CTV will help Fascist China Stick-It-To Tibetan Resistance and Smother Foreign Outrage

Fascist China is flipping out. Senior party cadres have been bursting blood vessels, appalled by the audacity of the "Dalai Clique" to resist Chinese authority. The Tibetans were ordered to "surrender" or die. Those who did "surrender" and now they are being tortured for the names of their friends before being shipped off to Chinese labour camps. Their families are unlikely to see them again. Most will join the "disappeared" of previous generations.

Yesterday the Chinese embassy in Canberra offered Australia some Chinese soldiers to protect the Olympic torch from angry Tibetan supporters. The Chinese, ever obsessed with symbolism, are terrified that a protester might manage to seize and be photographed with the Torch. (Beijing would interpret that simple act of protest as a national defeat, equivalent to the Vietnamese landing troops in the Spratly Islands.) The Aussies, politely... declined, noting that Australian citizens have the right to protest unmolested.
The Olympic Torch Run was a state sponsored spectacle created by Nazi sports officials for the 1936 Olympiad. It was intended to promote the image of the Third Reich. The intensity of the P.R.C.'s emotional investment in their 2008 torch run is scary. The "Great China" brand of national fervor is reminscinent of what we saw in Berlin 72 years ago.

Vancouver is off of Beijing's list, completely. No torch run for us... there are too many Falun Gung dogs living in Vancouver for the Chinese political taste. Our cops won't cooperate with Beijing and bust the heads of Falun Gung protesters, as the Olympic hosts are certainly preparing to do this summer, on the vast concrete wastes of Tiananmen Square.

The PLA moves in, Saturday March 15th. These are ZSL92 infantry fighting vehicles, armed with 25 mm cannon. Just the thing for riot suppression. Why China would deploy amphibious AFVs to mountainous Tibet (note the twin outboard props on the rear) is another matter.

CANADA'S "Official" OLYMPICS BROADCASTER - C.T.V. , WILL HELP THE CHINESE PROPAGANDA ORGANS CENSOR ALL VOICES PROTESTING THE RAPE OF TIBET. WILL YOU WATCH CTV PROGRAMMING OR POLITELY TURN YOUR BACK ON RAW INJUSTICE?

CENSORSHIP of course, is not new to "official" Olympics coverage. Our state owned broadcaster, for decades, shamelessly censored Olympics television coverage, and no CBC manager or techie has ever been punished for it. A case in point... hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese Canadians got their collective faces slapped every single time they watched the opening ceremonies via CBC stations. They covered the arrival of teams from every rinky-dink African pest hole, from every sweaty Pacific coconut atoll, but blacked out countries which Ottawa disfavours. I've seen many Taiwanese-Canadian families strain their eyes, hold their collective breath, waiting intently for the briefest glimpse of the Taiwan team in the ceremonial parade of athletes. That tiny privilege has ALWAYS been denied them. At the behest of the Chinese fascists, CBC techies would cut away to an advertisement or some inane announcement.

CTV as the "official" Olympics broadcaster, will be no better. We can expect full, slavish CTV compliance with PRC editorial demands on broadcast feed. Chinese security personnel are assigned to dog every foreign broadcast technician and sports journo, and there will be no mistakes tolerated. Indeed as Canadian "journalism" is represented in China by the likes of meat puppet Brian Williams, we can be certain that Beijing's propaganda triumph will be greater than Hitler's Nazi Olympiad of 1936.

If you can't strike a blow for Tibetan freedom, you can BOYCOTT CTV's coverage of the 2008 Fascist Olympics.

Not convinced that the Olympics are an over massaged, censored, piece of info-tainment? Consider this. When was the last time you enjoyed watching the Olympic shooting events? Shooting events?! Does anyone remember the disgraceful treatment of Linda Thom by the CBC in 1984 at Los Angeles? Her crime was to excel in a sport that the CBC has never considered to be a sport and did not like to cover. Thom was to compete in the Ladies 25 meter pistol match.

How significant was Linda Thom's win? She won Canada’s first gold medal at the 1984 Olympic Games, and did so at 4:30 pm on the first day of competition. It was the first gold medal win by a Canadian since 1968 AND our first female gold medal since 1928. Canadians did not see Thom's moment of triumph. She was on her own, because CBC didn't schedule coverage of shooting events. Most Canadians don't even know that the Olympics includes events like sport pistol and shotgun skills. The CBC doesn't even have video of Linda Thom competing in 1984! Canadian Gold medalist in pistol shooting , Linda Thom and her coach Joe Liota after her win in Los Angeles, 1984.

Contrast if you will, Canadian domestic tastes in competitive sports to those of the Chinese. The Chinese put great emphasis on shooting and plan to gun down all competition. Pun intended.The Beijing 2008 Shooting Venue. Expect the Chinese to sweep all the medals. Many of their "athletes" are serving security personnel.

