Ringvorlesung am 6. Juni 1988
Die internationale Dimension der Studentenbewegung
Teilnehmer: Luisa Passerini und Daniel Bertraux
Diskussionsleitung: Annemarie Tröger
Jochen Staadt: Die
letzte Universitätsvorlesung, die wird wie angekündigt in
englischer Sprache stattfinden. Ich begrüße hier heute Luisa
Passerini aus
Turin und Daniel
Bertraux aus
Paris.Annemarie
Tröger wird die
Diskussion leiten. Ron Grele
den wir eingeladen hatten aus USA, ist leider den Sparmaßnahmen
dieser Universität zum Opfer gefallen. Wir hören deswegen in der
Einleitung von Annemarie Tröger, die sich auch lange in den USA
aufgehalten hat, einen Bei trag über die Zusammenhänge und
Hintergründe der amerikanischen Studentenbewegung.
Annemarie Tröger: Also
ich hoffe, daß ihr den Schock über das Englische einigermaßen
überwunden habt. Ich würde folgendes sagen, ich möchte relativ
schnell zu einer Diskussion kommen und wer von euch wirklich
Angst hat, englisch zu reden oder glaubt sich da nicht
ausdrücken zu können, der kann das also ruhig auf deutsch sagen,
ich werde dann versuchen das sinngemäß zu übersetzen. Die
Antworten werden aber dann auf englisch gegeben, die werde ich
dann nicht noch mal übersetzen. Ich hoffe, daß ihr damit
einverstanden seid. Ich möchte anfangen, mit einer kurzen
Vorstellung der Personen, die ihr hier sitzen seht. Zu meiner
Linken Luisa Passerini. Sie ist Professorin an der Universität
in Turin und lehrt hauptsächlich Methoden der historischen
Forschung und arbeitet seit Jahren, das ist auch der
Zusammenhang, in dem wir uns alle kennengelernt haben, mit der
mündlichen Methode der Geschichte oder "Oral History". Sie war
selbst aktiv in der Studentenbewegung beteiligt, sie war in der
Gruppe Gramchi, einer Studenten-Arbeiter-Bewegung, der 68er,
69er Jahre. Dann in der Frauenbewegung und in der
Unterstützungsbewegung für die Befreiungsbewegung in der 3.
Welt, besonders für Frelimo, der mosambiquischen Frelimo.
Zu meiner Rechten Daniel Bertraux, Daniel Bertraux hat zuerst
Ingenieurwissenschaften studiert, dann aber, auch so ein Zeichen
jener Zeit, ist er auf Soziologie umgewechselt. Er ist jetzt
Wissenschaftler am Centre National des Recherches Sientifiques.
Das ist so etwas ähnliches wie eine Akademie der Wissenschaften,
also das große Staatsforschungsunternehmen, wenn man so will.
Oder wie die Max-Plank-Institute in Westdeutschland. Er hat am
Pariser Mai weniger als Aktivist als jemand, der hineingezogen
wurde, teilgenommen, also der Pariser Mai hat ihn in dieser
Hinsicht politisiert und er ist dann z.B. einer der Mitbegründer
von der Zeitschrift, der Tageszeitung "Liberation" in
Frankreich. Daniel Bertraux arbeitet ebenfalls mit der Methode
der mündlichen Geschichte und versucht die Biographieforschung
für die soziologische Forschung...?
Ich selbst heiße Annemarie Tröger, ich habe hierin Berlin
studiert, bin 1961 Mitglied des SDS geworden, habe den ganzen
Verlauf der Studentenbewegung bis 1968 hier in Berlin
hauptsächlich mitbekommen, und bin dann in die Vereinigten
Staaten gegangen, hauptsächlich hing das zusammen mit unserer
Organisation von amerikanischen GI's hier in Deutschland, die
desertiert waren. Und ich bin bis 1975, Anfang 1975 in Amerika
geblieben. Im selben Jahr bin ich dann zurückgekommen und habe
hier als Assistentin am Zentralinstitut 6 der FU gearbeitet.
Faschismusforschung hauptsächlich. Und danach in Hannover, und
z.Z. bin ich arbeitslos. Ich möchte jetzt noch ganz kurz den
Zusammenhang, weswegen also z.B. Luisa und nicht irgend jemand
anderes aus Italien oder Daniel, und nicht irgend jemand anderes
aus Frankreich da ist, hat folgenden Zusammenhang. Wir haben uns
auf eine Idee, die Luisa und ich ausgebrütet hatten. Haben
zusammengearbeitet an einem Buch über 68, über internationalen
Maßstab, daran beteiligt war, also einmal der Name desjenigen,
der das dann zusammengeschrieben hat, der Jochen Staadt auch
noch für Deutschland, der Ron Grele, den wir auch eingeladen
hatten wie Jochen gerade sagte, der aber nicht kommen konnte.
Bred Enyon und Daniele Linhardt für Frankreich noch und Beatrice
Lepida für Frankreich. Dieses Buch basiert auf den
Lebensgeschichten von Aktivisten in 5 Ländern, also Italien,
Frankreich, BRD, USA und Großbritannien und Irland. Und es ist
ein Versuch aus der Erinnerungsarbeit der Beteiligten die
Geschichte zu rekonstruieren. Es ist, also bisher ist es nur in
England und in den USA, also in der Sprache in der es
geschrieben wurde, erschienen. Für Deutschland, Frankreich und
Italien war es bisher schwierig einen Verleger zu finden, was
auf 2 Sachen hinweist, einmal ist es ihnen zu teuer, 2. sind sie
fixiert auf 1988 und dafür ist es zu kurz. Also man kann es
dieses Jahr nicht mehr veröffentlichen. Es kommt also in diesem
Jahr nicht mehr auf den Markt und 3. hat es, glaube ich auch was
mit dem zentralen Zentrismus der verschiedenen Bewegungen zu
tun, auf die ich gleich zu sprechen kommen werde. Zur Struktur
jetzt unseres Meetings. Ganz kurz. Ich würde vorschlagen, daß
Luisa für ihr
Land, also die Beteiligten für ihr Land ganz kurz die Bewegung
darstellen. Also nur ganz skizzenhaft die Dynamik der
Studentenbewegung in den verschiedenen Ländern. Italien,
Frankreich. Und ich werde es versuchen für die USA zu machen.
Mehr schlecht als recht wahrscheinlich. Danach und das soll
wirklich für jeden nur 5 Minuten sein, danach möchte ich, wollen
wir auf folgende Fragen eingehen, und dabei werden wir also
ähnlich verfahren, daß jeder kurze Statements zu den Fragen
abgibt. Hier von uns, aber es ist durchaus erwünscht, daß ihr
eure Fragen oder eure Bemerkungen dazu anbringen könnt. Das wäre
also der 2. Teil. Die erste F rage des 2. Teils will ich jetzt
nur ganz kurz nennen welche Theorien hatten Bedeutung für die
Studentenbewegung in den verschiedenen Ländern? Wir werden also
darüber diskutieren, eure Kommentare und Fragen dazu hören.
