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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1989-08-30, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1989. Editorial Put up or shut up The new Solidarity-led government of Poland has more or less issued a challenge to the Western democracies: put up, with cold hard cash, or shut up about wanting to see Democracy return to Eastern Europe. To have predicted what has happened in Poland, indeed in nearly all of Eastern Europe, even a few months ago would have been to have been declared a hopeless optimist. Fed by the greater freedom in the Soviet Union itself, theCommunist nations like Hungary, Poland and East Germany have been experiencing reforms thought impossible without major bloodshed. But Poland has gone farther than anybody else in the reform. First came the free elections. Then came the overwhelming victory of Solidarity candidates. Finally after the Communists tried unsuccessfully to form a government and two small parties decided to support Solidarity, came the stunning news that Solidarity, a non-communist party, would actually be allowed to form the government. Some would question is this really a victory. Poland is a mess economically. People are starving because the country’s economy has broken down. As if getting the country back in working shape wasn’t enough, Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki and his government have virtually no experience in running a government. We know in watching long-time opposition parties in Canada finally get their chance to govern, how many mistakes can develop. Here at least, however, politicians may have had experience at the provincial or municipal level. With only the Communists allowed to rule in Poland for the last 45 years, however, no one in the new government has such experience. For the moment, Solidarity has the support of the people but with many people in such drastic shape, the support won’t last long unless there are immediate improvements. “The government can retain public trust for no more than six months to a year,” Lech Walesa said on the weekend. “After that time the public has got to see the first signs of improvement.” If that improvement doesn’t happen, the people may be ready to turn back to the Communists for salvation. Westerners, led by the United States, have been wanting to see the dismantling of Communism in eastern Europe for 40 years now. Yet so far the U.S. has given only a fraction of aid to the new government that it has requested. Faced with our own budgetary deficits Western countries may be prone to give the Poles good wishes but little more. If we care about democracy for these people, however, we’ve got to be a lot more generous, even if it means hurting ourselves a little to do it. What we have in Poland is a once in a lifetime opportunity to show that democracy works and that communism has failed. We must, however, help the new democratic government show people that things can be better. If we don’t seize the opportunity we may push Poland back to the Communists and we can spend the money we might have sent to Poland in buying more and more arms to protect ourselves from the Communist world. Funding the drug war In the days when western movies made up a big part of our viewing, the plot line about the gang of criminals who terrorized the little frontier town was a staple of the Hollywood script writers. Not even their fertile imagination could dream up the situation in Columbia these days: an entire country terrorized by the underworld. Sunday there were rumours that Monica De Grieff, Columbia’s justice minister resigned after it was discovered there was a plot to assassinate her for her part in trying to break the hold drug dealers have on Columbia. Few people would blame her if she did. Many people give the government little hope of winning a war against the drug barons and their private armies. Whenever the drug barons feel threatened, they turn on the terror, assassinating judges and government officials. Many judges have been murdered for trying cases with gangland members. A presidential candidate was assassinated and threats have been made against government officials, judges, journalists and industrialists because of the latest crackdown. Sunday alone 10 banks were bombed. In the city of Medellin, the drug capital controlling 80 per cent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States, the murder rate is 17 people a day. The tragedy ofColumbiais heartbreakingand frightening but it all seems so far away. WeinNorth America have an important role in the whole mess, however. It is North American dollars that feed the drug empire and bankroll the drug barrons’ armies. If there weren’t people buying cocaine here, there wouldn’t be killings in Columbia. We all have a stake in helping Columbia beat back the criminals. If they can be that powerful in Columbia, these man can also wield immensepowerinNorth America tomake sure their drug business is secure. P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont NOM 1H0 Phone 523-4792 