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Where has all the rage gone?
In 1968, fury at the Vietnam war sparked protests and uprisings
across the world: from Paris and Prague to Mexico. Tariq Ali
considers the legacy 40 years on
By Tariq Ali
23/03/08 "The
Guardian" -- -- A
storm swept the world in 1968.
It started in Vietnam, then blew across Asia, crossing the sea
and the mountains to Europe and beyond. A brutal war waged by
the US against a poor south-east Asian country was seen every
night on television. The cumulative impact of watching the bombs
drop, villages on fire and a country being doused with napalm
and Agent Orange triggered a wave of global revolts not seen on
such a scale before or since.
If the Vietnamese were defeating the world's most powerful
state, surely we, too, could defeat our own rulers: that was the
dominant mood among the more radical of the 60s generation.
In February 1968, the Vietnamese communists launched their
famous Tet offensive, attacking US troops in every major South
Vietnamese city. The grand finale was the sight of Vietnamese
guerrillas occupying the US embassy in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)
and raising their flag from its roof. It was undoubtedly a
suicide mission, but incredibly courageous. The impact was
immediate. For the first time a majority of US citizens realised
that the war was unwinnable. The poorer among them brought
Vietnam home that same summer in a revolt against poverty and
discrimination as black ghettoes exploded in every major US
city, with returned black GIs playing a prominent part.
The single spark set the world alight. In March 1968, students
at Nanterre University in France came out on to the streets and
the 22 March Movement was born, with two Daniels (Cohn-Bendit
and Bensaid, Nanterre students then, and both still involved in
green or leftist politics) challenging the French lion: Charles
de Gaulle, the aloof, monarchical president of the Fifth
Republic who, in a puerile outburst, would later describe as
chie-en-lit - "shit in the bed" - the events in France that came
close to toppling him. The students began by demanding
university reforms and moved on to revolution.
That same month in London, a demonstration against the Vietnam
war marched to the US embassy in Grosvenor Square. It turned
violent. Like the Vietnamese, we wanted to occupy the embassy,
but mounted police were deployed to protect the citadel. Clashes
occurred and the US senator Eugene McCarthy watching the images
demanded an end to a war that had led, among other things, to
"our embassy in Europe's friendliest capital" being constantly
besieged. Compared with the ferment elsewhere, Britain was a
sideshow ("...in sleepy London Town there's just no place for a
street fighting man," Mick Jagger sang later that year):
university occupations and riots in Grosvenor Square did not
pose any real threat to the Labour government, which backed the
US but refused to send troops to Vietnam.
In France, the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was
at the peak of his influence. Contrary to Stalinist apologists,
he argued that there was no reason to prepare for happiness
tomorrow at the price of injustice, oppression or misery today.
What was required was improvement now.
By May, the Nanterre students' uprising had spread to Paris and
to the trade unions. We were preparing the first issue of The
Black Dwarf as the French capital erupted on May 10.
Jean-Jacques Lebel, our teargassed Paris correspondent, was
ringing in reports every few hours. He told us: "A well-known
French football commentator is sent to the Latin Quarter to
cover the night's events and reported, 'Now the CRS [riot
police] are charging, they're storming the barricade - oh my
God! There's a battle raging. The students are
counter-attacking, you can hear the noise - the CRS are
retreating. Now they're regrouping, getting ready to charge
again. The inhabitants are throwing things from their windows at
the CRS - oh! The police are retaliating, shooting grenades into
the windows of apartments...' The producer interrupts: 'This
can't be true, the CRS don't do things like that!'
" 'I'm telling you what I'm seeing...' His voice goes dead. They
have cut him off."
The police failed to take back the Latin Quarter, now renamed
the Heroic Vietnam Quarter. Three days later a million people
occupied the streets of Paris, demanding an end to the
rottenness of the state and plastering the walls with slogans:
"Defend The Collective Imagination", "Beneath The Cobble- stones
The Beach", "Commodities Are The Opium Of The People, Revolution
Is The Ecstasy Of History".
Eric Hobsbawm wrote in The Black Dwarf: "What France proves is
when someone demonstrates that people are not powerless, they
may begin to act again."
I had been planning to head for Paris - it was something we had
been discussing at the paper - but then I received a late-night
phone call. A posh voice said, "You don't know who I am, but do
not leave the country till your five years here are up. They
won't let you back." In those days, citizenship for Commonwealth
citizens was automatic after five years. I would not complete my
five years until October 1968. Already Labour cabinet ministers
had been discussing in public whether or not I could be
deported. Friendly lawyers confirmed I should not leave the
country. Clive Goodwin, the publisher of our mag, vetoed the
trip and went off himself.