Die zweite Frage wäre die internationalen Einflüsse auf die
Studentenbewegung, also die Frage danach, wie international war
eigentlich diese Studentenbewegung, die über den ganzen Erdball
stattfand? Und drittens, wahrscheinlich die schwierigste Frage,
welche Konsequenzen oder was war sozusagen der Effekt dieser
Studentenbewegung in den entsprechenden Ländern wieder, auf die
Gesellschaft und auf oppositionellen Bewegungen bis heute. Und
das auch wiederum, daß wir gleich wieder in die Diskussion
einsteigen können. Ich werde jetzt anfangen, kurz und sehr
skizzenhaft und vielleicht sind andere von euch sehr viel besser
über Amerika informiert, als das wenige, was ich hier von mir
geben kann. Wenn es irgendwelche Fragen gibt, dann stellt sie
bitte, wenn alle zu ihrem Land Bemerkungen gemacht haben. Wenn
es Verständnisfragen gibt. Ich möchte das ganze nicht noch mehr
aufhacken.
Ich würde die amerikanische Studentenbewegung in 4 oder 5 große
Perioden einteilen. 1960 bis 1964 die Civil Rights Bewegung,
also die Bewegung der schwarzen Studenten in den Vereinigten
Staaten, die in den Südstaaten der Vereinigten Staaten begann,
und die besonders auf die amerikanische Studentenbewegung in der
Folgezeit, aber auch glaube ich auf alle Studentenbewegungen
einen großen Einfluß hatte, und haben wir, wenn wir so sagen
wollen einen internationalen Zusammenhang. Es begann im Februar
1960 mit einem sit-in von vier schwarzen Studenten an einem
Kaffee counter, also so einer Kaffee Bar in Greensborough in
North Carolina, und sit-ins sollten in der Folge, eine der
wesentlichen Taktiken der Studentenbewegung werden. Also das
Einnehmen von Raum, oder das Eindringen von Raum, indem man
eigentlich nicht zugelassen ist. Bald danach entstand SNCC. Das
ist das Student Non Violent Coordinaton Comity. Ein
Zusammenschluß von Gruppen von schwarzen Studenten. Dieses SNCC
wurde dann in der Folgezeit sehr bedeutsam auch für den
amerikanischen SDS. Sie führten zuerst Wählerregistrierungen
durch, zu denen auch besonders 1964 viele weiße Studenten
hinzugezogen wurden. Und diese Studenten spielten dann in der
Studentenbewegung selber z.T. bedeutende Rollen. Daniel Bertraux
diese schwarze Studentenbewegung hatte einen direkt
politisierenden Effekt, auf die weiße Studentenbewegung in der
Folgezeit. Durch die Politisierung von späteren Aktivisten.
1964 erreichte die schwarze Bewegung die Ghettos der
Industriestädte im Norden. Es gab Aufstände, also diese
berühmten Ghettoaufstände in New York, Rogester und Chicago und
anderen Städten. In der selben Zeit, zwischen 1960 und 1964,
will ich nur einen Teil betrachten, nämlich den SDS, der dann
später eine wesentliche Rolle spielt. Er ist ähnlich wie der
deutsche SDS, ehemals eine Studentenorganisation, einer
sozialdemokratischen Partei gewesen. Und wurde ebenso, wie der
deutsche SDS aus der Mutterpartei Ende der 50ger Jahre
rausgeworfen, weil er also zu radikal wurde. Er wurde
radikalisiert in gewissen Maßen durch die Unterstützung des
schwarzen Kamptes in den Südstaaten und durch SNCC. Und kam in
dieser Phase zur Entwicklung eines eigenen politischen linken
Standpunktes, der 1963 in dem Port Euren Statement. Port Euren
ist der Ort, wo das ganze Papier entstanden ist. Also die
Veröffentlichung von Port Euren sozusagen zu einem nationalen
Positionspapier. Im September, unabhängig vom SDS, dem
amerikanischen SDS, beginnt, ist eigentlich der Beginn der
weißen Studentenbewegung mit der Free Speach Movement in
Berkley. Es ist die Auseinandersetzung um einen Streifen Land,
der bis dahin eigentlich dazu diente, daß verschiedene
politische Gruppen, und vorallen Dingen die Civil Rights Gruppen
ihre politische Literatur da verkaufen und verteilen konnten,
Reden halten konnten usw. An diesem Tage verbot die Universität
Administration von Berkley, diese Aktivitäten. Es kam zu einem
Spontan sit-in, von 200 Leuten, die sich gerade dort aufhielten.
Die sich einfach hinsetzten und dieses sit-in schwoll innerhalb
weniger Stunden zu 3000 Leuten an.
Es kam zu einem, später dann zu einem Polizeieinsatz. Diese 30
Stunden Diskussion, also 30 Stunden saßen die da und
diskutierten, kann als das erste große teach-in eigentlich
bezeichnet werde. Innerhalb von 5 Wochen, wurde diese Free
Speach Bewegung zu einer breiten Bewegung in Berkley. Der Grund
dafür lieferte wie auch in allen üblichen Ländern in der
späteren Zeit, die Administration und die Polizei selbst, durch
viel zu harte Gegenreaktionen. Es wurden 11 Personen angezeigt
und auch kurz in Haft genommen, die an diesem ersten Sitzstreik
teilgenommen hatten. Und die ganze weitere Bewegung eskalierte
um die Freilassung dieser 11 Leute. D.h. wie überall später, die
Gegenseite, also Uniadministration und Polizei, waren die beste
Watte und die beste Werbung für diese aufkeimende
Studentenbewegung. Es folgt dann, es passierten dann noch eine
ganze Menge anderer Einflüsse und Geschichten, die ich
eigentlich hier nennen müßte. z.B. die ganze Hippy- und
Gegenkulturbewegung. Die ich aber hier wegen der Zeit nicht
weiter ausführen möchte.
1965 bis zum Frühjahr 1967 stand eigentlich der Vietnamkrieg und
die Mobilisierung um den Vietnamkrieg die Hauptrolle in der
weiteren Verbreitung der Studentenbewegung über die ganzen
Nordstaaten. Und ein Teil der Südstaaten. 1965 gab es den ersten
großen Marsch auf Washington, an dem 20.000 Leute, also für 1965
eine immerhin große Zahl, teilnahmen. Der SDS wird durch diese
Demonstration und durch die Position, die relativ radikale
Position, die es zum Vietnamkrieg und zur Rolle des Mutterlandes
einnimmt in gewisser Weise zu der führenden Organisation, der
Studentenbewegung. In der selben Zeit, also zwischen 1965 und
1967 gibt es auch, wenn man so will eine theoretische
Radikalisierung des amerikanischen SDS, der bis dahin, wenn ihr
das Port euren Statement einmal lest, eigentlich radikal
demokratisch in der besten amerikanischen Tradition, der
amerikanischen Revolution gewesen war Und in diesem
Radikaldemokratismus auch am erfolgreichsten in der
Massenmobilisierung war. Die Radikalisierung des SDS erfolgt
durch die Erklärung, also des sich Auseinandersetzen mit dem
imperialistischen Krieg. Also mit der Übernahme der
marxistischen Imperialismustheorie
Und hier spielt dann eine Gruppe von älteren Marxisten, um
Monthry Ridue herum, die schon ein paar Jahre früher wesentliche
Bücher über den amerikanischen Imperialismus geschrieben hatten.
Wurden damit eigentlich in einer gewissen Weise, kam der
Marxismus auf diese Weise in den amerikanischen SDS.
Gleichzeitig findet auch eine Radikalisierung der schwarzen
Bewegung statt, aber weniger durch den Vietnamkrieg, als durch,
dadurch die Bewegung sich, wie ich schon eben genannt habe, sich
in die nördlichen Ghettos der Industriestädte verlagert hatte.