Chinese gold medalist Tao Luna will win gold again in 2008. CanadiansWILL watch her performance because China will insist. For the first time Canadians will be watching Olympic shooting events. Should Linda Thom be offered a job as a CTV commentator, or will we have to listen to Brian Williams pretend he has been following Olympics shooting all these thirty years? My vote says Lying Brian.

And, oh yeah. In case anyone wants to lecture me about whether China is "fascist" or "communist," all I can say is that the world has changed, but Canadian high school textbooks have not. China has a mixed economy with more millionaires than Canada can boast, and it transitioned to private ownership of real property years ago. [95% of Canada's national territory is state owned, while China is fast approaching a larger proportion of its national territory passing into private hands.] China's inhabitants privately pay for their own health care and education and are permitted foreign travel. They live in a one party state, which is protected by a heavily armed security apparatus. They seized neighboring territory, such as Tibet, and covet further territory like Taiwan. That, boys and girls is fascism. If you can't assimilate those facts and react to it, then the peace loving Tibetan people and their culture are DOOMED.

Old Books - Sometimes the past owner is more interesting than the book

I think it's a fairly common practice among bibliophiles to devote a few moments to Googling the name of an author previously unknown to us, or perhaps to check the name of previous owner of the book if we sense a story. If you buy enough books you cannot help encountering interesting ephemera once used to mark a page or affinity items which relate somehow to a previous owner's enjoyment of their book. Occasionally I do buy a volume knowing that I intend to research its provenance.

This morning I purchased a book which teased three of my interests - Poetry, African history and World War II. The book is OTHER MEN'S FLOWERS, (1944) an anthology prepared by Field Marshal Viscount A.P. Wavell while he was serving in India. I was interested in the selection of war poetry which Wavell favored, as well as his anecdotes about sharing verse with Churchill and Allenby. Ian Jack wrote a marvelous backgrounder on the Wavell book for The Guardian in 2005. He even quotes the publisher's wounding rejection letter.

The previous owner had used her copy as a repository, and that was a bonus because it promised to reveal a bit of her life experience if I cared to press. I got a bit carried away - investing at least two hours researching the photos, clippings and her annotations. Writing this short Blog completes my learning experience.

Verna Mabel Finlayson of Galiano Island signed the flyleaf in 1945 and later added a bookplate. Galiano is found in the Georgia Strait, a body of water which is currently under consideration for renaming as "the Salish Sea". Her pencil annotations and mementos hinted that she might have lost a son in WW II. Further, following the war she had corresponded with a Catholic Priest in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and probably involved herself in fundraising for church missions.A Catalina flying boat arriving at Sullom Voe in the Shetlands, after a mission hunting German U-Boats. Many Canadians flew from the busy Flying Boat harbour.

U-Boat hunters in the North Sea : Within a few moments I learned that she had indeed lost a son, Flight Sergeant John Norman Gilbert Finlayson, R.C.A.F., killed in 1943. The sergeant was seconded to the R.A.F. and serving with 190 Squadron when he died. His parents were living on Galiano Island at the time of his death but Sgt. Finlayson had been born in the old gold mining town of Wells, B.C. The Province of B.C. honoured the airman in 1955 by naming a peak after him - Mount Finlayson.

I wanted to know more. Fortunately the details of the wartime crash were accessible. I learned that Sgt. Finlayson was one of nine crew aboard a Catalina, a "flying boat" based at Sullom Voe, in the Shetland Islands, Scotland. Their mission was convoy protection and duty often required long flights searching for German U-Boats inside the immense ocean triangle formed by the Shetlands, Iceland and Murmansk, Russia. On April 22, 1943 Finlayson's Catalina flew into a sheer cliff at the head of a Fjord in the Faeroe Islands and the compacted wreckage fell to the base of the wall.

A rescue party from 9th Field Hospital, Torshavn in the Faeroe Islands was dispatched by fishing boat but there were no survivors at the wreck site. It took three days to extricate the bodies and the unexploded depth charges. Sgt. Finlayson and the others are buried in the cemetery at Torshavn. The book of poetry constitutes a memorial of sorts in that Mrs. Finlayson underlined and annotated lines of verse. In Rudyard Kipling's poem "My Boy Jack" she found meaning in: Then hold your head up all the more, ... he was the son you bore, And gave to that wind and that tide! The B.C. mother gave particular attention to a more famous poem. It is "An Irish Airman Forsees His Death," by W.B. Yeats. She underlined only one of Yeat's lines, "Those that I guard I do not love". In the margin she added, "John wrote this in his log book Apr/41". And so two years before his death the Canadian airman sought inspiration or comfort in verse, pondering his future and his fate. His grieving mother later clipped Binyon's verse "They shall Not Grow Old" from a Vancouver paper, and taped it inside the back cover.