I went a year later to help Alain Krivine, one of the leaders of
the May 1968 revolt, in his presidential campaign, standing for
the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire. As we touched down at Orly
airport, returning from a rally in Toulouse, the French police
surrounded the plane. "Hope it's you, not me," muttered Krivine.
It was. I was served an order banning me from France which
stayed in force until François Mitterand's election many years
later.
The revolution did not happen, but France was shaken by the
events. De Gaulle, with a sense of history, considered a coup
d'état: in early June, he flew from a military base to
Baden-Baden, where French troops were stationed, to ask whether
they would support him if Paris fell to the revolutionaries.
They agreed but demanded rehabilitation for the ultra-right
generals whom De Gaulle had fired because they opposed pulling
out of Algeria. The deal was done. Yet De Gaulle slapped down
his interior minister for suggesting that Sartre be arrested:
"You cannot imprison Voltaire," he ruled.
The French example did spread, worrying bureaucrats in Moscow as
much as the ruling elites in the west. An unruly and
undisciplined people had to be brought to heel. Robert Escarpit,
a Le Monde correspondent, wrote on July 23 1968: "A Frenchman
travelling abroad feels himself treated a bit like a
convalescent from a pernicious fever. And how did the rash of
barricades break out? What was the temperature at five o'clock
in the evening of May 29? Is the Gaullist medicine really
getting to the roots of the disease? Are there dangers of a
relapse?... But there is one question that is hardly ever asked,
perhaps because they are afraid to hear the answer. But at heart
everyone would like to know, hopefully or fearfully, whether the
sickness is infectious."
It was infectious. In Prague, communist reformers - many of them
heroes of the anti-fascist resistance during the second world
war - had that spring already proclaimed "socialism with a human
face". The aim of Alexander Dubcek and his supporters was to
democratise political life in Czechoslovakia. It was the first
step towards a socialist democracy and was seen as such in
Moscow and Washington. On August 21, the Russians sent in the
tanks and crushed the reform movement.
In every west European capital there were protests. The tabloid
press in Britain was constantly attacking leftists as "agents of
Moscow" and was genuinely taken aback when we marched to the
Soviet embassy, denouncing the invasion in strong language and
burning effigies of the bloated Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn later remarked that the Soviet invasion
of Czechoslovakia had been the last straw for him. Now he
realised that the system could never be reformed from within but
would have to be overthrown. He was not alone. The Moscow
bureaucrats had sealed their own fate.
In Mexico, students took over their universities, demanding an
end to oppression and one-party rule. The army was sent in to
occupy the universities and did so for many months, making it
the best-educated army in the world. On October 2 - with the
eyes of the world on Mexico City 10 days before the Olympic
games were due to begin there - thousands of students poured on
to the streets to demonstrate. A massacre began at sunset.
Troops opened fire on the crowd listening to speeches in one of
the city's main squares - dozens were killed and hundreds more
injured.
And then in November 1968 Pakistan erupted. Students took on the
state apparatus of a corrupt and decaying military dictatorship
backed by the US (sound familiar?). They were joined by workers,
lawyers, white-collar employees, prostitutes, and other social
layers, and despite the severe repression (hundreds were
killed), the struggle increased in intensity and, the following
year, toppled Field Marshal Ayub Khan.
When I arrived in February 1969, the mood of the country was
joyous. Speaking at rallies all over the country with the poet
Habib Jalib, we encountered a very different atmosphere from
that in Europe. Here power did not seem so remote. The victory
over Ayub Khan led to the first general election in the
country's history. The Bengali nationalists in east Pakistan won
a majority that the elite and key politicians refused to accept.
Civil war led to Indian military intervention and that ended the
old Pakistan. Bangladesh was the result of a bloody caesarean.
The glorious decade (1965-75), of which the year 1968 was only
the high point, consisted of three concurrent narratives.
Politics dominated, but there were two others that left a deeper
imprint - sexual liberation and a hedonistic entrepreneurship
from below. We had cause to be grateful for the latter. We were
constantly appealing for funds from readers when I edited The
Black Dwarf in 1968-69. One day a guy in overalls walked into
our Soho office and counted out 25 grubby £5 notes, thanked us
for producing the paper and left. He would do this every
fortnight. Finally, I asked who he was and if there was a
particular reason for his generosity. It turned out he had a
stall on Portobello Road and, as to why he wanted to help, it
was simple. "Capitalism is so non-groovy, man." It's only too
groovy now and far more vicious.
In some ways, the 60s were a reaction to the 50s, and the
intensity of the cold war. In the US, the McCarthyite
witch-hunts had created havoc in the 50s, but now blacklisted
writers could work again; in Russia, hundreds of political
prisoners were released, the gulags were closed down and the
crimes of Stalin were denounced by Khruschev as eastern Europe
trembled with excitement and hopes of rapid reform. They hoped
in vain.
