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james_davis_nicollBut now that the text of the Chevron review of FASS 1976 has been been posted, this pales in comparison to
Comment: FASS is for fascism
FASS says about itself that it represents the humour of faculty, administration, staff and students at UW and “is a collection of fun-loving, happy acting persons … to poke fun at life here, at UW”. What kind of poking fun was it?
It was sour and smacked of totalitarianism; FASS ridiculed the people and promoted the selfish theses of the few on this campus and in this society who exist to oppress workers, students, women and national minorities. Ridicule indeed deserves a place on the stage so long as it is directed against the oppressors and lifts the spirit of the oppressed. FASS was the bourgeoisie ridiculing everyone except themselves.
FASS promoted a phony theme of chaos to lay the foundation for the solution it poses – namely, fascism. It portrayed the ideological and political struggles (which are real things going on at UW and elsewhere in the world) on this campus as senseless and unprincipled, without foundation and out of control, coming from nowhere and leading to nothing but the necessity for the state to impose totalitarian rule.
It ridiculed the legitimate struggles of students for jobs, bursaries and loans, pouring cold water on the enthusiasm of this campus to fight back against oppression of all kinds. Basically it circumvented any analysis of the material causes of social problems and satirised the rising tide of resistance in the face of increased repression.
FASS presented all of this by reducing legitimate opposition to the level of obscenity – an obscenity which calls up the need for “the great red tundraworm(?)” (whose historical counterpart is “sin wundler”(?)) to come to the rescue, to control the immiserated and depraved masses who haven’t the sense or the powers to take better care of their destiny.
To justify this solution, the ruling class through their administrative reps on this campus were depicted as “trying to build something” but abstracted by political fragmentation and a prevailing chaos so that no one can achieve anything. Their agents – weak, slightly pathetic but ultimately the voice of reason – (“Burt Mukluk” and the RCMP) seek to achieve “détente between the extremist factions.”
Who are these extremist factions, so alike in form and content? “Mother Marsha” and “Sister Marlene” have a mindless hoard (sic) who froth at the mouth on command. The serious left on this campus, according to FASS, are mere barking dogs, religious zealots, inspired not by the red flag, but by the crucifix. The right – from “Bill Gram” to “Father John” and the ku klux klan are identical caricatures. Who but Trudeau and his ilk spin such desperate images? “Communism and fascism; it’s all the same”, they say.
Analogies between FASS and German culture on the eve of Hitler’s Nazism are too numerous to recount. The performance dredged up popular fascist stereotypes: the usurious Jew, the kindly cop, the mindless minorities (native people, Quebecois, etc.). FASS attacked women and students in a most vicious fashion, the former as giddy or vamps, the latter as “gullible, spineless and cheap” (as workers). Nor did FASS spare any wrath in its contemptible depiction of workers and even took pains to single out the postal workers for special ridicule. Striking workers were perhaps the most assinine (sic).
My mind kept recalling scenes from the film “Cabaret” where nightclub audiences are led into a drunken hysteria by lively choreography, cute costumes and maniacal masks (?); an attempt to make palatable the rising tide of fascism by drugging the people into acquiescence. It is significant that FASS devoted itself to promoting drunkenness, debauchery and idleness in scenes such as “From Sea to Sea, a Ribbon of Beer”.
FASS was nothing more than the ugly features of a dying social system reflected in a thoroughly degraded culture – a culture desperately trying to prop up fascism as the only answer. In recent chevrons, reviewers have noted attempts by the U.S. film industry to stifle sentiment hostile to imperialism. In a similar vein, FASS promoted resignation to totalitarianism as the only possible avenue (?) for the creation of social order.
It was unflinching in its hatred for the people and their struggles and unswerving in its loyalty to everything that is rotten and perverse. The closing note is one of a completely poisoned and demoralised society, whose seedy spokesperson supposed out loud that there was nothing to be done but cavort with the hated “lemmings” (masses of people).
Who profits by such humour? Who, besides the ruling class, takes pleasure in fascism? Who, but the ruling class promote decadence to maintain their system and turn a profit?
The positive side of FASS is that such ideas grow up in resistance to the concrete conditions of this campus in particular where students, faculty and staff are developing an effective resistance to the cutbacks in educational spending, where hatred for the two superpowers runs deep, where support for the struggles of the Canadian working people and national liberation struggles are high on the agenda. Where there is repression, there is resistance: the worse the repression, the more vigorous and determined the resistance. FASS promoted a deeply repressive ideology in response to the depth and breadth of the resistance movement on this campus.
The “counterculture” of the late sixties was nothing more than police organized counterrevolution to stem the tide of the youth and student movement against U.S. imperialist culture domestically and its wars of aggression in Indo-China. Now, as then, current presence of U.S. economic and political control over Canada manifests (?) itself in ideas and images which permeate the culture in a vain attempt to maintain U.S. imperialism. Because the Canadian people are offering such active resistance to the imperialist plunderers (?), they promote a whole cultural superstructure to assist the further implantation of their interests.
FASS took up this call which has foreign origins and scale (?) support – the call to sell a rationale hospitable to fascism. As such, FASS deserves nothing but contempt. In a word it was sickening – a fact well recognised by the audience who laughed and hissed at the most obscene parts.
- marlene webber