Es wurde 1966, wurde SNCC, die eigentlich ein
Non-Violent-Coordination-Comity war, bekannte sich zur Black
Power, anstatt zur Integration. Und im gleichen Jahr wurde die
Black Panther Party gegründet. 1967 gab es Aufstände, wiederum
große Ghettoaufstände, unter anderem in New York und Detroit und
in weiteren 25 Städten in den USA.
In dem selben Jahr, findet die erste große militante
Auseinandersetzung mit der Polizei, also eine direkte
Straßenschlacht der weisen Studentenbewegung statt. Es ist die
Okland-Dratt-Action, d.h. es ging um ein Büro der Rekrutierung
zur Armee, was man absperren wollte. Im gleichen Jahr ist auch
der relativ später auch bekanntgewordene March auf den Pentagon,
also eine Massendemonstration auf die zentrale Kriegstelle in
Amerika. 1967 ist, wenn man so will, ist das Jahr, in dem die
amerikanische Studentenbewegung früher als in anderen Ländern ZU
einer militanten Bewegung wird. 1968, und jetzt gehe ich ganz
schnell vor, fängt mit der TET Offensive in Vietnam an, also ein
ganz anderer Ton auf der vietnamesischen Seite. Also nicht nur
die Opfer auch die Völker die sich befreien wollen, daß die
eventuell Sieger sein können. Im April wird Martin Luther King
ermordet, es gibt wiederum die breiteste Welle von Aufständen.
In 125 amerikanischen Städten oder Ghettos.
Im April gibt es eine ebenfalls sehr militante Demonstration
nach dem Attentat an Rudi Dutschke, die fast hinüberführt in die
Besetzung der Gebäude der Colombia University. Also der ersten
Besetzung von Universitätsgebäuden in der amerikanischen
Studentenbewegung. Im September gibt es diese berühmte
Demonstration in Chikaco gegen den Parteitag der Demokraten. Im
November, ich überspringe jetzt das Jahr 1969, das eigentlich
ein Jahr der Widersprüche ist. Einerseits wird Präsident Nixon
zum Präsidenten gewählt, also eine gewisse Gegenreaktion des
anderen Amerika. Im selben Jahr löst sich der SDS in
verschiedene Parteien und Gruppierungen auf, die fast ähnlich
aussehen, wie fast ein Jahr später dann in Deutschland, ohne daß
man es imitiert hätte, es gibt aber auch einen großen Streik,
den San Francisco State College Streik, d.h. die
Studentenbewegung hat sich verlagert von den Eliteuniversitäten
zu den Massenausbildungsstätten der State- und Citycolleges.
Im November gibt es die größte Antikriegsdemonstration in
Washington. 1970, das nur als Abschluß hier und als Zeichen, daß
es mit Nixon's Präsidentschaft keineswegs zu Ende gegangen ist,
geht einerseits wie in Deutschland ein Teil der ehemaligen
SDSler in den Untergrund, He Weathermen Underground. Es erfolgt
die Invasion in Kambodscha im April und darauf gibt es in Kent
State University, wie an vielen anderen Universitäten
Massendemonstrationen. In Kent State werden glaube ich 12
Studenten getötet in den Auseinandersetzungen. Was zu einem
praktisch generellen Streik der Studenten an Colleges und
Universitäten führt. An dem 4 Millionen Studenten teilnehmen.
Das ist also der Streik, der auf die Ereignisse in Kent State
erfolgte. Damit möchte ich jetzt aufhören, und dann Daniel
Bertraux das Wort geben und das geht jetzt in Englisch.
Daniel Bertraux: Please
excuse me for talking English, my German is really too poor. I
will talk slowly, if you don't understand it, please show it,
and than we can translate. Just before I described briefly the
whole history of the student movement in France, I will come
back to the book itself, because I think I might not have the
time to tell you how the book is written. Ifs not an ordinary
history book, ifs made of people, of people's lifes. We have
interviewed all together about 200 people. In Germany I think
about 60 people, 50 people. But the same in France and many more
in the United States. In Italy and in Britain, and we have taken
a number of them to express a history of the movements through
their lifes.
And I think this is a very important point, because through this
method we see that, ifs people, which make a movement. In many
books you get impressions of social movements coming out of no
where and just disappearing. Ifs like if there were a sort of a
natural phenomen, produced by objective conditions. While this
is not so, movements are made up by people and with our method o
f interviewing people and taking them as whole persons, not only
as actors in a precise historical moment, but as whole persons,
where do they come from, where do the radical idea come from.
Where has it been after the movement was over. With this method
we are able to show very vivifly how movement is made by people.
That's the first point. And of course, it brings objectivity of
the from for of the story. It is not only a story, even a story
of objectivity. The second point to understand, and I am talking
about France now, is that the student movement in France was
made by two generations. By this I don't mean the fathers and
the children. 1 mean two generations following each other about
a distance of 5 to 7 years. And there are very different
generations. So I describe very briefly the history of the
France student movement through the history of these two
generations. The first generation is made of people who where
born before 1945, before the baby boom.
They were born during the war years. They were, they grew up
during the 50th, which was a very conservative scene, were there
was no youth culture at all. The culture was totally adult. And
everything was segregated, for instant the high school was
segregated by sex, boys high schools, girls high schools, the
catholic youth movement was segregated by sex. And even the
communist youth movement was segregated by sex. In fact there
was, the boys wanted, in a communist youth the boys wanted very
much a integrated movement and at one congress by surprise, they
voted against the bureaucrats of the communist party, they voted
a motion that the two youth movements should be integrated the
boys and the girls. But the girls had found, that the parade,
they said, the girls had not participated to the vote, so that
vote was useless. So that is the mood of the 50th.
At the end of the 50th as you know, there was the Algerian war,
there a billion of the Algerians started on a very low level in
1954 and grew up and grew up and till by 1956 the french
government decided to draft the young people into the war. Of
course it was a very dirty war it was a colonial war were the
France, who pretended to the country that they .. the law, the
country of the rights of man. was making massacres of soldiers,
of the civilian populations. And using torture as the means of
war, systematically. Therefore the youth was very much,
especially the intellectually youth of students were very much
in rebellion against that war for more reasons, and although
they were frightened to be drafted. The movement against the war
mounted from 1959 onwards until by 1962. There were youth
demonstrations in the streets of Paris, not only by students
although by communist activists and by may 1962 the peace was
signed and the France withdrew from Algeria. That was the end of
the algerian war, that was although the end of the student
movement for a long while. The student movement collapsed
immediately after the end of the war. But a whole generation,
when I say a generation it is a few hundred of students not more
than that of course. But had got a sort of political training
during this fight against the war and this training was
basically Marxist and third world oriented. The idea that the
third world was struggled transformed the word. At the same time
there was a Cuban revolution for instance, who had a sort of
positive model of the third world liberation war.
This generation is going to reach the age of 27 to 30 years in
1968. And they are going to be all the leaders, with one
exception of J. Cohn-Bendit. They are the leaders of the Maoist
groups of the ...groups in 1968. In between 1962 and 1968 this
generation of a few hundred of activists, Marxist activists went
into the communist student union, sort of took over the union
from the orthodox people and some of them in fact dream of, that
they would eventually conquer the communist party and make the
revolution in France. They were very critical of the leaders of
the communist party. They found at the same time, like a
democratic spirit and like a revolutionary spirit, and at that
time there seemed to be no contradiction between this two
critics. Now we know of this contradiction. They were in fact
forming groups within the student union.
One Truscall group, one Maoist group and one was called pro
Italian group, people who were very admired of the italian
communist party which has been consistently much more
intelligent as the french communist party in the last 40 years.
