By JANICE HARRIS

When Steve Gidora and his
group, Bargain at Half the Price,
left Vancouver to perform in the
International Festival of Political
Song in Berlin, GDR, they were
already committed to music with
a political message.

When they returned last week
that commitment was even
stronger, after having heard the
songs of six young Kampuchean
workers.

The Kampucheans, none of
them professional musicians,
came to the festival with only the
clothes on their backs, a tradi-
tional two-stringed instrument

-and a drum. But they left with
guitars given to them by Mexico’s
Victor Jara Singers and Bargain
performer Dave Jensen’s har-
monica — and the overwhelming
solidarity of thousands, perform-
ers and spectators alike.

“*Their performances were tru-
ly emotional experiences,’’ said
Steve Gidora, Bargain’s musical
director.

“They could not forget the
tragic plight of their people, thou-
sands who are dying daily of star-
vation. Sometimes they weren’t
able to continue singing, and they
would just break down.”’

The festival has been an annual
event of international solidarity
for 10 years and has featured in

ean folksinger and song writer,
Victor Jara, and Chile’s Quilap-
ayun. :

From Feb. 9-17 this year, Ber-
lin, GDR, again played host to
musicians from over 20 countries,
opening the doors of its civic cen-
tres, theatre halls, discos, pubs,
factories, children’s palaces and
state halls to their varied perform-
ances.

The goals of the festival were
summed up in a message sent by
U.S. folksinger, Pete Seeger, and
read out at the gala opening con-
cert:

**Songs are not speeches but
they can cross borders and reach
human Hearts, and help, indirect-
ly, to bring a new, peaceful and

the past such performers as Chil--

just world which we all know —

must come.”

That sentiment. found its
‘“thighest expression,’’ according
to Gidora, when Greek composer
Mikis Theodorakis conducted his

moving work, Canto General, in- .

spired by a poem of the same
name by Chilean poet, Pablo
Neruda, at the opening concert.

An 80-member choir and two
soloists were accompanied by a
large percussion section, two
pianos and other instruments in
what everyone there felt was the
highlight of the festival.

At the closing of the first night,
Bargain performers, Jim Carlin,
Craig Phillips, Jamie Gidora,
Dave Jensen, Jan Wishinski and
Steve Gidora joined hundreds of
festival participants on the stage,
and sang the International with
flowers in their raised hands.

“*We were nervous when we ar-
rived, but the nervousness just
disappeared as soon as we sang
that evening,’’ Gidora said.

Bargain gave eight concerts in
eight days. Each concert was dif-
ferent, reflecting the variety of
audiences they played before and
the various locations for the per-
formances.

“We performed for children in
the Pioneer Palace, for workers in
an electronics factory, for milling
crowds in the lobby of a sports
centre, for youth in a disco.and we
also gave a feature performance
for 600 people at a theatre hall
called the Volksbonne.

“Our medley of, Ukrainian,
Russian and Canadian songs,

dedicated to the Olympics, was'

enthusiastically received every-
where. Festival-goers also liked
Teach Your Children, a Crosby,

-Stills and Nash song and the

humorous lyrics of Dr. Hook, a
pop group from the States.”
The 700 organizers of the
festival, members of the Free
German Youth, arranged five
forums where musicians talked

- about their musicical influences,

current trends in music, progress-
ive music and a variety of other
topics.

Ne

TOP: Bargain at Half the Price in performance at the Festival of Political Song in Berlin, GDR. BOT-
TOM: Massed performers sing The International in the finale of the Festival's opening night.

Bargain’s songs part of world
solidarity at festival in Berlin

_ “Bargain contributed.to three
of the five forums,”’ Gidora said.
“‘We tried to describe as accur-
ately as we could, the multi-
cultural makeup of Canada, our
cultural domination by the U.S.
— although we don’t reject all of
those influences — as well as such
shaping. forces as the trade union
movement, ethnic groups, the
Quebec people, indigenous peo-
ples and others.”’

Much of the exchange between

the musicians was informal, play-
ing together and passing musical
scores, songs and tapes around.
. A popular Soviet group, Bal-
lada, spent a night singing ‘‘lots
of Pete Seeger’ with Bargain
since both groups were very simi-
lar in composition.

‘‘We also jammed with a Pol-
ish pop group,” he added. _.

Three members of Bargain
joined a tour of GDR cities after
the festival was over.

‘For another week, we were in
the constant company of per-
formers from Mexico, Kampu-

chea, Laos, Cuba, Lebanon, }

Northern Ireland and the GDR.”

Dave Jensen, one of the three
on the later tour, said that a rap-
port developed amongst the mu-
sicians touring and performing
together. ‘‘The show kept getting
better and the audiences were
grea ee

Other musical highlights of the
festival included Los Parras de
Chile, Angel and Isabel Parra,
both familiar to Vancouver audi-
ences, the popular Northern Ire-
land group, Sands Family,
Ballada from the Soviet Union
and Mexico’s Victor Jara Singers.

