| 1968: Memories and Legacies of a Global Revolt |
 edited by Philipp Gassert and Martin KlimkeIn May 1968, after the occupation of the main building at the Sorbonne had been ended by French police, the young Franco-German student leader, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, stood trial in a court in Paris. When the judge kept demanding his name, he finally identified himself as "Kuroń-Modzelewski," using the names of two well-known Polish dissidents of the 1960s (who would later become the founding fathers of the 1980s Polish oppositional movement Solidarność). By 1968, Jacek Kuroń’s and Karol Modzelewski’s 1964 "Open Letter to the Party," in which they had criticized Poland’s stale postwar communism, was widely circulated among Western students. As the 1968 preface to the English edition suggested, "the worldwide wave of protests, rallies, marches, sit-ins, and battles with the police have brought consternation to the capitalist establishment of the West and the bureaucratic establishment of the deformed workers’ states of the East; they have brought hope and inspiration to truly revolutionary socialist forces everywhere." As the individual chapters in this book demonstrate, protesters and activists were aware of what was going on across borders and across oceans. They were inspired by “Tet” and the “French May.” They were outraged by the attempted assassination of Rudi Dutschke in Berlin and the Soviet invasion. While the motives for protests varied from country to country, people readily imagined themselves as part of a global community of protest. The globalism of 1968 captured more than just contemporary imaginations. Forty years on, “1968”—the preferred shorthand for the social and cultural transformations of the “Sixties” in most of continental Europe—has become a powerful myth. “1968” lingers on in memory all over Europe, in Asia, and in the Americas. In the culture wars of our time, it has grown so powerful that politicians like French President Nicolas Sarkozy or his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderón have used it to stake out political territory. Forty years later, this imagined “global ‘68” still stirs up raw and powerful emotions. Such intense retrospective interest calls for an explanation. While, by now, most scholars in Europe and North America acknowledge that “1968”—the actual events as well as the imagined connection—had a global quality (which was not a common view only ten to fifteen years ago), few have attempted to present the events of that “crucial decade” in a country-by-country survey. Barely more attention has been given to answering the riddle of why “1968” still strikes a chord in people’s imaginations. This book hopes to fill this gap by presenting voices on “1968” from more than three dozen countries. It grew out of digital project by the Goethe Institute in 2008 to commemorate the fortieth anniversary (broadly conceived) of the events of the late 1960s and early 1970s and out of a series of events held at the Goethe Institute and German Historical Institute in Washington, DC. The perspectives represented here are necessarily subjective and occasionally contradictory and provocative, yet both their analytical and at times emotional elements are an apt illustration of the plethora of approaches to “1968” in today’s memorial culture. Although this volume cannot do justice to the complexity of the questions involved, we hope that the following contributions from a variety of intellectuals, historians, artists, and activists can provide impulses for further discussions and research on the imagined global revolution around 1968. Table of Contents Introduction: Writing on 1968 as History: Memories and Legacies of a Global Revolt / Philipp Gassert and Martin Klimke I. The Americas Argentina: The Signs and Images of “Revolutionary War” / Hugo Vezzetti Bolivia: Che Guevara in Global Perspective / Carlos Soria Galvarro T. Canada: 1968 and the New Left / Dimitri Roussopoulus Columbia: The “Cataluña Movement” / Santiago Castro-Gómez Mexico: The Power of Memory / Sergio Raúl Arroyo Peru: The Beginning of a New World / Oscar Ugarteche USA: Unending 1968 / Todd Gitlin Venezuela: A Sociological Laboratory / Félix Allueva II. Asia & Australia Australia: A Nation of Lotus-Eaters / Hugh Mackay China: The Process of Decolonization in the Case of Hong Kong / Oscar Ho Hing-kay India: Outsiders in Two Worlds / Kiran Nagarkar Japan: “1968”—History of a Decade / Claudia Derichs Pakistan: The Year of Change / Ghazi Salahuddin Thailand: The “October Movement” and the Transformation to Democracy / Kittisak Prokati III. Africa & The Middle East Egypt: From Romanticism to Realism / Ibrahim Farghali Israel: 1968 and the “’67 Generation” / Gilad Margarit Lebanon: Of Things that Remain Unsaid / Rachid al Daif Palestinian Territories: Discovering Freedom in a Refugee Camp / Hassan Khadr Senegal: May 1968, Africa’s Revolt / Andy Stafford South Africa: Where Were We Looking in 1968? / John Daniel, Peter Vale Syria: The Children of the Six-Day War / Mouaffaq Nyrabia IV. Europe Eastern Europe Czechoslovakia: Lines of Tanks in Prague / Petruška Šustrová East Germany: “Solidarity with Red Prague” / Philipp Gassert and Elisabeth Piller Hungary: The Year of Disillusionment / László Márton Poland: The March Events of 1968 / Jerzy Eisler Russia: The Philosophy of the Long-Haired Rebellion / Victor Yerofeyev Turkey: The Lost Generation / Zafer Şenocak Yugoslavia: Down with the Red Bourgeoisie! / Želimir Žilnik Western Europe Belgium: The End Started in 1968 / Paul Goossens Denmark: Protest and Pragmatism / Thomas Ekman Jørgensen France: A Journey to Freedom / Mohammad Bennis Great Britain: “No Place for a Street Fighting Man” / Hans Kundnani Greece: The Other Side of 1968 / Petros Markaris Ireland: Breaking the Shackles / Nell McCafferty Italy: “We Demand the Impossible” / Giuseppe Carlo Marino Netherlands: The Second Liberation / Roel van Duijn Norway: A Political Awakening / Dag Solstad Sweden: What Happened to 1968? / Svante Weyler West Germany: A Return from Cultural Nostalgia to Political Analysis / Claus Leggewie Epilogue: Norman Birnbaum, Patty Lee Parmalee, Tom Hayden |