Well to go very quickly, what happened is, that the italians and
the Maoists made an align to kick out from the student union, to
kick out the Truscall, than the italian made an align with
orthodox bureaucratic to kick out the Maoist group and than the
bureaucrats kicked out the italians. And they closed down the
union of communist students, which was really only trouble. They
closed it down, so by 1966 it gets one small group of 200 people
which hat a Truscall force international and they although have
200 people were following the Maoist line, they calling
themselves Marxists Leninists. But the other ones are Leninists
too. And it has other groups, other Truscall groups, but which
are not playing any role in 1968, so I don't want to mention
them. So that is the story of the first generation sort of the
1968 and in months before 1968 there were many actives building
the revolutionary party, which is as you know all kinds of
activities, which just turned inwards. People writing to each
other and building the party.
And than were although fighting in the streets against extreme
right winged groups, which were made of especially of law
students and there was some right winged influence in France,
because afterwards of the Algerian war a lot of people came back
of Algeria a lot of french people with right winged ideas. One
of' the hidden in place of the situation for the very violent
streetfight between this two groups, was, there were
antisemiticed in the right winged groups, were as in the left
winged group, especially in the Truscall group, quite a number
of students of leaders especially were, they were french born,
but they were from families who were polish Jews, immigrated to
France in the 30th. Now the second generation is totally
different. Ifs made of people which were only 16, 17, 18 and 20
in 1968, this people were the baby boom generation. They were
13. when the Algerian war finished, the oldest one were only 16.
They were not very much touched by the Algerian war. They grew
up during the youth culture years, the Beatles, the Rolling
Stones and the french ... popstars.
They grew up with youth culture, they where the first one taking
by the youth culture, they went to rock concerts, they had no
political training, but they had a great sort of moral
sensitivity. And when the Vietnam war developed it became very
clear, what was the Vietnam war. They were really in many cases
seen of, there were the bad Americans, there were the good ones,
that were the Vietcong. This people were getting ready to get
involved into some political activities. And the two generations
really made in 1968, because of the great help of police
violence, the police fantastic role in depth of being the
movement, because as soon as the police started hitting
students, the mass of' younger students became sort of joining
solidarity. And so l am going very fast. In the years, well you
know a bit about the 1968, you know this was the biggest strike
in french history. 9.000.000 people on strike for 10 days it was
very big. Well in the month of may 1968 you got 4 weeks like in
any month of may. But this 4 weeks where very special.
During the first one, you had some students arrested and
followed by police beatings and everytime more students in the
streets, more police beatings, and the students fighting back at
the police and this in the first friday at the end of the first
week by huge street battles, which lasted the whole night. After
that, al lot of emotions in France to police violence and a huge
demonstration in Paris with close to 1.000.000 people, this is
enormous, there where the unions, the workers union joining the
demonstration. And in the second week a several kind of wilde
cat strikes, how to you call that, spontaneous strikes by
workers, al1 over the country and against the will of the
communist party. At the end of the week, there where 2.000.000
workers apparently all over the country on strike. This is not
that they wanted to imitate the students it was that they
thought it was just the right moment.
The government is weak by the students movement. Therefore the
workers think it is the right time to go on strike and get a pay
raise. And at the end of the second week, the communist party
threw its union in control and decided for a general strike all
over France. So all over France you get factories, although
offices all kinds of centres of course universities and high
schools get occupied by the people who worked there. And people
took control over their workplace. And they started making
general assemblages every day. And discussing all kinds of
topics. Related of course to work too. Authority to apprentice?
and all that stuff It is a fantastic communication between
people. Now the 3 week goes on like this. The whole country has
stopped and people discuss what kinds of new forms of
organisations the society should take. In meanwhile the
political class of course is active to find a solution to
replace De Gaulle. And the left, especially the non-communist
left its failing to come up with a solution.
So during the 4 week De Gaulle has a first failure to grasp
power back, but a second failure is a success and on may 30
obviously by sort of a Cout et dat?, back by the army in fact
the army did not move, but De Gaulle let know, that the army was
ready to move. So by May 30 the whole movement stopped, and all
there was reinstard? That is the 4 week of May. That is the
character of it. In the years to come, 1972, the year of
continuation of left movements, Leninists movement I'11 say. And
than fortunately they do not go anywhere, they try to start to
organise the workers, to organise getting a revolutionary party.
And that is a failure, and one group, the most active one, the
Maoist group almost goes into the direction of A. Tregger?,
...which was a ...terrorist. But fortunately it, just before
going into it, it stops. It starts doing actions with the guns,
but the guns are unloaded. That is very typical of the fight of
the political people, were in control of the military people
within the organisation. They gave guns to people but they did
not give them bullets. So it was unviolent. This group dissolved
in 1972, and that is sort of the end of the student movement and
is direct consequences. Of course the social consequences go as
tar as today, but this comes back today. I will stop here.
I.uisa Passerini: I
do apologise for speaking English and for the fact, that we have
to meet on a language which is neither mine nor yours. Let us
hope, that communication does not only go through words.
Perhaps, I was thinking by the two of you were talking, it is
not easy from this vast and sumlerend'? room, to overcome the
estrangement from 1968. It is possible to measure the distance
between here and there and to measure that, I suppose we have to
sort of take up the historical approach, as antihistorical were
1968. So not so much look at what came, what prepared it, what
can it be for, but why it came such a brake. Why was it so
different, why did it make it a point of no return. In my
country 1968 started in 1967 actually, in November 1967.
It were of the two big occupations, so the Catholic University
of Milan over a question of taxes. Because the university taxes
had made higher, and the occupation of the Turin University over
a decision by the academic senate to move the university out
side off town. And the student resented the idea of having to be
separated of the other people to form a city out off the city.
But behind this immediate reasons for occupying the university,
there was much else, there was mainly the idea of attacking the
authority of professors and they wanting to decide to take now
lections in their own hands. To decide, what we have to learn
why and in what directions, to decide over the knowledge. And
the 3. There was the idea of occupying, the motive in itself.
Occupying and there we can measure the distance. Occupation
means that this room suddenly becomes a place, where we live,
where we eat, sleep, discuss, study, stay together.
So this is a different use of space and time. And that is
probably the reason why occupations came one after the other.
December 1967 the University Sonea pospa Via, Calgary Genoa are
occupied. In January 1968 the University of Padua, Venice,
Florence and Rome and Pisa are occupied and they stay occupied,
as well as the Universities of Milan and Turin, which I started
from. In February the high schools started being occupied and on
the first of March there is the so called Valley-Julien-Battle
in Rome. Where students come to attack the police which is
trying to drive them out off the faculty of Architecture. The
battle lasts for 2 or 3 hours and the police actually withdraws.
So it is a military aspect of the events which continues the
occupying. Not only occupying the universities, occupying the
territory, occupying the streets, occupying the city space and
the space of communication too. Perhaps the characteristics of
Italy in 1968, meaning by the time of 1968 although the time up
to the 1970 anyway. The longest stand than the year itself.
The characteristics of Italy is really that not only the
students move, but immediately other social groups move. And for
instant in March 1968 one of the first councils of the workshop
is formed the Piralli counciling. The workers start to organise.
