[R-G] The Spirit of '68 Lives On!

[Jay Moore]

Forty years later, we are living the spirit of '68
The media accuse my generation of being apathetic. This is not true

CHARLOTTE-ANNE MALISCHEWSKI

Special to Globe and Mail Update
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080529.wcomment0529/BNStory/National/home
May 29, 2008 at 1:00 AM EDT

The year is 1968. The Tet Offensive has U.S. forces on the run, shaking 
American confidence to its core, and stimulating an international 
appetite for change. Students across Europe are chanting, "We shall 
fight. We will win. Paris, London, Rome, Berlin." And, merely six weeks 
later, 20,000 protesters are storming the U.S. Embassy in London. In 
Paris, students are staging campus occupations, barricading the streets, 
and holding mass assemblies where participants discuss ways to build a 
new society. In country after country, the tide is turning as a wave of 
hope, anger, and direct action sweeps the world.

It's now 2008 — 40 years later. According to the mainstream media, young 
people are not challenging conventions, nor are they laying the 
foundations of change. Indeed, while 1968 retains a mythical presence in 
our collective imagination, newspapers, magazines, and television 
programs claim my generation is unconscious, that we walk through our 
days unaware of ourselves or others, that we are insensitive to the 
needs of our bodies and our environment. The media accuse my generation 
of lacking the spirit of 1968, having settled into a state of apathy.

In doing so, the media not only draw an unfair parallel between people 
in different situations, but they draw the wrong conclusions. My 
generation is not apathetic. We are politically active, but we are also 
fearful. The world we witness around us is not the same world young 
people saw 40 years ago.

In the 1960s, people were living in a time of emancipation, amidst a 
sexual revolution. People were formulating new ideologies and adopting 
elements of different countercultures. Young people believed the world 
belonged to them and so they worked to change it. Today, young people 
aren't so sure the world belongs to us. Instead, we see ourselves as 
having social and ecological responsibilities toward the world and 
future generations. Though some young people choose to avoid this 
challenge, many of us choose to tackle it by collectively owning up to 
our responsibilities and urging others to do the same.

In 1968, just before the start of the Olympics, Mexican security police 
murdered a still unknown number of students and workers at La Plaza de 
las Tres Culturas in Mexico City, and the world remained silent in the 
face of the slaughter. Forty years later, the country hosting this 
year's Olympic Games is again violently repressing its people. Tibetans 
are being arrested, interrogated, and killed by Chinese troops, but this 
time international outrage is being voiced.

Indeed, people, especially young people, are more vocal during this 
first decade of the 21st century than they were in the 1960s. Canadian 
protests against the war in Iraq thus far have drawn 10 times more 
people than all the Canadian protests against the war in Vietnam 
combined. The largest protest in the United Kingdom, that attracted 
nearly two million people, was not in 1968. Rather, it was in 2003 and 
it, too, was against the war in Iraq. In the United States, the largest 
protest was not against the war in Vietnam, nor the war in Iraq. The 
largest wave of demonstrations in U.S. history took place in April 2006 
when more than two million people took to the streets in favour of 
immigrant rights.

This 2006 demonstration responded to a question that was asked before 
the revolts of the 1960s. It responded to a question George Orwell posed 
in 1943. Then, he asked: "Shall people … be allowed to live the decent, 
fully human life which is now technically achievable, or shan't they?" 
In 2008, we are finally answering loud and clear. We are saying: "Yes, 
they shall." We want people to live fully human lives when we take to 
the streets against globalization and we want people to live fully human 
lives when we protest against the ecological destruction of the planet.

In 1968, youth revolts were about individuals' ability to express 
themselves. Their anti-authoritarian rebellions provoked a new society 
and young people today are freely realizing it. We do not lack the 
spirit of 1968. We are living it.

Charlotte-Anne Malischewski is a high school student in St. John's.