The 'revolution' of 1968, a failure that succeeded (Daniel Cohn-Bendit )

[struggle4progress]

By Daniel Cohn-Bendit
Commentary by
Tuesday, May 06, 2008

... It was, undeniably, a political failure. But just as undeniable was the huge tremor that shook our antediluvian conceptions of society, morals, and the state. Challenging authoritarianism, the revolt triggered an explosion at the heart of the typically French two-headed power structure, which combined a dominant Gaullism and a Communist Party managing the working class ... '68 .... cracked the yoke of conservatism and totalitarian thought, enabling the desire for personal and collective autonomy and freedom to express itself. From the cultural point of view, we won.

So, revisit '68? Yes, but only in order to understand it, grasp its scope, and retain what still makes sense today. Knowing, for example, that 23 years after World War II, a multicolored France demonstrated against my deportation by claiming "We are all German Jews" provides food for thought.

But this does not justify the hasty comparison - and even less the identification - of every protest today with '68. After 40 years, the context has changed radically. The world of the Cold War is gone, as are schools and factories organized like barracks, authoritarian trade unions, gay bashing, and women's obligation to receive permission from their husbands before being able to work or open a bank account. That world has been replaced by a multilateral world, which includes AIDS, unemployment, energy and climate crises, and so on. So let's permit new generations to define their own battles and desires ...

Daniel Cohn-Bendit is co-president of the Greens-Free European Alliance Group in the European Parliament

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=91731

[Igel]

1. For a second I thought it was about the other

one. In Czechoslovakia.

I've seen a number of articles about the French one, usually dripping with nostalgia. I wonder if we'll be deluged with similar "Prague Spring" articles come August, even though the *positive* events were well under way by May.