Musicians came from France,
West Germany, Denmark, Mex-
ico, Chile, Italy, Uruguay, Portu-
gual, USSR, Lebanon, Laos,
Vietnam, Kampuchea, Poland,
Bulgaria, Hungary, Cuba,

Nicaragua, Namibia and
Canada.
Bargain was the second Cana-

dian group to participate in the
festival. The Ontario group,
Perth County Conspiracy, at-
tended in 1975.

Change political

system for real
iustice—Rankin ©

Steve Stavenes, former president
of the United Fishermen and Allied

Workers, went to jail without one ~

shred of evidence against him.
Similarly, former Canadian Mer-
chant Service Guild President, Ar-
nie Davis ‘‘was rammed in jail for
no other reason than to break his
union’s 1969 strike,’’ lawyer Harry
Rankin told over 130 people in
Vancouver last Sunday.

Rankin’s talk on “Law: A
Socialist Perspective,” was the first
in a series of four forums in the
Norman Bethune Marxist series,
sponsored by the Communist Par-

ty.

The legal system, according to
Rankin, reacts sharply and
decisively against challenges to the
status quo. Stavenes, Davis, and
more recently, CUPW president,
Jean-Claude Parrot represented
such a challenge and were im-
prisoned.

Until there is that kind of a clash
on a class basis and pressure from
people then the legal system will re-
main ‘‘flexible,’’ he said.

Rankin’s lecture was a wide-
ranging discussion of the law, in-
cluding a look at the prison system
and the judicial system.

“Although prisons are more
modern now — guards sit in towers
and press buttons — the cages are
the same, the philosophy is the
same and the results produced the
same as when I first started visiting
penal institutions 30 years ago.

‘“We have made next to no pro-
gress in improving our prisons,’’ he
declared.

Rankin argued that Canadian
prisons need to be completely
overhauled. ‘‘Their objective
should be the rehabilitation of
prisoners with the view to their re-
entry into society.

‘Right now we have a
disgustingly degrading and
dehumanizing prison system which
costs us millions of dollars so that
we won’t have to see it or worry
about it.”’

The rehabilitation of prisoners
would include allowing them to
work for wages, accumulating the
money they earn and freer access to
their families and friends.

Prison activists who see these
reforms as solutions to the problem
are fooling themselves. ‘“‘If it is the
political system which produces
criminals, then only by changing
the political system will we solve the
problem.”

Laughter greeted his added
remark that there may be some
people inside which weren’t there

' before, ‘‘after we’ve finished.”

Rankin said he saw the reforms
pressed for by such reform-minded
groups as the prison activists as
“necessary steps in the logical se-
quence of steps in winning the

ultimate solution - socialism.” | A
In socialist countries, he Sales
speaking from his own personal &
perience, crime is disappe
because the base of crime 1S
pearing. Drugs are no longer the
massive problem they used to bel?
Vietnam because of the develoP”
ment of socialism in that county: —

By comparison, our capitalist
system stands in stark conte
“Our system impels people alone
the road of crime,”’ he said.

The pressures of getting ahead,
our consumer-oriented.m
the knowledge among the
of people that there are crooks a
every level of society, induce people
into crime.

Although there are ‘crooks
everywhere,”’ it is mainly the poor
and inarticulate who fill our jails.
The legal system is a bagmat i
those occupying the lower end °
the social scale, “the victims of @
rotten society.”

But when the middle-class;
becomes involved in crime, | sal
ways and means are found “t0
divert them out of the system with
no stigma at all.”’

When drugs, for instants
became popular amond middle
class students and intellectuals, the
formerly harsh penalties 10F
possession were relaxed.

‘Tt remember when you would »
get four or five years for one cap?
heroin,”’ Rankin said.

Similarly, now that many people
from the middle and upper class

_ are caught shoplifting, the crime

treated like a disease which strikes
everyone.

‘Shoplifting has become
humanized,”’ he said ‘‘and we a
learning to become more tolerailt
of the problem as it becom®
endemic to the middle-class.” __

The injustices of the legal syste™
are based on class lines, he !&
emphasized, and in large part flow"
ed from the judicial system. |

“You may have the best laws i
the world but if you don’t apply
them equitably, then what good ale
they?’’ he asked.

With middle and upper lass
judges dispensing law in ou!
judicial courts it is little wondel
then that the laws work better fot
the rich than for the poor. ““They ”
get their positions by politi
patronage,’’ he said. ‘‘They are ap-
pointed to federal courts by the
Liberal party and to the provincial
courts by the provincial governl-
ment.”’

The real criminal is the system;
Rankin declared. He called on pe0-
ple to fight for their rights to creaté
a ‘‘well developed class col-
sciousness’? and a ‘“‘well developed
political party” for when ‘‘the big-
ger struggles start.”’

| In loving memory of

BILL SWANN:

(Feb. 13, 1907-March 2, 1980)

His wife, Viola
and sons Gary, Casey and Bob

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 7, 1980—Page 10