The White Fathers in Northern Rhodesia: An equally interesting story derives from a photo preserved in the book. On the back is a message written in tiny, neat handwriting and signed Father H. Marsan, W.F. I spent only an hour at it, but learned more about him than is suitable for a Blog article. No doubt I will learn more when I consult the Africana section of my library. "White Fathers" seemed an unfortunate and paternalistic name for a Missionary Order working in Africa, but it is nothing sinister. They took their name from the white cassock they wear, a pactical garment in Algiers where the Order was founded in 1868.

Quebec born Father Henri Marsan with three local Catholic priests at Fort Rosebery. He chose Africa and served over fifty years as a teaching missionary in what is now Zambia.

It seems that postwar Mrs. Finlayson gave her time to charitable work on behalf of foreign missions. Father Marsan sent her Christmas greetings in December of 1952, adding an envelope " containing small souvenirs, but large enough to bring a smile". Lost to us is a copy of his annual letter to his family and friends in Canada. Intrigued, I sought to learn where in Canada he once lived, something of his family, and of course more about the mission station at Fort Rosebery. "Decolonizition" initiatives by assorted governments have completely redrawn the map of the continent, especially in Zimbabwe and Zambia, but I managed to find a map of Fort Rosebery as it was in 1961, little more than a cluster of Mission schools and a hospital. It is now called Mansa and is located approximately 50 Km in from the Congo border.



For over a century the White Fathers, a Catholic missionary teaching order, operated dozens of schools in Central Africa. Father Marsan of Fort Rosebery corresponded with Verna Finlayson.

I found a few published references to Father Marsan, sufficient to learn that he had arrived in the Copper Belt quite early and that approximately 25% of the native population had been converted to Catholicism. "In March 1911, Father Henri Marsan, a French Canadian, was asked to begin a serious course in English for the catechists" a mission diarist recorded, because "the varnish of English" common to the mixed clergy was impeding the work. Priests and Catholic nuns were going out from a half dozen countries, including Canada, France, Belgium, and Ireland, and required a common tongue.

Fifty years later Father Marsan was still hard at work. The author of a book published in 1961, MUD AND MOSAICS, reported, "At the mission I met Father Marsan, a Canadian of 75 years of age, who was one of the first missionaries out here. He still goes on 'trek' on a push-bike and is still full of enthusiasm. He loves his Africans and they would do anything for him.”


An Accomplished Quebec Family: Henri Marsan was following his father's example when he became a teacher priest. His father, Amedee Marsan, was an agricultural engineer who taught for thirty years at the school of agriculture in Ste-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, Quebec. Henri's parents, married in 1871 and had twelve children, nine of whom made it to adulthood. An article in a genealogical newsletter (2003) records that two brothers entered the priesthood. "Probably inspired by their mother's two brothers who were priests and by their three aunts who were nuns on their father's side, their son Henri joined The White Fathers, a missionary order, and Ernest was ordained priest in 1907." There is a wiki page for the White Fathers here.

I don't yet know what became of Father Marsan but I'm hoping he simply died of old age. In 1964 began the horrible campaign of mass murder of Christian missionaries in the neighboring Congo, and I am sure his great heart would have been broken by the senseless decimation of his co-workers. As the so-called "wars of liberation" spread throughout the region, many Catholic priests and nuns took a stand against Marxist ideology and scores of them (the Black with the White) were butchered by guerrillas in Zambia and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

By the mid-1950s the African National Congress (ANC) established a base of operations in Fort Rosebery, secretly assisted by two Black leaders in the Catholic Church. From that point onward the political views of foreigners ("settlers") like the Father Marsan were monitored by the revolution. ANC members soon defected to the ZANC, and when the Zambian government under Kuanda became a client of the Red Chinese in the 1960-70s, the political atmosphere was choking. The irony is that the very ANC revolutionary leaders who made their early reputation at Fort Rosebery, were themselves purged by a succeeding Zambian regimes and became deeply embittered. Such is the internecine nature of politics in the region. The only constant in many black lives were the schools and churches run efficiently by the Catholic orders for the benefit of all.

I already have several books on Chinese, Indian and African auxilliaries in World War I, but I missed this monograph which was published in London. I wonder if Father Henri Marsan had Great War service?

If you can peel back another layer of today's onion, please contact your Runagate Blogger... Ron Jack in Vancouver, B.C.

Another archivist busted for selling stolen documents on eBay

I am following several stories of runagates this week, most of them thieves or spies, (essentially the same thing) which may become Blog articles. The case of Daniel D. Lorello, a 54 year old archivist living in Rensselaer, N.Y. is rather interesting, but certainly not unique. Lorello is a thief, but he's an educated thief, and that is a telling distinction. That breed rarely gets caught. Lorello has been a New York state employee since 1979, working in archives and enjoying unrestricted access. How long he has been stealing rarities from the Manuscripts and Special Collections in the New York State Library in Albany, remains unknown. In his voluntary written statement he admitted to beginning stealing "about" 2002.