In April a very significant fact takes place. The workers of
Marzotto, which is a textile industry, revolt together with the
people of the town in which Mazotto is. Take down the statue of
the old Mazotto, the man who had founded this industry. And they
show by this way, they are no longer the franchised? to the
industry as such. So all together the social protest in and
among the workers and the peasants start in 1968, at the same
time as the students. In December 1968 the police kills two
agrarian? workers in the south, protesting because of their low
pay and 1969 will ... all this with the students in front of the
factories especially in front of the factories of Turin. The
Fiat Miafiori, where the young workers from the south work, who
don't accept the discipline, the work discipline the old workers
have more or less accepted for years. The student movement in a
similar way on a longer way of spend of time as the French one,
goes out off the universities, out off the schools, in front of
the factories. And this is at the same time as worth as a
specific movement particularly to that period of time to that
country, and its death of student model.
So the problem has been raced over and over again, could the
students have done anything else? Could they have stayed in the
universities, in the schools instead of standing in front of the
factories. What wasn't, stayed this after all. Because it was
the beginning of a great hope that in the 70th brought to the
buildings of the group, the so called new left groups, which
lasted for some years, with the hope of refunding society of a
great political change. But were totally defeated. So the
problem is, 1968 as such, started in the universities, in the
factories and all the territories. The union between the two
movements did not succeed. Could anything else had have been
done? Is the problem that have not jet been solved. Because it
is true, in Italy the movements last more than less than 1977.
It is actually 10 years. But during this period in spite of the
appearance of new movements linked with the re movement which
develops in the 70th in Italy, is really a movement that had
existed during the previous centuries, it is a real appearance.
But in spite of this the movement as such declined
progressively, and in 1977, what has been called the last youth
revolt, the movement of 1977 is represented by two polls on one
side, young people who call themselves metropolitan Indians, and
dress like the American Indians. And joked over the whole
metropolitan scene, teasing it, putting it down with laughter.
And on the other side there were the people who used as a sign
the piece or the "A" in the gun. The indication that they were
ready for terrorism. The movement has really polarised into this
direction. Laughter on one side and terrorism on the other. And
the movement which was allied, the women's movement was taking
more and more the distance from 1968, and saying we are not
coming from there. So this s as seen as a big drama, perhaps the
terms of the problems that we will be cut in the following
seetions.
Annemarie Tröger: Ich
glaube ich werde meinen schönen Plan über'n Hauten stoßen, weil
es schon viel zu spät ist, um diese Serie von Fragen zu bewältigen.
Und jetzt werde ich Englisch reden, weil das die beiden auch
verstehen sollen.
I think through our three talks, there are already certain
aspects which come up and to which is actually our scheme today
and answer it or might answer it, the question is the student
movement in its international appearance. One movement which is
actually an international movement, or is it just a national
movement in different, quite different countries, which come up
more or less in the same compinate in the same time within a few
years. I think all three of us have indicated certain points
which are of interests and which are comparable among the
different countries. Bertraux in his analysis of two generations
which were political active in the student movements. Bears some
simmularity to, I would say to the German movement too. To the
American, I am not so sure about. Luisa stressed the
anthropologically meaning of certain forms of protest, which are
all throughout the student movements for instants the occupation
of central university buildings. And what is it actually? Why
are those centennially dull and mostly although dirty buildings.
I mean occupied for weeks and why do people sleep in it and make
it to their space.
And I think there is another level of comparising on which
actually our book tried to touch upon, and I think it gives some
answers to the individual life stories. And finally I tried more
directly the directly comparative things I mean which have been
taking over consciencly from one movement to the other. Where
has there been a similar or a comparable development in terms of
are theoretically insides and in terms of radicalisation's. That
means especially the neutral influence between the black
movement and the white movement in the United States. But
although the similarity at least in the development of the
theoretically development of the American SDS to the German SDS.
And I think instead of going into the different aspects, let say
separately making rounds as I suggested before. I think we start
actually from here and I would like to open the discussion
actually with perhaps a relatively, well at least an obvious
question that of the neutral influences. Those who were
observable and who constantly were taking over. And therefore I
would like to ask, Luisa and Daniel, just to some up very
briefly those influences which they see in their national
movement, the direct influences.
Daniel Bertraux: Well
that is very simple and very quick. The french people are very
isolated culturally, they think they are the centre of the
world. They still think they are the centre of the world. You
see how ridiculous it is. And therefore they don't pay attention
to what is happening elsewhere. And it is not often mentioned in
the newspaper and frankly everything what has happened in the
States for instants, was not known in France at all. Things
which happened in 1968 in France were happening 4 years earlier
in the States like sit-in or the first occupation of a
university building. And the french had no idea that that has
happened before. They thought they were discovering a new form
of action. If there is any influences maybe from the states to
the German student movement, from Germany to France through a
few personal contacts like Cohn-Bendit or some other gays.
But there are very few influences. The most massive influence I
could find of the influence of the Chinese movement, the
cultural revolution, this huge movement you have heard of, which
started in 1966, and put millions of young people in the streets
manipulated as we know now by Mao against the leadership. Well
at that time it may appear like a spontaneous mass movement and
the french journalists, which were in Peking were fascinated by
that movement and wrote huge papers, almost every day, Le Mond,
which is the main intellectual newspaper in France to the extant
of the situation is once called the Le Mond the largest Maoist
newspaper outside china. Which it was for 2 years. And that the
single largest influence from outside world.
Luisa Passerini: I
must say the Italians are the contrary, they always translate
something and believe that people outside Italy are better than
they are. Very much to the contrary to the french. But this is a
difficult question to answer, because infact many of the
influences are not direct, they are indirect. So that for
instance, you will find that movements, student movements in
different parts of the world they arrive at the same point
having gone through a similar process. But haven't really known
each other very much. The directly influence, say I can think of
are two. One is the Free Speech Movement from the States.
The very idea of being able to stand up now and to say what is
wrong and how we want things different is the other basis of the
movement. And that happened in 1964, in 1965 the book by Traper
was published, that book had the similar value, because people
recognise that it was possible to speak out to say what is wrong
and to say what we want at the moment the other influence later,
during 1968 itself, direct one was a German one. Rudi Dutschkes
Book of the rebellion of students it had a great influence. It
had been published in a little book with a green cover and it
was carried everywhere. And the main idea there which was taking
up, was the idea of that, again it is similar but it has a
further understanding.
You can start protesting and rebelling from institutions within
the institutions where you are, where you work, where you study,
which is a very different idea than the one more original more
traditional one, belonging to the working class movement. Where
according to each, there is one privileged place of revolt and
that is the factory. And everything else is subortinaded. Here
the new idea and it is put forward in Dutschkes book, is that,
you can start from wherever you are, especially in an
institution, like a university. And by circles you can reach the
factory. From the very place where you are. And it is although
the very same idea which is behind the solidarity towards the
Vietnamese. In order to enact solidarity with the Vietnamese,
you have to struggle on in your own place. This is the idea and
this are the three direct influences. It is not bringing
solidarity to somebody else with the real subject of the
revolution, when you are a student coming from the middle class
and therefore subordinated. But you are a subject about in the
very place you are. The three influences that go toward to that
point.
Annemarie Tröger: I
think it although it might be a little presumptuous, if I answer
for the American student movement, so I just want to point out
two things in term of well the internationalism of the American
movement which come out off my own experience. I'm really not
saying, this is generally the case. But what ever our American
colleges have said in the book is not contradictory. First of
all I was really struck by the type of provincialism in the
American movement. Really, I mean you could see, they taking all
the things but they were not aware that they were taking them
over. It was really selfinvolved but different that the french,
who think they are the greatest culture nation on earth. There
it is really down earth provincialism.
