“Managing - ‘director.

‘towards:
- maintenance : ‘and | overhead, ;
but not programming.

4- Friday, April 5, 1985 -

North Shore News

Silent times

vividly recall the tone of moral superiority that
characterized the anti-Victnam movement,

Nearly everybody [ knew
back then, event right-wing
uncles, were opposed ta the

_ American involvement in
Vietnam, 1 knew one
womn, for God's sake, who
married a “guy from the
States so he could get Cana-
dian citizenship to aveld be.
ing shipped over to the kill
ing ground,

There was a scnse of being
on the side of angels, The
hawks in the WS, - had
General: Westmoreland and

we had Jane, Fonda and |
Country Joe. >
Sonic of the  bligest

demonstrations ever

mounted in Uritish Cotum- .
bit Geourred dn those years,

opposing American im-

,’ perisliam In Vietnam, They

were exciting events, by the
way. And everybody was so

canicerned and far-seeing it
made. you weep, We all
CARED, you see, about the
suffering of people, far away
‘whom we knew we would
never know, We cared, too,

for the poor young draftees
who were being turned into
butchers, dehumanized...

When stories came back
about young Yanks ‘fragg-
Ing’ thelr officers, peace
freaks cheered.

Hexdy days,

They echo back (oO me
now, ft is not a particularly
loud echo, It is just that the
silence through which the
echo clatlers is so compicte,
The silence about
Afghanistan, I mean,

The horror stories to come
out of. Afghanistan in’ the
last five years ure enough to
make you puke. As many as
740,000 civilians have prob-
ably been Killed, That's the
population of Winnipeg,
murdered, That's not coun-
ting the wounded or the four
to five million refugees who
have fled to Pakistan. That's
fearly the population of
Western Canada, running
for their lives.

What scant American or
Western aid there is to the

Pres. House

of grants for community
groups approved by North
Vancouver City Council
Monday. ;

‘By BARRETT FISHER |

:° The. annual. operations
* grant was the same. amount
- approved: ‘ last-- year, said

Presentation House's
Bob
‘Carey, The. funding will go
‘Staff: salaries,

Other...monies’ for -
“theatre | hous come’: ‘from

the :

‘top. NV City

A $50,000 grant for Pres-
. entation House heads the list

project grants through
Canada Council, B.C, Cul-
tural. Services, corporate
sponsorships ‘and private
donations.

Carey said 50 per cent of

Presentation House's reve-

nue is earned through
theatre rentals and admis-
sions.

* Other grants City council
approved ranged from $250
for she John Howard Society
to $16,000 for North Shore
Family Services.

A proposed $20,140 grant
for.North Shore

.Neighbourhood House was
_ Sent back tur decision, while
all ‘other granis ‘were ‘ap-

proved Monday night.

Afghan tebels is a drop in
the bucket compared to the
Soviet invasion force of
100,000 men, and aid Is real-
ly only being sent because
the struggle represents a
marvellous chance to gather
intelligence on Soviet
fighting techniques. “The
Russians haven't actually
been in a shooting war since
the fatl of Hluler.

Do J see anyone protesting
against Soviet involvement
in Afphanistan? OF course
not.

And it makes me wonder.

Did we really care about
the Vietnamese back in the
‘60s and '70s? In the 80s,
obviously, we don't give a
damn about the Afghans,
And the Afghans are being
done-to every bit as badly as
the Viets in their time.
Worse,

Thave no way of checking
the accuracy of these reports
(expecially since no cameras
are allowed, unlike Vietnam)
but a booby trap that looks
like a toy is said to be used
to blow up children. Blind
men have dynamite strapped

to their backs and ignited.
Boys’ throats are methodi-
cally slit by Russian soldiers.
Men are tied up and run
over by tanks in front of
their families. Women are
tortured by being forced to
stand in water with chemi-
cali added to make their skin
fall off.

Those of us who CARED
so much about Vietnam,
why aren't we out on the
street screaming about the
bloody Russians? Why isn't
sumebody singing about
poor Russian draftees forced
to go over to Afghanistan
and kill? Why aren't there
protest songs about the
5,000 Soviet youngsters who
have gone hoine in a box?

I know, TE know, Those of
us who were protesting at
the time of Vietnam are
older now and we're worried
about our jobs, or we're into
EST or the wolves or Meares
ishatd, at isivalved with our
families, of maybe we've
become Tories and we've
jost our sense of outrage.
And of course the younger
ones coming along are wor-
ried about the jobs they
don't lutve, and they seem to
be utterly indifferent about
everything else anyway,

The only movements hap-
pening in North America
that have any real passion
attached to then at the mo-

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ment are the animal rights
and anti-abortion groupings.

L have a bad feeling that
a lot of the energy and ex-
citement bereabouts at the
time of Vietnam was nothing
more than traditional Cana-
dian sour grapes about the
Yanks. | think we were more
into America-bashing that

genuine protest against war.
Otherwise why would we
be so unmoved by Russian
atrocities in) Afghanistan?
Why would we be so
apathetic about Soviet  im-
perialism? 1 mean, there but
for the Arctic ice packs and
the American nuclear um-
brella goes thee and me.

Bennington S

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