I say that the Lorello case is not unique because there have been several well publicized examples of thefts by privileged insiders, especially from the massive National Archives in Washington. For example, who can forget the infamous thefts from NARA by a man with Top Secret security clearance - Sandy (Socks) Berger, a former National Security Advisor to Pres.William Jefferson Clinton. Berger was given VIP treatment by the archives staff - a private office to "research" in. Their courtesy allowed Sandy to steal documents by putting them inside his well elastized socks. [I posted his photo last year.] Celebrity thieves usually don't get punished of course. Our local exception was the Vancouver M.P. (a clever lad from Minnesota) Svend Robinson. Svend had the tragic misfortune to get caught the very first time he stole something; it was an expensive diamond ring. Still, it was public opinion and not our criminal courts which punished the wayward parliamentarian. Mr. Daniel Lorello, who co-authored a book on Civil War archives and occasionally lectures, is not famous enough to avoid a judge's sentencing.

The reason the Lorello thefts were given any attention at all was because giant eBay Inc. is embarrassed by the frequency with which its websites worldwide are being used to fence stolen archives and antiquities. This time around the online auction house offered to pay compensation to buyers who bought from Mr. Lorello, so that material would be quickly returned to Albany without triggering protracted battles over their possession. eBay has records of $68,000 in sales registered to Lorello, and will give buyers their money back. Lorello's annual base salary is $72,000, so clearly he had developed a very lucrative criminal sideline.

So far I have not been stung by an eBay seller, but I did come close early last year. Initially I was excited when an Ontario seller offered a few obscure items that would enhance the book I was then writing. The documents were preWW1 ephemera once owned by a University of Toronto medical student. When I realized the seller had set up a dummy account to bid up all the items in her eBay "store", I challenged her on it. Naturally she got hostile, so I dropped the email conversation. A few days later she admitted that eBay had cancelled her vendor account and asked if I would complete the purchase anyway. Fat chance!

I have made something of a hobby of compiling examples of theft from museums and archives over thirty years, some of which are boastful anecdotes collected from cocky contacts. It's a fascinating topic and though I've been tempted from time to time to intervene, to do so would be a suckers' game. It is to risk making enemies of staff at the very institutions where you might later seek goodwill for your own research project. ( In one messy NARA theft case just a few years back, over thirty librarians and archivists wrote letters of support for a greedy thief who had been caught red handed. The lesson is that folks with university degrees can close ranks as tightly around a friend as do teamsters.) The majority of Canadian archivists are true watchdogs for heritage, but the one time I informed on a thief to the National Archives in Ottawa, I felt my complaint was blown off. Theft, especially of "old stuff" as some people term it, is not a big deal in this country. And if our courts will not punish, it's pointless to accuse. In the U.S. though, theft from archives is a bigger story.

Lorello sold many stolen documents and photos with ease, but this 1823 letter, signed by South Carolina politician and Vice President, John C. Calhoun, finally tripped him up. It had been referenced in a published work, and an honest eBay bidder blew the whistle.

N.Y. State employee Daniel Lorello, holds a Masters Degree in History and is a recognized authority on Civil War records. This photo, showing him in cuffs, is from his arrest record.

The Lorello book mentioned in news reports, is currently listed on eBay. Ironic perhaps. At least one Civil War photograph collector, who purchased three stolen CDVs from Daniel Lorello, has returned the state owned property.

Lorello was a clever thief but I would emphasize that he was caught by an equally well educated citizen. The whistle blower attorney and former history professor, Joseph Romito. The concerned attorney tried to deal directly with Lorello's employer, to prevent the completion of the illegal sale on eBay. Romito had to be extremely insistent in order to get the authorities to move on making an arrest. My reading of online debate on this case tells me there are reasonable demands by the victimized, that publicity of this prosecution result in major institutions becoming more responsive to the massive problem of heritage theft.

Ousted Tory M.P. handed Mulroney Cabinet secrets to the Russians

KGB/SVR agent Sergei Tretyakov speaks at KGB headquarters in 1998. (Putnam photo)

Imagine you are a well established book author and you are approached by the F.B.I. They praise your work, and offer you exclusive access to a trove of unpublished material delivered by a Russian defector. The senior agent, who had run all of Russian Intelligence gathering in New York including operations at the United Nations, had capped his career with two perilous years as a double agent for the F.B.I. The Russian has already been debriefed, his stories vetted, and he is available for interview. How do you respond?
Now imagine that you are a member of the Canadian establishment; It doesn't matter which tier - Parliament... the Civil Service... the News Media. Reporters call and inform you that an AMERICAN writer has just published a book which, among other revelations, contains profiles of five Canadians who aided the Soviets or the succesor to the KGB - the Russian SVR . You haven't read the book but you know such stories have a very short shelf-life and you want a piece of it. What do you do? Of course you do what is expected of you - attack the source... the defector, the author and the book.

