Letters

~ Environmental coalition a challenge

Wayne Bradley, Courtenay, writes: Our
province is ina state of political turmoil! We
see the large scale refusal of the labour
movement to accept the validity of labour
legislation imposed on this province; multi-
ple court challenges to the government's
blatant move to deny equal access to medi-
cal care for women terminating pregnancy;
the determined struggle of B.C. native peo-
ple for their right to exist as distinct nation-
alities within our society; and civil
disobedience has become the order of the
day in many parts of B.C. as broad coali-
tions form to challenge the governments
plans to turn the last few square kilometres
of the province over to private capital for
exploitation and destruction.

In light of this scenario, your recent fea-
ture on the struggle to save Strathcona Park
was a welcome boost. On many fronts we
find ourselves facing very difficult choices
— choices which most of us never expected
to confront in our so-called “democratic”
society. In the case of Strathcona Park, we
can either accept the government’s decision
to turn B.C.’s oldest park over to mining
and logging interests or else we can risk
arrest and imprisonment for our opposition
to those interests. There seems to be no
other way, at present, to stop the totally
undemocratic steamroller approach to
development that this government has
adopted on behalf of private enterprise.

Scrambling to maintain some facade of
democracy, the government has agreed toa
“public review” of the boundary changes
within the park which made further mineral
exploration possible. The absurdity of this
move is obvious, given that the changes
have already been made! Friends of Strath-
cona have demanded from the beginning,
that the old boundaries must remain. in
place as they were in 1986, while any

anne

to Socred policies.

enquiry, legally constituted under the
Enquiries Act, is carried out.

This point is critical, for unless the boun-
daries revert to the 1986 status, public hear-
ings or “public review” (whatever that is!)
will simply be used by the government to
Justify the destruction of the park. Participa-
tion in the process after the decision has
been made is not democracy!

__ One of the most important developments
in this ongoing struggle has been the emer-
gence of a united stand being taken by
environmental, native and labour organiza-
tions. A coalition is emerging which has the
potential to unite many strands of the anti-
Socred sentiment that is building in this
province. Of particular importance is the
statement issued following the second meet-
ing of the coalition. Calling for “. ..analter-
native agenda to that of the present
government,” this statement presents a
golden opportunity for labour, community

Se

STRATHCONA PARK CAMP... protesters’ action an indication of the opposition

and other democratic organizations to pres-
ent a peoples’ agenda as an alternative to the
right-wing corporate agenda that is cur-
rently directing this province.

This will present a special challenge to
progressives in the labour movement. While
the statement declares environmental pro-
tection and full employment to be compati-
ble the truth of this statement is not always
obvious to those whose living is derived
from such activities as mining and logging.
Further developing policies for these sectors
of the economy will be crucial for building
the unity around the present struggle. This
will be especially challenging in the face of
the often subjective, gut-reaction negativism
of many workers, and right-wing labour
leaders in these industries.

Weare looking at an excellent opportun-
ity for labour to put forward to the public its
vision of an alternative for B.C. Let’s not let
this slip by.

Book’s ideas on women are ‘backward’

Michael Connolly, Toronto, writes: I
believe that Leanne MacMillan and Peter
McVey were_correct when they used the
term “backward” (“Backward ideas about
women’s role,” Tribune Feb. 24) to describe
Gorbachev’s writing on women in his book
Perestroika.. Gorbachev seems to have a
terrific political line on everything except,
unfortunately, women in the workforce.
Soviet policy hasn’t changed much in recent
years, and they still see women as being
responsible for housework and child rearing
in addition to being members of the work-
force.

Gorbachev hints that the cause of some
social problems is the fact that women are
too busy to do their jobs and juggle house-
work and childcare at the same time. He
says that Soviet society has to help them in
their “purely womanly mission.”

The way Soviet society has been helping
women to work the traditional double shift
was stated quite clearly by Nelya Ramazan-
ova, editor of Soviet Women, in a Tribune
article Sept. 6, 1983 headlined “There Are
No Women’s Problems.” She said “The
government helps by creating all kinds of
services — laundries, cafeterias, semi-pre-
pared food — to help liberate women from
the household, so that a woman doesn’t
spend all her free time from her job on

household duties.”