Everything else is very far away and but what plays a big role
is, besides naturally the Vietnamese and the Vietnamese were
clever enough at that time, to invite a lot of student leaders
to North Vietnam, at a point. And that was really important for
them, as well as the Cuban trips overseas. From that they
learned a lot, but that were not other movements as students
movement as I said. And there my question comes in. Does it
become, now subjectively, the student movement of 1968? Now one
movement operating or becoming one movement because the people
operated on the same or with the same myth. You brought in the
great cultural revolution. Now what the student knew here about
the great cultural revolution is a sensual a myth. We did not
know to much about it besides what the Red Banner told us. And
the same thing is what is the communist party and the FLN in
Vietnam. We were really operating on what we projected into such
things.
That is my question in how fare did this movement or this
different national movements reach out for certain utopias and
models and there were only few of that models, since the Sowjet
Union was not the traditional socialist parties and countries
were not valid any more as models, as utopias. So there were
only as few around and those myths shaped the different
movements and shaped it to one against their own conciseness.
Also ich möchte dies nicht zu sehr zu einem Gespräch zwischen
uns machen, sondern ihr könnt wirklich dazwischen kommen. Mit
einerseits Verständnisfragen. Vielleicht sollte ich dies erstmal
machen, und wir können dann auf die Frage zurückkommen.
Peter Tornius: Es
ist sehr schön die Sache so international zu betrachten, nur
solche Sachen betrachte ich nicht national oder international
sondern sachlich....preußisch. Solche geraden
Studentenbewegungen, das erste dürfte sein mit Sokrates, solche
Sachen zu Personen zu binden lehne ich persönlich vollständig
ab. Und gerade hier in Berlin, und das ist eigentlich die erste
Sache, was ist hier losgegangen ist, ist keineswegs soweit weg
von Personen gestartet, noch subjektiv sondern ganz kräftig und
mächtig parteipolitisch, sowohl als gesellschaftlich. Es ist, wo
es gewesen ist, ich weiß nicht ob der Herr von Paris kennt auch
die ganze Bewegung damals, als Sorbonne' zustande gekommen ist.
Was an der Pariser Universität gewesen ist. Bloß dann dürfte er
ja auch wissen, daß hier keine subjektiven Angelegenheiten
sonder sachliche Sachen sind und nicht Aspekte und Einflüsse,
sondern sachliche Beweggründe.
Und dieses, schön die Franzosen dürfen das machen in ihrem Lande
war es schön ruhig, und ich sage so Mätzchen sich zu erlauben.
Aber wir gerade nicht in Berlin, in der geteilten Stadt, wo
damals gerade 2 Universitäten existierten. In Ost und West, wo
ganz andere Beweggründe als Gründe. Vorhanden sind nur nicht
subjektive Angelegenheiten. Und hier helfen solche Aspekte
später oder Theorienaufstellungen überhaupt nicht. Es geht hier
um Leben, worüber nicht geredet wird z.B. über die Opfer. Hier
an der FU auch fast mindestens die Hälfte der Studenten von
gestern sind auch Opfer gewesen. Sie leiden bis heute darunter.
Hier können wir einfach nicht die Sachen mit Schönheit oder mit
Aspekten oder mit Ästhetik hier betrachten. Und wie es zu
zustande gekommen ist, ist wiederum keine
Generationsangelegenheit es ist wiederum eine sachliche
Angelegenheit.
Und hier in Berlin, da bin ich ganz überzeugt, ich habe alles
erlebt, ich bin nach einer großen Studentenrevolution, die
Revolution war, aus Budapest gekommen nach England, dort habe
ich auch die Anfange der akademischen Schwierigkeiten erlebt,
und bin ich hier hingekommen, und habe hier auch alles erlebt
daß hier eigentlich reformieren war, ja hier ging es um
Verstaatlichung der Universitäten. Das erste mal überhaupt in
dieser Geschichte es war eine knallige Angelegenheit.
Akademische Würdeschaft abzuschaffen und Verstaatlichung, und
das hat gerade die SPD damals gemacht als sozialistisch,
sozialistisch bedeutet nicht sozial, sondern verstaatlichend,
und das würde ich jetzt gerne gerade fragen, wie erklären Sie es
aus einzelnen Aspekten oder Subjektivität, Verstaatlichung einer
Universität und dessen Angelegenheiten.
Annemarie Tröger: Habe
ich Sie richtig verstanden, daß Sie im wesentlichen die
Studentenbewegung zu mindestens hier in Berlin, als von außen
gesteuert war genommen haben.... Ich glaube wir sammeln erst
einmal ein paar Fragen und kommen dann darauf zurück, vielleicht
hat jemand Sie dann genauer verstanden. Petra du wolltest glaube
ich ne Frage stellen.
May I just translate it briefly for you.
The first question was about the student movements in
socialistic countries mainly Yugoslavia, Poland and Hungary and
why did they start. This was an informally question to us. The
second question was, Luisa was talking about the point of no
return and in how was is that something which can be translated
or make clear to the younger generation, what is this, a point
of no return. And was this point of no return be although an
explanation or at least a description for the socialist
countries. And connecting to that, was the question, what came
out or what is left from this point of no return and of this
generation or from the people, who did this point of no return
once and continue to live, but how, do they have connection
among each other, do we have a smelling body in our basement,
today the younger generation what is to be expected from this
generation.
Luisa Passerini: Not
easy questions, to the first one I think we can reply somebody
else has already replied this Hurendt, who said, in the western
countries and in the east European countries, there was a
similarity in the struggle of the students in so tar, as they
rebelled against bureaucracy and she meant in both cases they
were really struggling for democracy. So apparently there was a
different. Because in one part, the students appeared to be in
the eastern European countries, they appeared to be struggling
for the democracy, which the other ones were taking. But I
believe, Hurendt is right, in noting that the two movements are
inspired by the same attack against authority, which is in fact
a point of no return I believe. No return in the sense,
authority that differented deep subjective sense has not been
restored after that. And of course, this is nothing that can be
proved in short periods of time. One of my believes after having
studied 1968, it is infact a process of long time spend, it will
give all its result in a long time. And the attack to authority
meaning from this deepest subjected point of view is one of
these.
And the other sense is really, that we have mentioned already
the right to speak, the right of ones condition, and this is the
point, that I think the women movement has taken up in its own
way against the point of no return. You, we have the right to
say now, what we feel about things and why they are wrong
according to us an why we want to change them. So this is
infact, requires a very long change, which is not to be done in
such an easy way. And maybe at times it even brings to it
conquery, that some times, for instance talking about my
country, this idea, that one has the right to protest about his
or her own situation has led to something, which is co-operative
intact. It is a form of selfishness and lack of universalism.
But the idea, that the new universalism must go through
unilateralism, it must go through this very subjected and very
specific situation. This somehow like saying, the new collective
has to go through individualism and they gave not the old
individual. 1968 puts in to discussion the very relationship
between individual and collective and proposes something new
where they are the poles of an new tension.
And I think we shouldn't loos what has remained in material
terms, sort of the networks exists and in somehow certain extent
even this book is a production of networks that have continued.
But this means nothing to younger generations. What should
somebody who is 18 care about, that we have good friends in
other countries. The other points are more important, but
somehow my feeling is, that they go, that they have to go
through their own contraries. Like there was this large
international movement and after it there was a Diaspora, and
the Diaspora means, that every, not only every country but
everyone has to go through her/his own way, and somehow put into
practise that idea of becoming a subject, becoming a real
subject. So it goes somehow through the very opposite of what it
was, from the streets and from the ... to the inside and to
solitude and loneliness and separation somehow.
