Arts/Review Anti-union bias, individualism mark Lean On LEAN ON ME. Directed by John A. Avild- sen. Produced by Norman Twain. Written by Michael Schiffer. Starring Morgan Freeman, Beverly Todd, Robert Guillaume. At local theatres. Lean On Me is supposedly based on the true story of Joe Clark, principal of East Side High School in Paterson, N.J. But instead of a dramatization of real life, the movie is a Hollywood version of the Clark story, and it becomes more Hollywood as it proceeds. The story begins in 1967. Clark, dressed casually, is teaching an integrated class a dynamic English lesson. The students seem totally involved and are participating in the presentation, based on the civil rights movements. We see a great teacher at work. A fellow teacher tips Clark off to a great betrayal. The union executive board has traded him off to an elementary school — stabbed him in the back bécause he is too progressive. The anti-union bias of the movie is set right here. The scene shifts to 20 years later. The school is as, bad as it can get. Graffiti and filth abound, the students are screaming, pushing, hitting, flashing knives, throwing things, a stretcher flashes by. We soon learn the school has the lowest Basic Skill score in New Jersey and is to be taken over by the state if it cannot show ‘major improvement by a specified date. The superintendent of schools decides, reluc- tantly, that only Joe Clark could possibly save the school. Returning from “exile,” Clark, now wearing a suit and tie, cannot believe what he sees and hears. So, bullhorn in hand, he shocks a wild, noisy school assembly by announcing that he is expelling a large group of students immediately. Disregarding cries of foul and illegal, he becomes a one-man dynamo. His voice booms, he suspends and fires teachers, and throws out students. The school seems to shape up. More and more students grow to respect and even love him. In a real Hollywood finish, all the stu- dents gather to his support and, just in the nick of time, the improved test scores arrive: The movie ends in a feast of Hollywood glory. Hollywood can move us with its story- telling skill. Yet, even if this movie were just fiction, many parts of it would and should be open to sharp criticism. Me film It pictures one individual as capable of solving complicated problems singlehand- edly. Only rarely do the realities of the out- side world get any attention at all. There is only one brief reference to the lack of funds for the school. The union is depicted as being at best unnecessary, at worst a great obstacle to progress. The ending is totally unrealistic, if not pure fantasy. Let’s look for a minute at the real story. We do know that in the 1980s, East Side High exhibited most of the problems com- mon to inner-city schools. Paterson has a long history of union organizing and strug- gle in its textile mills. They provided the major industrial base in the area. Now the mills are gone; the industry is dead. The city administration seems to believe in law and order but not in social services. The Reagan years have also taken their toll. The school is old, in bad repair, and lacks many essential features. The student population is overwhelm- ingly African-American, Latino and Asian. When, in 1987, Clark was called in to turn the school around, much needed to be done. The outcome has been better disci- pline, and the walls are free of graffiti. Those students still there are being ruled with an iron hand. But there is little evidence that the stu- dents are learning more or better. Individ- ual scores have not markedly improved. One point is clear: the hundreds of stu- dents who were thrown out are still on the street. There is no effort to help them, either by the city or the school. The real-life Clark steps on and disre- gards negotiated contracts. He breaks rules and seems to break laws. It is not easy, but it is possible to improve schools by applying more funds, institute smaller class sizes, and provide dedicated, well-trained staff and social services. On balance, the Clark story, both real and dramatized, must be seen as a danger- ous illusion. Joe Clark has recently announced he is taking a leave of absence for at least a year. He has said he would be interested in a post in the Bush administra- tion. — Trudy Lennon People’s Daily World Trudy Lennon, now retired, is a 30-year veteran of teaching in New Jersey public schools. Shevchenko. Members of the Dovbush and Druzhba dance groups from the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians fill the stage at North Vancouver's Centennial Theatre Sunday. The concert, which included several AUUC dance groups aS well as the Vancouver Folk Orchestra, the Jubilee Choir and the Lyonok Trio, marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ukrainian national poet Taras New book details Inuit fight against despoilers of Arctic ARCTIC TWILIGHT: Reflections on the Destiny of Canada’s Northern Land and People. By Kevin McMahon. James Lori- mer & Co. Paperback, $16.95, 259 pp. At the People’s Co-op Bookstore, Vancouver. Arctic Twilight is an in-depth study and beautifully written accountof the impact of western civilization on the Inuit people in the Canadian north. For years Inuit were ignored by the fed- eral government and continued living, as they had for thousands of