Letters

S

Why won’t the media acknowledge
the American-built Korean Wall?

In this fair democracy, do we really enjoy
freedom of the press, or is it subject to
restrictions of which the public is not aware?

Several years ago I passed through the
Berlin Wall, like many millions of others, by
presenting the appropriate papers. Four
years ago, I visited the Korean Wall but did
not get through it, since nobody can do so,
with the exception of American army per-
sonnel and perhaps a few field mice.

The Berlin Wall was erected by Germans
for their own purposes. It was nine feet high
and 28 miles long and guarded by soldiers
with machine guns. The Korean Wall was
built by the United States occupation for-
ces. It is 18 feet high and 150 miles long.

On the 25th anniversary of the Berlin
Wall, in August 1986, the newspapers of
this continent printed square miles of editor-
ials and articles, all of them couched in
tones of moral outrage. None of them men-
tioned the Korean wall. Four American
presidents have spoken in feigned outrage
over the Berlin Wall without mention of the
wall for which they themselves were respon-
sible. Political hypocrisy knows no bounds,

On that occasion I wrote to the Sun,
wondering why they were so indignant
about the one wall without ever having
mentioned the other. My letter was not
printed.

Two years later, I read a lengthy trave-
logue by one of the editors of the National
Geographic, in which he mentioned the
Korean demilitarized zone, which he had
just then visited, implying that North Korea
was impeding visits between the two sec-
tions of the country, without ever mention-
ing the impenetrable wall on the other side.
He also related a fantasy to the effect that
the North Koreans were digging tunnels
under the demilitarized zone through which
to send invading armies into the south.

I wrote to the NG Readers Forum, ask-
ing whether this omission was due to self-
censorship or to orders from the Pentagon.
That letter was not published, but I received
a reply from the editor, in which he did not
answer my question, but used two pages to
talk all around the subject, without ever
using the name Korea or the word wall.

On Nov. 12, the Berlin Wall came down.
On the next day I wrote to the Sun, wonder-
ing whether we could now anticipate that
the Americans would also tear down the
Korean wall. A few days later, I received a
phone call from a lady named Rebecca

_Wigod, who apparently is the editor in

charge of letters to the editor. She was con-
firming that I had written the letter and said
she would print it.

When a month had gone by and my letter
had not appeared. I wrote to Nicholas Hills
asking who had killed it and why. On Jan.
14, I received a letter from Wigod in which
she explained that Frank Rutter had told
her that if a wall 150 miles long existed, he
would have heard of it, and since he had not
heard of it, it didn’t exist, therefore my letter
wasn’t published.

On Jan. 16, I wrote to Wigod, giving her
the names and phone numbers of two Uni-
ted Church Ministers and one youth leader,
all of whom had been to the wall and des-
cribed it on radio talk shows.

Three weeks later, my letter not having
appeared, I wrote to Wigod again, pointing
out that her previous excuse would not
longer wash and asking what was now her

problem. She then phoned me and stated

that my original letter had been lost. I

offered to replace it with a copy, and she
assured me that it would then be printed. I
mailed the copy that day, Feb. 8. It is now
March 8, and my letter still has not
appeared.

We can now be 99 per cent certain that
the Vancouver Sun and all other newspap-
ers are under orders from on high not to

disclose to their readers the existence of the
Korean Wall.

Or are we sure? Let this letter be a test. I
am mailing it to the Sun, the Province, the
Courier and the Pacific Tribune. Let’s see
whether it gets published, and by whom.

Emil Bjarnason,
Vancouver

Left isn’t silent on Meech

While I agree with most of your Feb. 1Y
editorial, “Nationalist tensions play into
Tory hands”, there are a couple of misap-
prehensions I would like to correct.

First, it is incorrect (and unfair to the
people of Manitoba) to assert that Gary
Filmon “rose to the premiership ... on a
wave of anti-French sentiment . . ..”” Rather,
Filmon quite clearly rode to the premiership
on a wave of anti-NDP sentiment, a wave
cause by a series of bonehead moves on the
part of the NDP government, moves which
the Manitoba media and opposition parties
exploited cynically and well. Filmon was
assisted in his ascension by those Winnipeg
voters who, while fleeing the NDP in great
numbers, couldn’t stomach voting for
Tories, and ended up voting Liberal.

Anti-Francophone sentiment is always
present in Manitoba, of course, but in the
1987 election it was clearly in the deep back-
ground. If anyone was exploiting it, it was
Liberal leader Sharon Carstairs, whose
unprincipled opposition to the Meech Lake
Accord was made known early, and often.