Annemarie Tröger: Also
erstens, mit der Entwicklung der Mittelklassenkultur, du würdest
also sagen, die Studentenbewegung war der Träger bereits einer
neuen Mittelklassekultur? Ja, die Avantgarde der neuen Mitte,
okay. Jetzt die Frage, sobald sie annulliert waren, also im
Grunde die Elemente der alten bourgeoise Kultur sozusagen, was
meinst du jetzt, für die selben Leute, die in der
Studentenbewegung waren, oder ist das das Zeichen für die breite
Akzeptanz....
So vielleicht beschreibst du da dein eigenes Ding. So jetzt noch
eine Frage, weil ich das ja alles übersetzen muß. Wie ist das
mit dem heiß und kalt? Du sagst, die 68er waren die letzte heiße
und die erste kalte Bewegung, du sagst aber gleichzeitig sie
sind nie niemals dazugekommen, die Machtfrage überhaupt zu
stellen. Sie haben sie niemals gestellt. Also wären sie nie in
eine heiße Bewegung gewesen, sondern immer nur eine kalte. Und
was heißt das jetzt, wenn die Akte platzt?
He says, there was a part acceptance by the society on large of
the student movement already its beginning ... or interrupt and
althroughout and this was effected by two things accentualy
First of all the student movement was accentual a middle-class
movement, which attacked and I asked the question against the
agemeny? of the bourgeois culture. And instituted in a way or
pushed forward at least, a true middle-class culture. So far
even that this levelled middle-class society which Zchelschky,
the sociologist, Zchelsky saw or analyst even before the 50th,
actually became true only through the student movement. The
student movement as avant-garde of the white coloured class. The
second point of acceptance is, that the student movement was the
last hot, and the first cold rebellion. And the definition for
hot is, very brief to ask the question of power statepower, and
cold is, that you never touched this point, you show your
discontent you rebel against certain conditions in the society
but you never ask the ultimate question for a revolution in
state power. In taking over the state.
And the student movement had an acceptance because it came close
to asking this question the hot question, meaning at: ford the
power and the control of the state machine, but at the same time
was constantly trying to block those people who actually ask the
questions. In its statement and actually blocking out the
militant actions, and those people who went underground. And
actually this sort of being a hot-cold movement, on the one hand
be taking serious and on the other hand never going so fare,
really make it acceptable to large segments of the society.
Especially in the middle classes I guess. And so starting from a
different point of view, really taking up the class analysis of
the student movement and asking, why does it mean in terms of
the constitution of middle class, which is really more speaking
through the head of the people concerned, there is not, at least
on my part so much to say against it, but the question is, first
of all I would doubt your general acceptance even within the
middle classes.
That it came already to that point. I think at least for
Germany. An even more for the United States. It is simply not
true, and at the violent reaction of especially in the United
States against everything which the student movement, and in the
following the women's movement brought up as what you could say
the new middle class values behaviour and sexual values, is by
the same class and by ever-growing large segments of that class,
absolutely rejected. And it was already rejected than, but was a
silent majority as Mr. Egno said, and we are the majority. And I
think that is the white coloured middle class, you are talking
of, and the growing conservatism internationally within that
class, which you can't explain by what you said and I think that
what I forgot, is that they now, the same people of student
revolutions who are once revolutionised in terms of middle class
cultures are now coming back and aspiring to the old bourgeois
values which sounds a little bit like ... analysis of the 1968
in some way. So this spiring of the old bourgeois values is
really nothing compared to the real drive to conservatism within
this middle class at large and which is in the formation.
Daniel Bertraux: I basically
agree with this analysis. In France I ...specialists of social
movements said once of the 68 movement in France that it was the
last of the 19 century revolution and the first of the 21
century revolution. What you are making, and it could even made
more precisely if you use the conception of two generations
which have developed briefly is very clear, that the first
generation, which is a Leninist, it belongs to the 19. century,
the have the model of taking over statepower. And everything
will be paradise after that. And they don't have the concept of
power like being a diffused thing, which is the concept of
Fouccou. Now if you take the younger generation, they don't want
given state power, what they want is to transform power relation
in every life and the feminist movement, and the green movement,
the ecological movement it is total different conception.
Where I am total in agreement, is when you said, they fought
against bourgeois value, it seems on the contrary, it could be
argued, that this movements did not invent any new values. They
just realised, that the values they had been taught at school
were no practise at all. But I think the older generation there
were taught in Europe I think even in Germany they were taught
of the humanistic values. At the same time, as the Algerian war
was going on or the Vietnam war, they speak up. But the believe
to the values they were taught at school. Let me put you this
very few lines from a happening Berkley 1964. I already referred
to that, the first thing that happened, there was this huge camp
with 22.000 students, like a huge machine. But everything was
working perfectly well and on a tiny corner of the campus a tiny
group selling journals, which nobody bought, but of the Russian?
quality of the south of the states, and than the ... of the
university wants to prevent them from selling this literature.
So they try to negotiate for 3 weeks an than the ... send a
police car and two huge cops and they take one of this man and
put him in the car. And the students did not know what to do, so
they decided to sit in the front of the car. That is the first
Sit In. And Rossman said it was the first Sit In in front of a
car and we were 200 sitting and everybody would tell you, he or
she was the first one to sit. And all of them are right, because
all had the same idea. And than one of them jumped on the top of
car. And instead of behaving like one of his Leninists chief, he
said, well we have to something, but I don't know what to do, so
let us discuss it together and he opened the first direct
democratic assemble. Now Rossman was there sitting on the floor,
he said, I was 24 almost 25 years old and it was the first time
he really heard a democratic public discussion in America. No
one could even say, because the words he said have been so
abused, democracy congress. If you live in the United States,
you hear the word democracy a hundred times a day. But it was
the first time you will see the real thing, the real democracy.
It was like going to church for years than watching god walk on
earth. That is the difference. So he believed in democracy and
than he realised democracy is not. He believes in the values but
he realises, the values are not practise. I think it is more to
this gap between values and practise than new values. And the
book is full of course like this.
Annemarie Tröger: She's
asking the question in contax of this hot and cold definition
and puts it into doubt because of certain segments of the
student movements went the hot way. That means the split off the
movement end continuously and for years kept on to ask the hot
question for a state power. Now here question is, how could it
happen, if the general mark, and I guess that was your respond
to although to him. If sensually a cold movement, how it could
happen, that this actually developed inmidst of the student
movement the hot segment, let say. And was it out of the same
spirit of the student, or was it something completely different.
I mean if they are completely different people than we can not
just forget it. Those people, who were on the other side, they
forgot about them. They simply don't mention them any more. That
they belonged to us in a way. And that is right, Petra is right
if we kind a stress really this middle class acceptance of the
cold face of the student movement and make that to a general
treat. Than we are right to forget about the heritage of the
RAF.
Luisa Passerini: What
ever terms you use, we can as well use hot as cold, but we could
use other terms. What I think is very important is the fact, is
to recognise the ambivalent nature of the movement of the 1968,
they always, I talk of the plural, because they are ambivalent
in many respects. That they at the same time democratic in the
theory and practise and authority are again in their theorean
practise, because just think of the idea they had of the art
seps..? It was an elitarean idea. Or think of how they dealt
with the sempries? It was often as so. At the same time
democratic and authoritarian. At the same time religious and
profane for instance in the States. At the same time for
equality and against equality, think about Gender, how women the
ambivalent role of women in the movement. So however you put and
remind this well accept your proposal of the temperature
metaphor. The ambivalent is essential otherwise we don't
understand what came afterwards.