Incumbant M.P. Alex Kindy campaigning in Calgary, 1988. Though born in Warsaw Kindy's profile reflected his roots. He was a staunch Ukranian nationalist. A new book entitled "COMRADE J" alleges Kindy took Russian cash for informing on the Tory Caucus.

"Comrade J" is based on 125 hours of recorded interviews with Sergei Tratyakov and exclusive access to FBI counter intelligence officers.

The book is called Comrade J: the Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War. The National Post claims the book is "blockaded at the border" but I just checked Amazon. ca and found it available. The author, Pete Earley, is a New York Times best-selling author who has written books on American traitors Aldrich Ames and John Walker, Jr. He is certainly qualified to analyse and explain a story of this magnitude.

As a former Reform Party activist (and never a Tory) I continue to be interested in leaks from the drum-tight secretive world of subversion and influence peddling in Canada. This new book, published by G.P. Putnam's, alleges that in 1992 Moscow was interested in getting Parliamentarian Alex Kindy to provide details on “various intrigues inside the Canadian Parliament and government. This was intimate information about his colleagues and also details about international manoeuvres that were going on.” He was approached at a Ukranian-Canadian function and a Russian agent made the pitch. It does not say Kindy betrayed Canada. It alleges that he turned on his former cronies in the Conservative Party, several of whom had previously been scuppered as they attempted to build profile by crafting a major "friendship" overture between the government of Brian Mulroney and the Kremlin. The claim is that enough information was delivered by Kindy that it filled more than 100 cables to Moscow.

Much has been made in news reports since Thursday, of Alex Kindy's expulsion from the Tory caucus in 1990, because of his vociferous objection to the imposing of the G.S.T. That is hardly the point. Kindy was on the outs with the Tories long before that. Case in point: pick up a copy of Richard Cleroux's book OFFICIAL SECRETS, published in 1990. It's the story of the creation of C.S.I.S. and its troubled early years. Chapter 9 deals with the Sofonov investigation and the attempt, in 1986, by Tory insiders to set up Parliamentary friendship group designed to show those Americans just who had the inside track with the Soviets, and give the MPs plenty of junketing opportunities. "Then disaster struck. Calgary Tory MP Alex Kindy, a practising psychiatrist of Ukranian descent, and Toronto Tory MP Andrew Witer, a staunch supporter of a number of self-styled Ukranian "Freedom Fighter" associations, attacked the idea of any kind of parliamentary rapprochment with the Russians. Mysteriously, information travelled to a number of right-wing ethnic and emigre associations in Canada, along with the names and photocopies of the signatures of the two dozen MPs who had signed the friendship club charter." Cleroux connects all the dots but two. He leaves it to readers to decide who distributed unmarked manila envelopes and blind faxes.

Comrade J makes the allegation that Kindy took payment in 1992-93, while a sitting MP. $10,000 plus $5,000 plus $5,000 from an operative working for Tretyakov. It doesn't claim Kindy reneged on his life long opposition to the Soviets. Russian Communism had already disintegrated. It does say that he informed on his old colleagues in the Conservative Party, and he was tape recorded accepting cash. The point is that he was already in the cold, facing the Tory machine in Calgary, and the rise of the Reform Party (which took his riding). In 1993 he tried to run as an Independant and lost. If any man ever felt he had the moral authority to toss a hand grenade among the Tories, it would have been Alex Kindy in 1992.

Before going to press, author Earley gave Kindy access to the allegations. His silence was deafening. Since the story broke Kindy has remained silent. His son claims he is ill, but that is the extent of the family response so far. If he has been ill used, Kindy must demand a retraction.

This from a review by David Wise - "Tretyakov, who had been assigned to the Russian mission at the United Nations since 1995 and to Ottawa before that, gave the FBI 5,000 secret SVR cables and more than 100 Russian intelligence reports, according to one U.S. intelligence official cited by Earley. Tretyakov apparently first tried to defect around 1997 but agreed to remain as an "agent in place," passing secrets to the FBI until October 2000, when he vanished from a Russian residential compound in the Bronx with his wife, daughter and cat. Four months later, the United States acknowledged his defection, but Comrade J (the title is drawn from the KGB's code name for Tretyakov, Comrade Jean) is the first account of his espionage career. "It is one of our biggest success stories," puffed the unnamed U.S. intelligence official."

The Calgary Herald made a lukewarm attempt to cover the story - gathering a few rebuttal comments from those who knew Kindy, back when, but asking not a single hard question. You'll find the January 31 Herald story here. The fact that the F.B.I. have a complete archive of the Soviet and later SVR cables prepared in Ottawa by Tretyakov and his agents, may be the reason that Kindy has clamed up.

Comrade J can be freely purchased from Amazon. ca or Chapters/Indigo. Tantor Audiobooks offers an eleven hour audion version of the book here, which can be delivered by post. National Public Radio (NPR) in the U.S. has an interview and also posts a lengthy extract from the book.