On another note, your own publication is

evidence that the field of opposition to the
Meech Lake Accord has not been “‘aban-
doned” to the right. There are more. We at
Canadian Dimension magazine, for exam-
ple, stated shortly after the Accord was
signed that we were opposed to it on the
grounds that (1) Quebec should be recog-
nized as a “distinct society” with no condi-
tions or qualifications; (2) Quebec gained
little from the Accord which it didn’t
already have, and; (3) the unconscionable
devolution of power to the other provinces
puts both societies at unacceptable risk.

It’s no surprise to us, and it should be no
surprise to you, that a Canadian media
which “seems unable to find a single fran-
cophone spokesperson” also cannot find
either an anglophone or francophone to
express some principled objections to the
Accord, Such arguments appear only to be
on the Left, and our phones aren’t in the
rolodexes at the Globe. If we’re not being
heard, it’s not because we’re silent.

Brian Robinson,
Canadian Dimension, Winnipeg

Material ‘deeply offensive’

Writing letters to the editor can bea risky
business.

A year ago, after the Vancouver Sun pub- .

lished my letter criticizing those who would
kill Salman Rushdie or ban his book, I
promptly received some anti-Jewish hate
mail complete with a photograph of Yitz-
hak Shamir (who admittedly is not my
favorite person) and some parting words
about Adolph Hitler. (The Sun publishes
the home addresses of all letter writers.)

This morning (March 5), shortly after the
Sun printed my letter criticizing the often
violent tactics of Operation Rescue, I
received an anonymous package of well-
illustrated information on the various stages
of fetal development.

In a glossy brochure entitled ‘“Person-
hood and Discrimination,” the sender had
kindly highlighted, in day-glow pink, var-
ious references to Jews to make sure I didn’t
miss anything personally significant. For
example:

“Tt is truly ironic that women and Jews
are among the strongest advocates of this
modern-day discrimination. These (people)
have short memories and selective vision in
that they fail to recognize that they are
imposing the same unfair, oppressive and
arbitrary judgments on the child in the

womb that were imposed on them just over
50 years ago.”

Speaking as a woman whose own rela-
tives were exterminated in the Holocaust, I
find it deeply offensive that anyone would
compare the fascist horror of Hitler’s Final
Solution toa woman’s right to reproductive
choice.

. Let’s not forget that one of Hitler’s first
acts upon coming to power was to outlaw
contraceptive advertising and close birth
control clinics. Abortion was tantamount to
sabotage against the state.

If there is a comparison to be made, it is
between the practice and ideology of fas-
cism and the modern-day anti-choice
movement.

The senders of this parcel of booklets and
brochures very carefully blacked out their
organizational name and address on all
their full-colour, glossy enclosures. The
package was delivered by my letter carrier
but had no postmark. (Have they infiltrated
Canada Post now?)

However, by holding the pages up to a
very bright light, I was able to discern the
identity of my correspondent: the Coqui-
tlam Pro-Life Society.

Kim Goldberg,
Nanaimo

Michael
Wilson:

here are
alternatives
to the GST

Here are some alternatives tothe
Goods and Services Tax
recommended by the Pro-Canada
Network, a national network of
labour, community, wo..en, Native,
anti-poverty, church, and other
groups.

© Enacting a net wealth tax: an
annual wealth tax of between one to
two per cent on assets over $75,000
to $100,000 could raise between $4
and $8 billion. The tax could be
structured so that homes, family
farms, and other personal
possessions of 80 to 90 per cent of
Canadians are exempt. Many
European countries, including West
Germany, Austria, Norway, Sweden
and Denmark, have wealth taxes.

© Restoring corporate taxes to the
levels they were in 1984 could yield
$1 to $2 billion in public revenue.

© Ending corporate tax breaks
such as depreciation allowances for
real estate developers, deductions for
money borrowed for corporate
mergers and loopholes that allow
corporations to declare profits in tax
haven countries instead of Canada
could bring in up to $2 billion.

@ Ending the business
entertainment deduction would
bring in up to $1 billion.

© Charging interest on deferred
corporate taxes could yield $4 to $6
billion.

@ Making the personal income
tax system progressive (based on
ability to pay) by taxing capital
gains at the same rate as wages and
salaries ($500 million), restoring the
progressive rate structure to the
income tax system ($2 to $4 billion),
and restoring the tax on inheritances
($1 billion) would bring in several
billion.

The federal government could
also save public revenue by:

(a) requiring companies to pay for
their own job training programs ($4
billion);

(b) Reducing unemployment to
four per cent ($4 billion);

(c) Reducing interest rates by four
per cent over a four-year period ($6
billion);

(d) Reducing the military budget
to the level it was at in 1984 ($3.3
billion).

All of these measures would help
deal with the deficit without
attacking women’s centres, Native
programs, people on welfare,
education or health programs.

Pacific Tribune, March 19, 1990 5