The spirit of renewal infected the realm of culture as well:
Solzhenitsyn's first novel was serialised in the official
literary magazine, Novy Mir, and a new cinema took over most of
Europe. In Spain and Portugal, ruled at the time by Nato's
favourite fascists, Franco and Salazar, censorship persisted,
but in Britain DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, written in
1928, was published for the first time in 1960. The book, in its
complete form, sold two million copies.
Following Simone de Beauvoir's pioneering work in The Second Sex
(1949), Juliet Mitchell fired off a new salvo in December 1966.
Her lengthy essay, Women: The Longest Revolution, appeared in
the New Left Review and became an immediate point of reference,
summarising the problems faced by women: "In advanced industrial
society, women's work is only marginal to the total economy...
women are offered a universe of their own: the family. Like
woman herself, the family appears as a natural object, but it is
actually a cultural creation... Both can be exalted
paradoxically, as ideals. The 'true' woman and 'true' family are
images of peace and plenty: in actuality they may both be sites
of violence and despair."
In September 1968, US feminists disrupted the Miss World
competition in Atlantic City, warning shots in a women's
liberation movement that would change women's lives by demanding
recognition, independence and an equal voice in a male-dominated
world. The cover of the January 1969 issue of Black Dwarf
dedicated the year to women. Inside, we published Sheila
Rowbotham's spirited feminist call to arms. (As I write this,
Professor Rowbotham, now a distinguished scholar, has her job
under threat from the ghastly, grey accountants who run
Manchester University. We are now in an epoch of production-line
universities with celebrities paid fortunes to teach eight hours
a week and genuine scholars dumped in the bin.)
And, yes, there was also the pleasure principle. That the 60s
were hedonistic is indisputable, but they were different from
the corporatised version of today. At the time they marked a
break with the hypocritical puritanism of the 40s and 50s, when
censors prohibited married couples being shown on screen sharing
a bed and pyjamas were compulsory. Radical upheavals challenge
all social restrictions. It was always thus.
In the prefigurative London of the 18th century, sexual
experiments required the cover of break-away churches such as
the Moravians and surreal Swedenborgians (for whom "love for the
holy" was best expressed in the "projection of semen"): both
preached the virtues of combining religious and sexual ecstasy.
Sexual orgies were a regular feature of Moravian ritual,
according to which penetration was akin to entering the wounds
in Christ's side. William Blake and his circle were heavily
involved in all of this and some of his paintings depicting this
world were censored at the time. I hope this does not come as
too much of a shock to my old friend Tony Benn and others who
sing Jerusalem without realising the hidden meaning of:
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear!
Homosexuality in Britain was decriminalised only in 1967. Gay
liberation movements erupted with activists demanding an end to
all homophobic legislation and Gay Pride marches were launched,
inspired by the Afro-American struggles for equal rights and
black pride. All the movements learned from each other. The
advances of the civil rights, women's and gay movements, now
taken for granted, had to be fought for on the streets against
enemies who were fighting the "war on horror".
History rarely repeats itself, but its echoes never go away. In
the autumn of 2004, when I was in the US on a lecture tour that
coincided with Bush's re-election campaign, I noticed at a large
antiwar meeting in Madison a very direct echo in a utopian
bumper sticker: "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam." The sound engineer
in the hall, a Mexican-American, whispered proudly in my ear
that his son, a 25- year-old marine, had just returned from a
tour of duty in the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah, the scene
of horrific massacres by US soldiers, and may show up at the
meeting. He didn't, but joined us later with a couple of
civilian friends. He could see the room was packed with antiwar,
anti-Bush activists.
The young, crewcut marine, G, recounted tales of duty and
valour. I asked why he had joined the marine corps. "There was
no choice for people like me. If I'd stayed here, I'd have been
killed on the streets or ended up in the penitentiary serving
life. The marine corps saved my life. They trained me, looked
after me and changed me completely. If I died in Iraq, at least
it would be the enemy that killed me. In Fallujah, all I could
think of was how to make sure that the men under my command were
kept safe. That's all. Most of the kids demonstrating for peace
have no problems here. They go to college, they demonstrate and
soon they forget it all as they move into well-paid jobs. It's
not so easy for people like me. I think there should be a draft.
Why should poor kids be the only ones out there? Out of all the
marines I work with, perhaps four or five percent are gung-ho
flag-wavers. The rest of us are doing a job, we do it well and
hope we get out without being KIA [killed in action] or
wounded."
Later, G sat on a sofa between two older men - both former
combatants. On his left was Will Williams, 60, born in
Mississipi, who had enlisted in the army aged 17. He was sure
that, had he not left Mississippi, the Klu Klux Klan or some
other racist gang would have killed him. He, too, told me that
the military "saved my life". Following a stint in Germany, he
was sent to Vietnam. Wounded in action, he received a Purple
Heart and two bronze stars; he also began to change following a
rebellion by black troops at Camranh Bay protesting racism
within the US army.