Update: It's been two weeks since this story broke in Calgary, Mr. Kindy's last hometown. He has issued no rebuttal, nor has the local press chased after him. We are left to assume that COMRADE J is 100 % correct on Kindy at least. That news won't add a single button to your TV remote, but some of us prefer to open the back of the watch, and observe the tiny gears and levers which run this country.

Canadian Runagate - The Basic Bethune

Last week a university student of my acquaintance launched into an excited introduction of a extraordinary and important Canadian from the past, whom he had just "discovered" while researching a term paper at U.B.C. The great hero had sacrificed his life for Mao's China and more students "should be taught about him". Within a moment or two I broke into a broad grin, as I realized he was referring to Dr. Norman Bethune, one of Canada's most notorious runagates.
"Discovered"? When did Bethune ever become lost? During my time at university, the late 1970s, the political ghost of Norman Bethune attracted more press than the average NHL star. The CBC has a webpage with over a dozen interviews available for download, and you can judge for yourself the dimensions of Bethune mania in the 1970s. The fact that we are now in the period of the 70th Anniversary of the sojourn of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion to Spain, fairly guarantees that Dr. Bethune's story will be popping up soon enough. In fact I had a heads up today from UBC Press that they have a new book on Canadians in Spain coming in March.

Since Wikipedia seems to be the primary source for most curious students these days, I took a look at the Bethune page and was arrested by the bald claim that he was "virtually unknown in his homeland during his lifetime." Unknown? As apposed to whom? Anyone who cared to follow Canadian politics in the 1930s, especially the significant inroads achieved by the Communists among labour and arts groups, or anyone who had any sort of opinion about the Spanish Civil War, knew of Dr. Bethune. Because he was famous, and had credibility, he made appearances across the country after his return from Spain. Bethune was one of the most interesting personalities of his era, and a master at self promotion. Indeed, as early as 1943 his story was in script development at 20th Century Fox - because China was then a war Ally, one of the "Big Five Powers". The propagandists were hungry for material.

I have researched Bethune for about thirty years, (he is one among a large cast of runagate Canadian communists) and suspect that a legion of the curious but silent also invest productive hours studying his legacy. I hope to contribute my "rendition" of a Bethune profile, but not yet. Not yet. I do agree that the Bethune story needs to be taught to every generation of young Canadians, but surely not in the fashion that the Maoists and Trudeau Era Liberals sold it. That tune is worn out from over playing.
To assist curious students in finding inexpensive material on Dr. Bethune I have put together what I choose to call "The Basic Bethune" - the most common material published during the Bethune Boom of the 1970s. I put the set together for $15, tax included, and you can too. Of course there were other important Bethune milestones in the 1970s, like an NFB documentary and a telefilm, but those are not easily accessed.

This is Dr. Bethune in one of the many publicity photos made in Madrid. The Renault motor ambulance is nifty but note the sedan with Great Britain motor registration CXE 26, which he and Henning Sorensen drove into Spain. It was given a military two colour disruptive camouflage pattern and an "S.R.I." Socorro Rojo Internacional insignia above the bumper. (It tickles me that the boys in the communist paint shop didn't remove the chrome Automobile Association "A.A." badge screwed to the licence plate. The badges had serial numbers, and remained the property of the A.A.) I doubt the car or badge ever made it back to England. Bethune was a committed Communist, but like George Orwell became the victim of Communist duplicity and infighting. Orwell learned, and left us his prophetic warning Nineteen Eighty four. Bethune just became angrier and threw his life away in China.
1. The Scalpel, the Sword, revised edition, Toronto 1971
2. Prologue to Norman: The Canadian Bethunes, Oakville. 1976
3. Bethune – a Play, Vancouver, 1975
4. The Chinese Voyages of Angus Bethune, [article] The Beaver, 1977
5. BETHUNE, [paperback edition] Don Mills, 1973
6. BETHUNE, Toronto, 1973
7. The Mind of Norman Bethune, Toronto 1977

Roderick Stewart's BETHUNE is still the standard biography although his scholarship has been surpassed recently by that of Larry Hannant and Michael Petrou who had access to higher grade archives. Stewart's later book - The Mind of Norman Bethune has wonderful photos. Beth loved posing for photos. Ted Allan's The Scalpel, the Sword is crap, and manages to combine plagiarism with two other tricks of fraudulent writing. The article on Angus Bethune is fun because it describes the grandfather's voyages to China, history which Dr. Bethune's biographers missed, and which even the runagate grandson was probably unaware. (Items 1, 4, 5 and 7 contain photographs.)

Much more has been published since the 1970s on Dr. Bethune. So much that it fills an entire shelf... the 1990 movie and postage stamps, memoirs by the Ewen's, new books on the Canadian volunteers in Spain, the archives of the COMINTERN etc, etc. Still, it was the Trudeau - China political agenda which will always be credited with the national popularization of Norman Bethune. He may be reassessed by future generations of historians, but surely never forgotten.

