BC 150, History 0

Stan Hagen, the Minister for Tourism, Sport, and Arts doesn't want Victoria's Showcase Theatre Society to get a BC 150 grant to produce a play chronicling the life of Labour firebrand Ginger Goodwin. Is this page surprised? Not really. The overwhelming majority of British Columbians are indifferent to our history because successive right wing governments ignore our true history, and expect cultural institutions to do the same, as a means of social control.

Imagine how the Bill 29 dispute would have played out if someone besides the Hospital Employees Union and the B.C. Federation of Labour were conscious of the fact that there was a General Strike in Vancouver a year before the well-documented Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. What if people knew enough about the On-to-Ottawa Trek to draw comparisons to the Anti-Poverty Committee? Don't claim denying the grant for 'Dancing in the Coal Dust' isn't political when governments have a stake in manipulating popular history. If the public knows that this kind of Opposition, Resistance and Direct Action have happened before, and society has changed for the better as a result, how can governments scare people into submission and continue to consume the spoon-fed propaganda of 'The Best Place on Earth'?

History ain't pretty. If it is, it ain't worth mentioning. There's a reason why Storyeum failed miserably and sits as an empty shell in Gastown.