Following a difficult period readjusting, Williams read deeply
in politics and history. Feeling that the country was being lied
to again, he and Dot, his companion of over 43 years, joined the
movement opposing the war in Iraq, bringing their Gospel choir
voices to rallies and demonstrations.
On G's right was Clarence Kailin, 90 years old that summer and
one of the few remaining survivors of the Abraham Lincoln
Brigade that had fought on the Republican side in the Spanish
civil war. He, too, has been active in the movement against the
war in Iraq. "Our trip was made in considerable secrecy - even
from our families. I was a truck driver, then an infantry man
and for a short time a stretcher-bearer. I saw the brutality of
war up close. Of the five Wisconsinites who came to Spain with
me, two were killed... later, there was Vietnam and this time
kids from here died on the wrong side. Now we have Iraq. It's
really bad, but I still believe there is an innate goodness in
people, which is why so many can break with unworthy pasts."
In 2006, after another tour of duty, G could no longer accept
any justification for the war. He was admiring of Cindy Sheehan
and the Military Families Against the War, the most consistently
active and effective antiwar group in the US.
A decade before the French Revolution, Voltaire remarked that
"History is the lies we agree on". Afterwards there was little
agreement on anything. The debate on 1968 was recently revived
by Nicolas Sarkozy, who boasted that his victory in last year's
presidential elections was the final nail in the '68 coffin. The
philosopher Alain Badiou's tart response was to compare the new
president of the republic to the Bourbons of 1815 and Marshal
Pétain during the war. They, too, had talked about nails and
coffins.
"May 1968 imposed intellectual and moral relaivism on us all,"
Sarkozy declared. "The heirs of May '68 imposed the idea that
there was no longer any difference between good and evil, truth
and falsehood, beauty and ugliness. The heritage of May 1968
introduced cynicism into society and politics."
He even blamed the legacy of May '68 for greedy and seedy
business practices. The May '68 attack on ethical standards
helped to "weaken the morality of capitalism, to prepare the
ground for the unscrupulous capitalism of golden parachutes for
rogue bosses". So the 60s generation is held responsible for
Enron, Conrad Black, the subprime mortgage crisis, Northern
Rock, corrupt politicians, deregulation, the dictatorship of the
"free market", a culture strangled by brazen opportunism.
The struggle against the Vietnam war lasted 10 years. In 2003
people came out again in Europe and America, in even larger
numbers, to try to stop the Iraq war. The pre-emptive strike
failed. The movement lacked the stamina and the resonance of its
predecessors. Within 48 hours it had virtually disappeared,
highlighting the changed times.
Were the dreams and hopes of 1968 all idle fantasies? Or did
cruel history abort something new that was about to be born?
Revolutionaries - utopian anarchists, Fidelistas, Trotskyist
allsorts, Maoists of every stripe - wanted the whole forest.
Liberals and social democrats were fixated on individual trees.
The forest, they warned us, was a distraction, far too vast and
impossible to define, whereas a tree was a piece of wood that
could be identified, improved and crafted into a chair or a
table. Now the tree, too, has gone.
"You're like fish that only see the bait, never the line," we
would mock in return. For we believed - and still do - that
people should not be measured by material possessions but by
their ability to transform the lives of others - the poor and
underprivileged; that the economy needed to be reorganised in
the interests of the many, not the few; and that socialism
without democracy could never work. Above all, we believed in
freedom of speech.
Much of this seems utopian now and some, for whom 1968 wasn't
radical enough at the time, have embraced the present and, like
members of ancient sects who moved easily from ritual debauchery
to chastity, now regard any form of socialism as the serpent
that tempted Eve in paradise.
The collapse of "communism" in 1989 created the basis for a new
social agreement, the Washington Consensus, whereby deregulation
and the entry of private capital into hitherto hallowed domains
of public provision would become the norm everywhere, making
traditional social democracy redundant and threatening the
democratic process itself.
Some, who once dreamed of a better future, have simply given up.
Others espouse a bitter maxim: unless you relearn you won't
earn. The French intelligentsia, which had from the
Enlightenment onwards made Paris the political workshop of the
world, today leads the way with retreats on every front.
Renegades occupy posts in every west European government
defending exploitation, wars, state terror and neocolonial
occupations; others now retired from the academy specialise in
producing reactionary dross on the blogosphere, displaying the
same zeal with which they once excoriated factional rivals on
the far left. This, too, is nothing new. Shelley's rebuke to
Wordsworth who, after welcoming the French Revolution, retreated
to a pastoral conservatism, expressed it well:
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,
Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
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