Playwright Rod Langley published a play in 1975 called simply "Bethune". First performed at the Globe in Regina, and then the Centaur in Montreal, this poster was for the show at the Owen Sound Little Theatre (OSLT).

ronjackbc@yahoo.ca

Fugue for a Darkening Island

I read the PAN edition of Christopher Priest's prophetic novel, Fugue for a Darkening Island, sometime in the 1990s, and it made a lasting impression. The novel came to mind yesterday, just as I began reading a story in the GUARDIAN about African migrants massing in Libya. In "Fugue" Priest postulates a near future in which Africa has been blighted by nuclear bombs, resulting in a colossal move northward of refugees, supported by African troops. England, hobbled in its responses by civil rights legislation, is overrun to the extent that heavily laden ships steam up the Thames and refugees easily de-bus onto the docks. The protagonist in the tale is Alan Whitman, a white liberal with no particular interest in politics or any desire to confront the migrants. After losing his family to violence and being made a refugee in his own country, the change in his personality is profound.

Originally published in 1972 to excellent reviews, (in the U.S. it is known as Darkening Island, and won a Campbell Award) it was accepted as just one more dystopian prediction for England - no more outrageous than say, Orwell's Nineteen Eightyfour. But Fugue attracted vociferous critics on the Left during the period of the Thatcher ascendancy, which offended the science fiction writer. Still, his novel remains in print.

There is a short BBC documentary discussing the novel and the furor it created, on YOUtube. Listen to the author read passages from his novel.

In May of 2007 - twenty seven African migrants held a Maltese tuna boat captain's gear hostage in the Mediterranean. Each had paid a snakehead $1000 for safe passage into Europe. After a three day standoff, clinging to the net, the dehydrated Africans were granted admission to migrant processing facilities in Italy.

If the novel Darkening Island erred in its predictions, it was only in the naive assumption of a nuclear exchange in Africa. Today's sub-Saharan migrants are motivated by the need to make a living, not escape radioactive fallout. Black Africa long ago gave the boot to all European colonial powers, but that boot is now worn through and barefooted Africans are doggedly following the uprooted settlers home. This week a London newspaper warned the authorities of an unprecedented massing of illegal migrants in Libya, and they are about to overwhelm Europe's maritime and customs defences. "New estimates reveal that there are two million migrants massed in the North African country and that half of them plan to sail to the European mainland and travel on to Britain in the hope of building a new life. According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), there are currently most have travelled from sub-Saharan states such as Ghana and Sierra Leone, attracted by Libya's reputation as a centre for people smugglers. Most are expected to wait until the spring, when the seas are calmer, before making the crossing on un-seaworthy and crowded vessels."

The British Isles are now very densely populated and reached 60 million inhabitants by August 2006. Worse news, militant Muslim clerics in London are agitating to have the government abandon its centuries old ties with the Church of England, a cunning demand that may prove a fatal blow to the status quo. Unrest within the existing population is already a reality and the Brits seek to avoid even more destabilising events like Tex-Mex style border swarming.

Interviews by the I.O.M. have determined that England is the preferred destination for most of the migrants. Leaven that news with the fact that Libya's paramount leader holds a special animosity for the British. Gaddafi has no particular reason to interdict the migrants at his southern border, even if the European Union pays him to try. If anything, the destabilizing Europe makes for sound Libyan tactics.

According to Laurence Hart of the I.O.M., "It would be accurate to say you've got about a million people in Libya who are looking to get to Europe at some time in the future. The numbers setting sail from Libya are so great that half of the military budget of Malta -- 350km from North Africa -- is spent trying to deal with migrants sailing north."

Christopher Priest discussed only possibilities in his fiction, offering no solutions. It ends on a bleak note. Those Brits who have smirked at U.S. inability to stem the illegal traffic in migrants are invited to enjoy the list of their own diminishing options.

LION OF THE DESERT- a DVD backgrounder

This 1981 bio-pic pits the "lion," famed Senussi guerrilla leader Omar Mukhtar against the Italian bull, 6' 4" tall General Rodolfo Graziani.

The vast majority of war movies produced in the 20th Century focus on less than a dozen wars, and the result is a distortion of the past. Very few African wars, for example, have been filmed. Niche films, those which tell a good story while offering glimpses of limited conflicts, are particularly scarce. I missed out on adding a good one, LION OF THE DESERT, to my DVD collection when it was released in 1998, and the primary DVD sellers in my area - Futureshop, HMV and Best Buy, have never stocked it. All the more reason to pounce when the 2-Disc Special Edition turned up in a post-Christmas sale bin at Walmart. It's a fact of life that some of the most elusive titles turn up in delete bins, which is why I stay alert for them.

The director/producer, Moustapha Akkad, a Syrian-American who is most most famous for making the eight HALLOWEEN horror movies, went to great lengths and expense to build detailed sets and replicate military equipment, which I found a real joy. Enthused, I did a little post-viewing research in order to check the facts behind this film treatment. (It's an old habit.) The film's researcher is said to be one "Michael Starkey" and I tried to determine if he was an historian. He could not be found so perhaps the name was just a pseudonym.