years, in tune with nature — although some attention has been given to their existence by individ- uals such as the noted author, Farley Mowat. But when the military swept over the Arctic, first during World War II, and more so during the Cold War and the establish- ment of the DEW Line, the Inuit people were brought firmly under the control of the Canadian government, this book informs us ‘ Author Kevin McMahon does a fine job telling this story. He very dramatically expresses the impact of our unthinking, uncaring, consumer oriented society on the indigenous people of the Arctic. As one of the Inuit he interviewed tells it, “They (the Inuit) never had any beginning ...they were always hunters — all the way through they were always there. No begin- ning. And then their world changed.” It was because of the military installa- tions that the government rounded up the Arctic peoples and placed them in small hamlets or reserves. The men went to work as labourers and, as a consequence, their old skills as hunters and their arts of self preser- vation began to disappear. They became And now for some movies from Swit- zerland. Swiss cinema, you say? Yep. The Van- couver East Cinema, in association with the Swiss Consulate-General in Van- couver, is showing seven feature films from the landlocked country of neutrality and mountains — films that, judging by the brief blurbs in the press release, seem attuned to social and political realities. For example, The Boat is Full concerns the rejection by Switzerland of Jews flee- ing Nazi persecution during World War II. Frosty Paradise updates the refugee question to contemporary times, and The Frozen Heart is a social satire concerning the disposal of a corpse. Swiss films in Vancouver; holocaust week Dates and times (all evening showings) for the Swiss Film Tour are: Alpine Fire, April 28, 7:15 p.m. and April 29, 9:30 p.m.; Savage Law, April 28, 9:45 and April 29, 7:15; Acropolis Now, April 30, 7:15 and May 1, 9:30; The Boat is Full, April 30, 9:30 and May 1, 7:15; Death of Mario Ricci, May 2, 7:15 and May 4, 9:30; The Frozen Heart, May 2, 9:30 and May 3, 7:15; Frosty Paradise, May 3, 9:30 and May 4, 7:15. Separate admission is required for each film. Mee Wa KCTS, the U.S. public television station in Seattle, marks Holocaust Remem- brance Week with two major features. One, Hitler’s Final Solution: The Wannsee Conference won critical acclaim during a brief theatrical run in Vancouver. It uses actual minutes to dramatically recreate the Jan. 20, 1942 meeting in which the Nazi leaders planned the barbarous attempt to eliminate all European Jews. The 90- minute feature airs Monday, May 1,9 p.m. Also on the bill is Reunion, a 30-minute documentary revolving around the reun- ion of a U.S. soldier and a former inmate of the Mauthausen death camp in Austria. It plays Monday, May 1, 10:30 p.m. 10 e Pacific Tribune, April 24, 1989 more and more dependent on the Hudson’s Bay Company, army jobs, welfare and con- trol by the RCMP. I have very personal feelings about this book since I have two Inuit grandchild- ren and three great grandchildren who live in the inner Arctic circle at Spence Bay, which I have visited. Their other grand- mother is Kakatooneek. We ae the same age, but she spent the first hair of her life in the nomadic tradition of her neople and her father was a shaman. When I read McMahon’s interpretation of the original philosophy, culture and life- style of the Inuit people, I began to realize more completely what Kakatooneek and her friends were trying to convey tc me. It is the story of a people who know they must change. On Inuit, Noah Adglok, tell McMahon: “They cannot do whatever they want anymore because the government does not know what Inuit culture is all about. Governments and people from other countries, even from Canada, are coming in and pushing them into a corner. One of these days, if we don’t own the land, we are going to fall off a cliff.” This position reflects a great reversal of tradition. Inuit never conceived of owning the land. They belonged to the land. The younger ones now wanta say in their own destiny; they want what they call “nunauut (our land).” This would mean a homeland for the people of the central and eastern Arctic, with the western portion designated as Denedak, or belonging to the Dene. McMahon writes that Inuit know the “outsiders” will only respect the things they hold in their hand. So border and maps it will be, some of these maps being drawn from memory. McMahon paints a terrifying picture of the effects of the construction of the now outdated DEW Line, which left hundreds of electrical capacitors and transformers, some as big as desks, that are now leaking thousands of litres of deadly polychlori- nated biphenyls (PCBs). This has been going on for more than 20 years. Now, Inuit have to contend with the installation of a new weapons warning sys- tem to replace the DEW Line — not to mention possible nuclear submarines in the Arctic and the current round of NATO fighter jets screaming over the land at tree- top level, scaring, so the people say, caribou calves right out of the womb. Arctic Twilight is a book all Canadians should read. McMahon writes in an easy personal style and surely everything that happens to the Inuit and Arctic land affects - usall. — Jonnie Rankin ( | |