' Unfortunately, the Soviets have yet to see
housework and child rearing as being
equally the responsibility of men. There, it is
still seen as ‘women’s work.” In Cuba, laws
were passed to make men share equally
these tasks, and there have been political
programs to fight against the tradition of
“machismo.”

I’ve had the opportunity to ask Soviet
educators and leaders of the Komsomol

and CPSU about these things and not only
do they have nothing similar, it is not seen as
a problem. I could also find no evidence of
anything being done in the schools or the
organizations of the Young Pioneers to
fight against sex role stereotyping. Such
programs have existed in our schools for
several years now because we fought for
them.

_ One of the results of Soviet women work-
ing a double shift is that few of them have
time for political life. This is reflected in
government and Party leadership bodies

where the vast majority of decision-makers
are men. You can’t go to Party meetings if
you’re always cleaning house.

I applaud the reforms and glasnost that
have taken hold of Soviet life.

I hope this new thinking will also be app-
lied soon to women’s issues. Until now, the
sexist ideas that have been prevalent there
can only be seen as “backward” by the
standards of Canadian progressives.

P.S. Fred Weir is doing a fabulous job of
analyzing events in the USSR. He must be
commended for his insight and honesty.

... but another reader disagrees

Octavio Pascaluta, Toronto, writes: The
issue of women’s role in our time is
approached by Leanne MacMillan and
Peter McVey (“Backward ideas on women’s
role,” Tribune letters, Feb. 24, 1988) in an
unscientific way. There is nothing of
“backward musings about women’s role” in
Mikhail Gorbachev’s Perestroika; on the
contrary, there is a progressive outlook on
the matter.

It is the lack of perspective on the part of
the writers which does not allow them to
distinguish between
women in capitalist society and that condi-
tion in a socialist society. What Perestroika
says about women is pertinent to Soviet
women. To say that Gorbachev’s book
“strengthens backward ideas in Canada” is
misleading for its does not deal with women
in capitalist society.

The writers try to apply the conception of

a global community of women with, °

allegedly, similar goals. This conception is

the condition of

alien to a scientific understanding of society;
it is used for the purpose of diversion by
western bourgeois feminism and sometimes
it is mistakenly used by the left-oriented
section of the feminist movement. Myopia
shown by the writers’ reflections on Peres-
troika is such an instance.

One notices for example that in the letter,
women are referred to in one category. In the
real world, there are women living in a
socialist society, in a capitalist one and
Third World women. By the way, women in
the USSR are eligible for pensions at age 55,
in Canada at the age of 65 and in Third
World countries, never. This alone shows
that one can never take a general approach
regarding women the world over as the wri-
ters do. Nor can one predict, as MacMillan
and McVey do in a breathtaking sociologi-
cal foresight contained in one sentence, the
future structure of society and the role of the
family in it. This is “obscure historical mus-
ing” and not what the writers seem to see in
Perestroika and what is not there.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

Peace walk
echoed in
INF treaty

Frank Kennedy, president, End the
Arms Race, writes: The annual Walk
for Peace, organized by End the Arms
Race, is scheduled for April 23 this
year.

Every year at this time, the walk
draws thousands of people who are
genuinely concerned about the issue
of world peace and Canada’s role in
achieving this goal.

This strong and dedicated ex-
pression does cause a certain amount
of disruption to the residents around
Kitsilano and to the businesses along
the walk route, which goes from Kitsi-
lano over the Burrard Bridge, down
Burrard to Robson, over to Hornby
and back to Sunset Beach, not to
mention some necessary traffic ad-
justments.

The walk and this route have a
strong tradition attached to them,
particularly to draw to the attention
of people in the Lower Mainland the
importance of expressing concern
about the dangers of a nuclear war.

We should all feel proud of our
efforts to date, with the recent signing
of the INF Treaty between the U.S.
and the USSR. Our voices were heard,

-as were the millions of other voices
around the world.

Much more has to be done.

We therefore take this opportunity
to urge everyone to participate once
again in the Walk for Peace on April
23, and express our appreciation to
those citizens and businesses that may
experience a short time of disruption
to help ensure a lifetime of peace and
security.

PEACE WALK, 1987
couver march a ‘strong tradition.’

Van-

Pacific Tribune, March 2, 1988 « 5