Because this sort of balance was broken. Astonishly, actually
there are continuities between the student movement of 1968 and
the terrorists between the student movement of 1968 and the
women movement. There are continuities in this two directions,
but besides continuity there although are differences and
changes. The thing is, that really 1968 contains both of this
things. One going toward the direction of the other. I mean the
idea of power was present in 1968 as it is not present today in
many of the movements, some of the green movements for instance.
Act talking of power with a small "P" and never of the decision
of power. Why, 1968 had this idea. The terrorist, at least some
of the terrorists, because we had different types of terrorists,
the red brigades took out that idea of s.power and build around
it the farcically idea of peoples army and the peoples ...they
took one idea in a typical regression.
They worked with a regressive type of elaboration. If you take
that idea out of an ambivalent context, you can do what ever you
want with it. And the women, I talk about Italy, the women
movement took up very much the idea of difference. Everybody is
different and there is a specific different, which is more the
size of an other, but anyway one has the right to be what one
is. And at least the second half of the 70th, the women movement
in Italy forgot about equality very much. That was not an issue
of ours. I thing it was a short time valance, that sort of, that
why I although say it is a long time. It is in my
interpretation, there were for a short time a balance which was
somehow an intuition of many things which must be developed in a
very long run. But if you develop as it has been done, one aside
from the other, and that is why I am sort of sceptical about the
idea of acceptance.
One thing is to accept, what a movement appears to be and what
is fashionable. And the other thing is to accept where
the....leads. This idea Daniel had mentioned it, that one of the
leading ideas was this dialectics on words, today not very
fashionable, but between words it be more than 3 days'?? So
maybe society accept more easy as what the movement appeared to
be than what it really meant. There is some people a again or
so.
Daniel Bertraux: When
Luisa said, that the women is double, she is very right. But
than I want to go one step further, this double nature, it is in
many case I am going to give, but the wrong part comes from the
old word and the bright part, the good parts were coming from
the word to be created. Obviously is a power dimension the
higher key dimension, the manipulated dimension, within the
movement came from the surrounding society It was there.
Higher... is a central, is a call a type of relation in society
today, still today. So there was a reflection of society within
the woman, on the other hand the democracy, the openness, that
was coming from a sort of value level, but not realised therefor
that is a duppleface but belongs to two different words. One in
...
At some time I speak from my wife, I went to live with my mother
for a while, my mother is a bourgeois woman who reads the
conservative newspaper Le Figaro. And at was the time, when I
was braking away from my sort of long left history and I was
discovering the real meaning of democracy, by the way it is not
very well known by french people. They think democracy you know.
I told my mother. I really not have been a democrat I always
thought I was fighting for democracy being in the left movement,
but I thought that we were right and they were wrong. And of
course my mother told me, I knew it all the time you are a
Marxist, you are not a democrat you are a toletarean. And I said
yes I understood the meaning of democracy, I thought we were
totally right, and you were totally wrong, and now I realise,
democracy is not that, democratic spirit is to accept that the
other people may be right and you might be wrong. And my mother
told me, if that is your definition of democracy, I am not a
democrat. So you see it is a complex issue, the issue of
democracy.
Annemarie Tröger: So you mean
the student movement itself might be a result of an
unpresitented....
Daniel Bertraux: In
the United States yes
Luisa Passerini: To
a certain extant yes, I should think so. The problem is, it is
to a certain extant one of the causes, not the root. When a
movement is so polyvalent and so complicate it sounds somehow
insufficient to give just one of this causes. In fact we are
saying, in a certain extant you are right, therefore this means
the concepts of generation, age, family, education are relevant
to interpretation as it was said before the concept of class. So
we are saying to interpreted this movement you need in the
combination of this different categories.
This was exactly one of the things they were against, they were
against the parties, as the idea of making politics as separate
fears of life. One of the major ideas of the movement in its
central part, in the winter of 1968, than in 1969 it will be a
different thing, in 1967/1968 the idea was, we want to get rid
of all this old devisions between politics and life, school and
life, art and life, that was an idea coming from the 20th, from
the artistic and literal avant-garde of the 20th. The student
movement took it up and lived it with possible contradictions.
But the idea of being a party member was the very opposite of
the spirit of the movement. The idea was, politic must be life
and life must be politic. It was all mixed together even those
people who had a Leninist idea even them, the inspiration was
this.
And intact in the first part of the movement as I said, up to
May, June 1968, the groups and the parties as such have very
little effect on the movement. It was we call an ideological
movementista it was the movement not the parties. So it was
although an other aspect of this universal inspirations, they
all punching against the bourgeois value. Everybody, not a
party, everybody. This I think is a major point infact, that
politics have to be lived. The function was one of the laughing
points of the movement. Politics, you do not devide it upting,
you always live all the time of your life together. This was a
motive coming over and over again. And that anecdote, that
Daniel just mentioned, the attitude, that M.. had is a proof in
that, you don't have a specialist in politics, everybody is.
It was not based on theory, it was theory and practise I think.
It was not, one of the things been divided during this months of
the Vant... has been, because indeed it is something to reflect
on. How come nobody is no longer Marxist, while everybody was a
Marxist 20 years ago. Perhaps one of the reason is, practically
nobody was really a Marxist in the States. Not only the sense in
the literal sense, but although these movements did not start
out of theory at all, they were not philosophies, the theories
were in bughet in the movements, but certainly the movements as
such were a peculiar mixture of theory and practise, they would
not say they start from theory and go to practise, this is
historically wrong. It was not this.
Daniel Bertraux: What
is fascinating, if you compare the movement of various
countries, you have the bossform, you have the sort of Leninist
type, of willing the revolutionary party, to fight the power of
the bourgeoisie and than you have the direct democracy,
grassroot democracy, the council workers council democracy,
anarchist type. Now in some countries the direct democracy comes
first. And that is in the United States. And one great discovery
of our American friends is that the d...stated in Berkley 1964,
it started with a black movement in the south 1960, they were
the ones who reinvented the direct democracy in fact of buying
protesting to religious values, babtis values. But in Italy, to
large instand it started although like this with occupations of
factories and of the universities. And in France at least you
have 10 years of Marxist-Leninist before you have in march 1968,
thanks to Cohn-Bendit and a number of others. The first
appearance of direct democracy.
So sometime it comes first, sometime it comes later. But whether
all the appearance, the conclusion is always the same. First of
all direct democracy is, where the genuine spirit of the
movement is, that one thing I am sure of, and there we all sure
of that. But the second thing that is the reason which had not
be solved jet. If such a movement starts in contrary police
power, police violence, harassment, infiltration, deformation in
the media of the movement, everytime if there is a little bit of
violence in the movement, the media are going to blow it, play
it big, saying this is a violent movement. Everytime you have
this, the model of the party building wings over. That you are
formed the state power, this it not enough for our people.
Notviolence is not enough. In the States there were years for
years not violence action. And eventually they were fed up of
being beaten over the head, and they started to fight back. That
is the problem the next generation will have.
Quelle: 1968, Vorgeschichte und Konsequenzen, Dokumentation der
Ringvorlesung vom Sommersemester 1988 an der Freien Universität
Berlin. Herausgeber: Siegward Lönnendonker und Jochen Staadt
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