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REVIEW

Topical tunes mark folk fest

Arthur Johnstone is full of praise for the
groundswell of young artists in the United
Kingdom who are singing for freedom these
days.

Johnstone — shipyard worker, trade
unionist and singer of progressive and tradi-
tional Scottish songs — was one of the fea-
tured performers at the 10th annual
Vancouver Folk
Music Festival last
weekend.

In a brief inter-
view between per-
formances at the
Jericho Beach park
site, Johnstone talk-
ed less about him-
self and more about
the political and ec-
onomic situation in
the British Isles and
particularly around his area, near the
Clydeside, Scotland’s key shipbuilding area
and the site of many militant trade union
battles.

“Heavy industry has been devastated on
the Clydeside. The best they can offer young
people are Youth Training Courses, which
pay 25 pounds a week. And they fail to tell
those who apply that they then are cut off
unemployment benefits.”

Despite that, union militancy remains
high around the Clyde, with major support
actions launched in support of the striking
miners in 1985, he noted.

While Johnstone’s personal style of
music could be said to be traditional, the
trade unionist — singing is a secondary

JOHNSTONE

profession — praises the efforts of current
young progressive songwriters.

“There are key struggles happening and a
lot of young writers are writing about those
struggles. Young people are taking a stand
on the issues of today.”

Ironically, the folk festival provided
Johnstone his first meeting with fellow U.K.
performer, the renowned punk-folk Cock-
ney singer Billy Bragg. Bragg’s electric gui-
tar, amplified to distortion levels, and his
rough British working class voice are a far
cry from Johnstone’s ballad singing.

But that makes no difference to John-
stone: “He’s getting the word out to young
people, including those in Scotland. Good
luck to him. He’s doing a good job.”

Bragg received standing ovations for his
performances at festival workshops —
small concerts — and on the main stage
Saturday evening. With almost every song
on a topical theme — including Scottish
singer Dick Gaughan’s “Do you think that
the Russians want war?” — the young Brit-
ish performer lived up to his reputation of
not avoiding controversial positions.

Political performers were featured in
unprecedented numbers at this year’s festi-
val. Winning applause for their innovative
dancing — on the themes of Nicaragua’s
struggle to survive, or the fight against
South Africa’s racist apartheid system
— was The Dance Brigade.

Veteran labour and progressive singer-
songwriters Si Kahn, Roy Bailey, Leon
Rosselson, Frankie Armstrong and John
McCutcheon were all back this year. B.C.’s
premier group, Spirit of the West — best

described as “Celtic punk” — rocked the
usually more sedate workshop stage with
their original compositions. ~
Festival organizers estimate record numti-
bers poured through the gates, particularly
on Friday night and Saturday. The addi-
tional attendance helped alleviate the stag-
gering $80,000 deficit from last year when
Expo 86 robbed the festival of its usual
attendance.

West.

FESTIVAL PERFORMERS (clockwise, from top): Billy Bragg, Kin Lalat, Spir

é
it of the |

Marxists and
Christians ‘natural
allies’ in the

N

AN

10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 22, 1987

FIDEL AND RELIGION: Conversa-
tions with Frei Betto. Pathfinder Press,
1986. At the People’s Co-op Bookstore.
Paperback $16.50, hardcover $29.95

Through four days in May, 1985, Frei
Betto, a Brazilian priest of the Domini-
can order, interviewed Fidel Castro on
the topic of religion.

Their wide-ranging conversation cov-
ered Fidel’s childhood and education in
Catholic schools, his revolutionary expe-
rience in the overthrow of the Batista
dictatorship, and the building of social-
ism in Cuba. But this is mainly a lead-in
to his views on the role of the Latin
American Catholic Church in the pres-
ent struggles for national liberation and
human dignity.

What emerges from the intriguing dia-
logue is a vision of a new unity between
two natural allies being forged. Into the
often bleak struggle against the imperial-
ism and dictatorships that blight the lives
of millions in Latin America, comes
fresh hope.

And here, as in no other book, is
explained so clearly the social reality
behind that enigmatic catch-phrase,
“1 iberation Theology.”

Through the conversations between
the priest and the statesman many of the
roots of Liberation Theology are traced:
the inspiration of the Cuban revolution
in overcoming unemployment, drug
addiction, prostitution, poverty and cor-
ruption; the continuing prevalence of
these problems throughout the rest Latin
America; Pope John XXIII’s call for the
Catholic Church “to become once again
a church of the poor;” the conference of
Latin American bishops at Medillin,
Colombia in 1968.

At Medillin, it is noted, these religious
leaders of Latin America spoke openly of
“the international imperialism of money,”
and declared that the Church should
have a “preferential option for the
poor.”

Following this slogan, many hundreds
of Catholic Church workers — priests,

nuns and lay people — moved the site of
their work, and their homes, from the
comfortable suburbs to the slums. And
the poor, their own organizations
crushed by military repression, responded
by invading the church in order to
remain organized, articulate, conscious
and active. Betto says, “to the same
extent as the poor invaded the church,
Catholic priests and bishops started to be
converted to Christianity.”

In short, a church which had for cen-
turies made its alliance with the rich and
powerful began to change sides.

For Betto: “Theology is faith’s answer
to the challenges posed by reality.” The
Latin American reality of mass suffering
and armed repression demanded that the
new theology resort to the social sciences,
including Marxism.

Betto leaves no doubt that in the
minds of many liberation theologians,
being both a Marxist and a Christian is
no self-contradiction. He at one point
assets, “To fear Marxism is like fearing
mathematics because you suspect it was
influenced by Pythagoras.”

And for Castro? “There are no con-
tradictions between the aims of religion
and those of socialism. ... I believe that
the pain of the poor invaded the church;
the indescribable tragedy of those masses
invaded the church.

_.. Liberation Theologians aren’t the
only ones who use science in research; it’s,
used by every researcher in every field of
human knowledge, and it’s evident that
the use of scientific methods hasn’t
entered into contradiction with theirreli- |
gious faith,” Castro asserts. }

For Castro, the alliance between |
Christians and Marxists is not just a mat-
ter of tactics: “We want to be strategic
allies, which means permanent allies.”

This book, a comradely collaboration
between a devout Catholic priest and the
leader of a socialist country, both com-
mitted revolutionaries, is simply indis-
pensable to an understanding of the
current ferment in Latin America.

— Glenn Bullard