aus

Times demand revival of labour’s culture

Next month’s Mayworks: A Festival of
Culture and Working Life will not be
funded by Labatt’s Blue, Alcan, DuMaur-
ier or even Petro-Canada. Unlike many jazz
festivals, rock concerts or the Calgary
Olympics, Mayworks won’t be an advertis-
ing opportunity and/or tax write-off for
major corporations. It will be funded lar-
gely by labour, drawing on its historic tradi-
tion of using culture as an organizing tool.

The B.C. Federation of Labour, the Con-
federation of Canadian Unions, the B.C.
Teachers Federation and several individual

“trade unions are among the many Cleat za»
tions funding Mayworks.

Though it may be a new idea to some of
us, those who built B.C.’s fist major unions
regularly used union resources for cultural
activities.

Early in this century the Industrial
Workers of the World or ‘“‘Wobblies” used
the popular and religious songs of the day,
with new pro-union lyrics, for organizing.
They borrowed the street-corner concert
technique of the Salvation (or, to use a
Wobbly term, “Starvation”) Army to draw
an audience and promote the virtues of
industrial unionism. IWW activists spent
scarce union funds to print and distribute
the IWW’s Little Red Songbook, still pub-
lished today.

In the 1930s and 1940s culture — espec-
ially music and theatre — were key ele-
ments in campaigns of the Congress of
Industrial Organizations, the Workers
Unity League, and anti-fascist groups.
(Domt miss the Mayworks panel featuring
discussions of B.C. artists of the period, on
May 8.)

Labour’s support for class-conscious cul-
tural activity declined with the relative
prosperity and the political cold war of the
following three decades. Those who kept

alive our strong local tradition of “labour
positive” cultural activity did so with too
little recognition or support.

Today, with attacks on trade unions and
workers’ living standards, we’re fighting
back, and culture is a key weapon in the
fightback. Today, labour’s support for and
participation in cultural activities is unparal-

leled since the 1930s. Mayworks is a mani-
festation of that support.

We're told that we’re now in an informa-
tion age. We’re beginning to understand
that this means more than leasing Fax
machines and computers for the union
office.

A coalition of churches, unions, Native,

A family of Japanese-Canadians
await the ride that will carry them
to internment in a B.C. Interior
camp during the federal govern-
ment'’s “resettlement” program in
the World War Il years. The photo is
one of many on display at the
Women in Focus Gallery in Van-
couver during Mayworks: A Festi-
val of Culture and Working Life
(Gala opening is May 1 at 9 p.m.).
Also marking this shameful chap-
ter of Canada’s past is a perfor-
mance entitled Rage, by dancers
Jay and Keith Hirabayashi of the
Kokoro Dance Company, May 5 at
the Vancouver East Cultural Cen-
tre. Beginning at 8 p.m., the show
includes the noted drum group,

Katari Taiko.

women’s and community groups is calling
for unprecedented unity and a program of
action against neo-conservatism.

To popularize this program, and labour’s
vision of a society that puts human needs
- before profit, we need the best forms of

communication available to us. Often a
song, a theatrical play or a painting can
reach those who turn off to the best of our
speakers and leaflet writers.

Culture may not communicate as much
hard information as a speech or leaflet or
this page of the Tribune. But it can com-
municate at a more emotional level. We
need both.

Come to Mayworks. Or better yet, partic- _
ipate. Who said the class struggle can’t be
any fun?

_ Julius Fisher

SS, gees ee

on the Sikh religion, the mixing of state
politics with religion and the misuse of pla-

According to the latest Canadian census
there are 68,000 Sikhs in Canada, with
41,000 in British Columbia. This commun-
ity has close family and social ties with the
Punjab province in India. While many
Canadians: are concerned about the bitter
and deadly communal strife in the Punjab,
it has a more direct impact on Canadians of
Sikh origin.

The effects of the fratricide and the future
of India are the topics examined at the next
Centre for Socialist Education talk, on

CSE forum to examine
Punjab fundamentalism

ces of worship.

Many British Columbians were tragically
reminded of the conflict in the Punjab when
Darshan Singh Canadian was assassinated
in September, 1986. He was a prominent
leader of the CPI who had been a trade
union organizer in B.C. and a member of

the Communist Party of Canada.

Canadian was gunned down in broad
and

daylight by Khalistani terrorists

Khalistan (land of the free).

