
and regimentation, and finally an impassi-
oned fighter who joins with the black rank
and file as an equal in heroic collective bat-
tle.

“They have risked their lives to be here,
given up their freedom. I owe them my life,”
declares Shaw. It is a complex struggle the
black recruits themselves wage, not only in
armed conflict (compounded by the auto-
matic death sentence against them if cap-

GLORY ... Matthew Broderick (r) is an idealistic young colonel who leads Union
Army’s first black regiment.

tured), but for basic human rights within
society and the army as well, from some-
thing as elementary as shoes and equal pay,
to the demand to be recognized as free men,
not commodities.

The performances of the black solider we
come to know from the mass of eager
ragged and barefoot recruits are exquisite.
Among them are Denzel Washington who
as Trip, an angry and rebellious runaway
slave, is an unforgettable portrait of fury
and courage tempered with steel; Morgan
Freeman, as the older and subdued Raw-
lins, sustains the troops with his quiet
strength as a natural leader.

Glory. does not neglect some serious
questions that have been raised about the
deliberately heedless and racist front line
sacrifice of black troops in a virtually
unwinnable assault, as well as charges that
Lincoln rejected the idea of having black
soldiers and changed his mind only after the
war was being lost, signing the Emancipa-
tion Proclamation for the purpose of

inducting them. At the same time, the black
soldiers, fully aware of the military’s racism,
chose to fight anyway, so urgent is their
desire for liberation.

Director Edward Zwick (TV’s thirty-
something) holds the fragile balance
between heralding the bravery of these
black men while sparing nothing in depict-
ing the horrors of war and the dreadful
casualties which exceeded those of any
other U.S. war.

Said Zwick of Glory. “It’s a remarkable
story that redresses a number of cultural
and historical misconceptions. I did not
know, for example, that black men fought
for their own freedom. I, like everyone else,
presumed it to be, in some paternalistic way,
given to them... The Civil War is a national
myth from which black culture has been
denied a role ... So often when you read
history, facts are the enemies of truth.”

— Prairie Miller
People’s Daily World