Make no mistake, this is a propaganda movie intended to showcase a Muslim "martyr" hanged by Italian fascism. Most of the $35 million dollars in production costs (filming started in 1979) was Libyan oil money. Specifically it came from strongman Muammar Gaddafi , the dictator who still holds power nearly 30 years later. Gaddafi had earlier bankrolled Akkad's film THE MESSAGE, which also starred Anthony Quinn.

Islamic polemics aside, LION is still a fabulous movie with plenty of action, Hollywood style stunts, and three engaging lead characters. Oliver Reed is masterful as General Rodolfo Graziani and Rod Steiger did a superlative job portraying Mussolini. Anthony Quinn stars as Omar Mukhtar, a guerrilla fighter of more than twenty years experience, whom we are told was a teacher before he took up the gun. Quinn played him as a reticent wise-man type, and here the screenplay is at fault, not the actor. Still the Muslim world went gagga for this movie (as Gaddafi intended) and most Muslim websites today use a still photo of actor Quinn playing Omar Mukhtar, rather than a photo of the real man. (He's on Wiki)

Omar Mukhtar, age 73, in shackles outside Italian courthouse in 1931. Note the man in the white shoes. He too appears in the movie, below.

This is a movie and not a history video, but the director was very clever in his use of old Italian newsreel footage, which goes a long way toward convincing us to accept the major premises of the story. Still, in most of the battle scenes the Italian troops are a bit too inept for my taste. At least three times we witness armoured columns totally annihilated by Mukhtar's horsemen, but most problematic is the telescoping of events to make it appear that Graziani was outwitted endlessly. The Fascist officer, already with a long service in Libya, was promoted General of Division and appointed Vice Governor of Cyrenaica (province) in 1930. Many other officers had failed to quash tribal resistance and Graziani assumed his new duties with a frenzy. Within a year he had taken the Senussi "capital", Kufra (Feb. 20, 1931) and scooped up Mukhtar (Sept. 12, 1931).

You don't have to know the history of Libya or more specifically Cyrenaica, to enjoy the film, but it does help one sort through the premises we are being exposed to. During World War I the Senussi were our enemy. The Germans supplied them with several shiploads of arms and the Ottoman Turks trained hundreds of tribesmen to infiltrate into Egypt and report back on Allied troop movements and fortifications. The R.F.C. bombed the Senussi and the Brits raided their villages. The Italians hanged Mukhtar in 1931 but the Senussi spiritual leader escaped into British controlled Egypt and was given sanctuary. More, the British gave arms to his militia, the so-called "Free Libya Force", which had a tiny role in the North Africa Campaign in WW2.

Most egregious is the extended scene which has the Italians defeating the Muslims before Kufra by resorting to the use of mustard gas released from pressurized tanks, in violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol on war gases. (Mussolini authorized use of gas in 1929.) Aircraft had dropped mustard bombs on at least two missions, but they were not operations conducted by Graziani. The general certainly used poison gases in his later campaign in Italian Eritrea, and with that war crime on his record, the director felt entitled to add it to his Libyan tale of anti-fascist warfare. More to the point, at the time Muammar Gaddafi was funding this movie, 1979-81, he had full scale production underway of choking and blistering agents, as well as nerve gas. He later used it offensively, against his neighbor Chad.

The second DVD disc contains the Arabic version of the film and an Arabic version of the "making of" featurette. It is significantly different in content, and contains lengthier interview segments with Director Akkad in which he repeatedly describes Omar Mukhtar's resistance campaign as a "Jihad".
One irony associated with this bio-pic is that it was originally General Graziani who was the "Lion," and not his Muslim opponent. When he died in 1955, TIME magazine dubbed Graziani the "Desert Lion".
One of several replica tanks built by British production designers in 1979. Because turrets were not well bolted to the hulls, they shake or rattle in some closeups of armour on the move.

Two film extras, out of uniform, mug for a private photo between takes. Site is of an ambush on a mountain road - the best scene in the movie. Supporting material on the DVD includes an interesting "making of" film, with emphasis on the weaponry.
The greatest irony associated with this movie is that its well intentioned Director was consumed by the very forces of Islamic militance and faction fighting which he has tried to portray as purely anti-colonialist in nature. In November of 2005 Akkad was in Amman, Jordan on the day terrorists launched a coordinated attack on three American owned luxury hotels. He was standing in the lobby talking to his daughter when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest. They were both killed. Akkad's next project was to be a historical drama about Saladin; perhaps one more cinematic attempt to put a heroic or benign face on today's armed Islamic resurgence.
Director/producer Moustapha Akkad and his daughter Rima Akkad at her marriage. The two were murdered in Amman, Jordan by terrorist bomb.