April 29.
Since 1981, religious sectarians in the
Punjab, aided and. encouraged from

abroad, have been promoting intolerance
and fundamentalism. They openly call for
the secession of the Punjab from India and
the creation of an independent state called

became the 16th member of the CPI to meet
a martyr’s death. Many more opponents of
separatism have been murdered since then.

Because of the wide interest and concern
about the situation in the Punjab, the Cen-
tre for Socialist Education is sponsoring a
public forum on “The Sikhs and the Future

The province is home to more than 10
million practicing Sikhs, more than six mil-
lion Hindus, almost 185,000 Christians and
168,000 Moslems. In India as a whole; the
Sikhs constitute two per cent and the Hin-
dus 82.7 per cent of the population.

The Communist Party of India, the
Communist Party (M-L), the trade unions
and other popular organizations and group-
ings are campaigning for a political solu-
tion, and an end to violence and terrorism.
The CPI also wages an ideological struggle
against the concept of a separate state based

of the Punjab in India,” on Friday, April 29,
Van-

7:30 p.m. at 1726 E. Hastings St.,
couver.

The forum will be addressed by three
prominent members of the Sikh community
Amerjit Soofie,
journalist and local trade union officer;
Gurnam Singh Sanghera, organizer in B.C.
for the East Indian Workers Association;
and Darshan Gill, editor of Darpan, a local
Punjabi newspaper. There will be a question

in Greater Vancouver:

and discussion period.

— Jack Phillips

Channel 9 views Soviet life

With an arms control agreement in
place, a kind of detente seems to have
replaced the worst aspects of cold war
attitudes on the part of the U.S. govern-
ment. Catching the mood, North Ameri-
can media have been featuring more about
the Soviet Union, examining the vast
country’s system and people with a kinder
eye than in the recent past.

In that spirit, the Public Broadcasting
System — which, it must be said, has
always been more broad-minded than its
privately owned colleagues — is airing
Comrades, an | 1-part series on the USSR.

Banda Tepeuani
here May 12 -

They play everything from the pito to the
clarinet, with electric pianos and bongos
alongside. And they’ve been together for 11
years as one of El Salvador’s most popular
and internationally renowned music groups.

On May 12, La Banda Tepeuani bring
their unique blend of the traditional and the
innovative to the Robson Square Media
Centre in Vancouver.

The word “tepeuani” is from the indi-
genous people of El Salvador and means
“victor of the battle.”

Rooted in the traditional sounds of their
Central American nation, the band also
borrows from Caribbean and modern jazz
trends. They have recorded three albums
and have appeared around the world,
including at the World Youth Festival in
Havana, 1978, and in Moscow, 1985.

Tickets cost $10 and $7 and are available
from the El Salvador Information Office
(684-7342), the Vancouver Folk Music Fes-
tival (879-2931) or La Quena coffee house
(251-6626). The concert begins at 7:30 p.m.

The pito? It’s described as a Central
American whistle.

Three installments have already been
shown.

Among the upcoming shows are pro-
files on the Soviet jazz and rock scene,
local government, medicine, fashion and
movie-making.

Comrades, originally presented on the
Frontline series, airs every Monday for
one hour at 10 p.m. on KCTS, Channel 9
in most areas of B.C.

An appropriate companion piece is
“How Good is Soviet Science?,” a one-
hour KCTS broadcast on the PBS series,
Nova. It airs three times: Tuesday, April
26 at 8 p.m.; Wednesday, April 27 at 12
noon; Saturday, April 30 at 6 p.m.

Native ‘education’
exposed on CFRO

The apartheid practised against Native
people in B.C. is examined with a look at
the not-so-distant past on CFRO, Van-
couver’s co-operative radio station, April
Dip

Untroubled by the organized political
resistance and cultural revival marking
Native life today, the white governments of
the 1940s and 1950s seized Native children
and bussed them hundreds of miles from
their home to residential schools. There,
parents had severely restricted access — the
cost of travel was equally prohibitive — and
use of their native language was forbidden
to the children in a bid to wipe out the
cultural and historical heritage of B.C.’s
indigenous peoples.

Co-op Radio, at 102.7 on the FM dial,
examines this attempt at.cultural genocide
in “Behind the Barriers: Native Education
in B.C.,” on Wednesday, April 27 at 7 p.m.
Featured on the program The Rational, it’s
part of a series which begins April 20.

10 ¢ Pacific Tribune, April 20, 1988