City of Green — Green Ban Songs and Beyond
CD by Denis Kevans and friends
Send $20 (plus $3 postage) to 63 Valley Rd, Wentworth Falls NSW 2782
Review by Alex Bainbridge
City of Green is not the sort of album likely to have a place in the charts — it is much more valuable than that! It wouldn't be first choice for background music, although it is pleasant to hear. It is an album that has an important story to tell, and it deserves to be listened to.
Although recorded in the studio, the album feels as if it is live, as if it should be live. It is a collection of songs, poems and spoken word pieces. A number of pieces are directly about (or from) the 1970s green bans of the NSW Builders Labourers Federation, but it is more than simply a history lesson.
The album is a clever and moving attempt to keep alive the story of the green bans and to relate to contemporary environmental and social issues. This makes it a very contemporary album.
The BLF imposed a series of work bans, the green bans, on developers who wanted to demolish heritage buildings and sites of environmental significance in NSW. The workers saved trees and buildings which, to this day, remain a powerful symbol of how successful environmental campaigns can be run.
On the one hand, the green bans utilised the strength of a disciplined and well organised trade union movement. Green activists today too often forget to make alliances with trade unions, a powerful ally when mobilised.
Also crucial to the green bans' success was active support from community activists and social movements. Together they formed an unbeatable partnership.
The green bans leaders realised that the environment is a class issue. Working-class people have a right to live in a pleasant environment, they said, and they put bans on developers hell-bent on destroying workers' communities. The bans proved to be good way of building links with sections of the middle-class who also had environmental concerns.
Denis Kevans, who put this album together, joined the BLF in 1960 and writes from experience. "We need to write songs to keep this story alive", he said at the time. This led to some joint efforts with Seamus Gill, including "Across the Western Suburbs", which appears on the album. The CD includes Kevans' "Green Ban Fusiliers", which he describes as "the anthem of the green bans", a rousing song for which I have developed a heartfelt appreciation since first hearing it a year ago on Peter Hicks' Union is Strength.
City of Green also profiles Jack Mundey, secretary of the BLF at the time of the green bans, who commends the CD, expresses his continuing support for the environmental movement and recites a poem.
Successful campaigns like the green bans need to be remembered, and this album certainly helps us do that. However, it is certainly not stuck in the past; it is sensitive and uses humour to great effect. It also includes pieces about uranium mining, Aboriginal rights and contemporary environmental issues in the Blue Mountains.
There is also an intriguing song called "Robin Bell" about a farmer who transformed his land (against the prejudices of his neighbours) by contour ploughing and planting native trees. An especially powerful piece, "Ah, White Man, have you any sacred sites?", is also included.
The album is dedicated to the memory of Bobby Pringle, a former BLF president who was black-listed for life from the building industry. However, as Kevans told Green Left Weekly, the album is dedicated to all the BLs, "the nameless and the named, who sacrificed so much for social principles".
One of the most inspiring messages is captured in "Monuments", performed by Bob and Kate Fagan. In contrast to the marble monuments created by the rich and famous, the green bans are a different sort — a living monument that has and will capture the inspiration of many people. As the song says: "The pollen from our fighting hearts will bloom again somewhere".