P.O Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont NOG 1H0 Phone 887-9114 Just dropped in for lunch Letter from the editor Musicians gave us voice BY KEITH ROULSTON The news last week of the death of Al Cherny, and the news the week earlier that Earl Heywood had been elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame took me back to the days of the old CKNX Travell­ ing Barn Dance: the days when, for little boys at least, the “big time” in entertainment was as far away as Wingham. News that the CKNX Barn Dance was coming to our town was a big event in those days. I remember crowding up around the stage to watch Al Cherny play, realizing that as I listened in person, so were thousands of others across south­ ern Ontario listening on the radio. I remember when the concert was over, getting autographs from Al Cherny, Don Robinson, Ernie King and Rossie Mann and all those other “stars” who we heard on the radio or saw in the early flickering pictures of television. For us, in those naive days, an appearance by Frank Sinatra or Buddy Holly couldn’t have been more of a thrill; maybe less because in those days there was only one station on our television and might as well have been only one on the radio and CKNX didn’t play much music by these big American stars. I’ve often thought Doc Cruick- shank, founder of CKNX and creator of the Barn Dance, deserv­ ed some of the credit for the success of the Blyth Festival begun years after his death. Others have tried and failed to repeat the success of the Blyth Festival in producing plays first and foremost for local people. Part of the reason, I think, is that local people here were confident enough in them­ selves that they liked to see their own story told on stage while for many people, something wasn’t important enough to be worth paying to see unless it had the stamp of success from Broadway or London England or at least Toron­ to. Part of the self-assurance of western Ontario people, I think comes from the exposure we got to our own culture on radio and television in the days of Doc Cruickshank. I was listening the other day to an interview with Robert MacNeil, co-host of the MacNeil-Lehrer re­ port on Public Television in the U.S. Mr. MacNeil has just written a new book called “Wordstruck” which recalls his early years grow­ ing up in Halifax and Ottawa before he abandoned his homeland for the glamour of London, England and finally for the U.S. He remembered, in the inter­ view, the awe he felt when he went to London, seeing all the places he had read about and heard about, the thrill he felt seeing these storied places for the first time. How could Halifax or Ottawa compare? Now, though, things would be different, he said. Although he lives in the U.S. he reads Canadian books and now Toronto, for in­ stance, takes on an importance because he reads about it in the writings of Margaret Atwood. By having places written about, he says, they take on a kind of psychic importance they wouldn’t have under normal circumstances. I think we got some of that sense of our own self worth through the work of Doc Cruickshank, Al Cher­ ny and Earl Heywood and the rest. We got it through the success of writers like Harry J. Boyle and Alice Munro, writing about people and places and feelings we knew. We get it now from the stories told on the stage of Blyth Memorial Hall and the international attention they draw to the Blyth Festival. All these things give local people a kind of quiet self confidence, a sense of knowing who you are, that people of few other places (includ­ ing big cities) in Canada possess. Fatalities worry OPP The Ontario Provincial Police is urging the public to think and act safely on this, the last weekend of summer. Already this year, the OPP has investigated more than 500 traffic deaths - a seven per cent increase over the same period last year. “1 have instructed our officers to* utilize everything at their disposal, including radar and radar detector detectors, as well as RIDE Program initiatives,” OPP Commissioner Tom O’Grady said. Personnel will also be checking for seat belt use. Statistics reveal that in the first eight months of this year, in accidents investigated by the OPP, 35 per cent of the victims were thrown from their vehicles. During Labour Day weekend last year, 19 persons were killed in 11 accidents. This is an increase from the same weekend in 1987 when 11 persons died. The Citizen is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario, by North Huron Publishing Company Inc Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $17 OO/yr ($38 00 Foreign) Advertising isacceptedon thecondition that in the event of a typographical error, only that portion of the advertisement will be credited Advertising Deadlines Monday, 2pm - Brussels, Monday, 4pm - Blyth We are not responsible for unsolicited newscriptsor photographs Contents of The C.tizen are © Copyright Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships. Edit or & Publisher, Keith Roulston Production Manager, Jill Rouls ton Advertising Manager, Dave Williams Second Class Mail Registration No. 6968