1. The Alternative Movement in Germany Alternative Movement in Germany

1. The Striking Scene at the Beginning of the 1970s 16 1. .1 Getting behind the Scene 17 1. .1.1 The Adenauer Era 18 1. .1.2 Integration into the West 19 1. .1.3 The Economic Miracle 20 1. .1.4 The Socialist Party of Germany - SPD 22 1. .1.5 The Grand Coalition 1966 - 1969 23 1. .2 The 1968 Generation - Children of Affluence 24 1. 1.2.1 Students' Revolts and the Extra Parliamentary Opposition - APO 26 1.1.2.2 Failure of the APO 27

1.2 The Alternative Scene 29 1.2.1 New Values, New Goals 29 1.2.2 The Breakthrough - Netzwerk Selbsthilfe 31 1.2.3 The Motivating Factors 33 1.2.4 The Alternative Milieu 36 1.2.3 The Intermediate Culture 43 1.2.6 The 'Megamachine' 45 1.2.7 An Excursus - Berlin 49

1.3 The Lived Movement 51 1.3.1 The Alternative Projects 51 1.3.2 Community Living 55 1.3.3 The Alternative Press 58 1.3.4 The Political Arm - The Greens 62

1.4 New Attitudes 65 1.4.1 The Body 65 1.4.2 The Identity 69 1.5 The End of the Alternative Movement? 70 1.5.1 Mathias Horx 70 1.5.2 Communes Today 72 1.5.3 Passai>en 75

1.6 The Forerunners 76 1.6.1 The Bohemians 76 1.6.2 The Life Reformers 78 1.6.3 Wcmdervogel 80

1.7 The Green-Alternative Aesthetic 82

1.8 Summing Up 84

Bibliography 85

14 1 Alternative Movement in Germany

This chapter details the Alternative Movement in Germany in 1970s and 1980s that countered the 'modernist' ethos of capitalistic industrial production and created alternative forms of life. To start with, it tracks down the course of socio-political history of post World War II Germany and shows how this history led the students and the young to revolt against the parent generation, against the constricting state and the economic system. Further it establishes that as the revolt was dealt with ruthlessly, they went into a sort of hibernation and came out with a different strategy of countering the societal strictures with less showy, more mature methods in the form of the Alternative Movement.

It probes into the lasting external features of the movement that evolved after the tumultuous 1970s: the production projects, communes, press and politics. The lasting socio-cultural changes in the attitudes and conventions regarding body, interpersonal relations and subjectivity not only of the revolting generation but on the whole scale of the German society are recorded as internal features.

The movement of 1970s and 80s is but the latest of the links of a longer, more than hundred years old German tradition of resolutely rejecting the bourgeois society and trying out alternative lifestyles. The chapter has taken a note of these forerunners of the Alternative Movement.

Being aware of the constraints of 'Auslandsgermanistik', that is, of a research in German Studies conducted from without the field, depending to a large extent on library sources, we would abstain from passing very conclusive remarks on the present condition of the Alternative economy and Alternative communes. However, we are positive that the movement has not died out. Its priorities, form and tools may have changed but it exists in the diffused and mutated form. At present one cannot say, that the movement has the same vigour or force as in the 1970s and 1980s, but the spirit continues. The chapter ends up with a working definition of 'Alterity" distilled from the exposition in this chapter. 1.1 The Striking Scene at the Beginning of the 1970s

Their friends and family members cannot comprehend this: A high profile manager leaves his highly remunerative jet-setting job and starts breeding sheep. A twenty years old youth isn't anymore interested in discos and other metropolitan fun. He goes to live with a farmer and toils ten to twelve hours on the farm. A passing out engineering graduate throws his bright career to the winds and works in a small co-operative project. A teacher with good qualifications of the state authorized examination doesn't care for the secure government job and tends children of immigrant workers. ^

This is how Claudia Fischer describes the scene amongst a considerably large section of professionals and highly educated intellectuals in the early 1970s in Germany at the outset of her book Alternatives Leben (1981) with the subtitle: Auf der Suche nach der Welt von morgen Eine Chance, nicht nurfur 'Aussteiger' (In search for a world of tomorrow, a chance not only for the Disembarkers).

All of such people as mentioned in the opening paragraph above are described with one single concept: 'Disembarkers' (German Aussteiger). The concept implies the metaphor of a fast moving vehicle, which they wanted to abandon. To disembark means to denounce a high paying fast track career and settle for an occupation that gives one immense inner satisfaction, that is of one's own choice and that does not bring any stress. In English the phrase 'drop-out' is used to denote this bunch of people. But English drop-out is more negative whereas the German Aussteiger has acquired socio-cultural overtones and "applies to anyone who has taken some conscious decision to 'get out' of conventional society". (Ardagh 1987: 443) The disembarkers thus defy the bourgeois ideal of high paying career and social prestige of high consumption. They refuse to be dragged by societal norms and political forces. Thus they were anti-establishment and a part of the movement known as the 'Alternative Movement'.

The Alternative Movement was not restricted to Germany. In most of the industrialized societies, i.e. in Europe, USA and also in Japan, certain groups of young people questioned their 'modern' industrial society (Glaser 1991": 305f,

All the translations from German into English are by the researcher unless specified otherwise. Miiller 1990: 416). They complained that the life conditions had acquired such mammoth proportions under capitalism that the totality of life was becoming increasingly imperceptible. Gigantic bureaucracy, giant multinational corporations, large trade unions and large associations were the order of the day, which intimidated the ordinary citizen. There was a growing sense of alienation. The predominant mode of production was destroying the very basis of life, making humans the slaves of production.

Capitalism had acquired a stronghold over instruments of manipulation with which it kept up the facade of being democratic and tolerant. Everyone could express his point but could not implement it. The human agency was drastically undermined. The Alternative Movement is usually conflated with the Green Movement, but it is far wider and versatile. The Alternative Movement did include the Green thought in its basic tenets; also there were personalities from Green movement active here, but basically they were the people wanting to be away from the rat race of career, wealth and social status. Apart from the highly educated intellectuals and middle range professionals there were zero work freaks, drug addicts, psychopaths, homosexuals, lesbians, queers, even old Nazis on the fringe. What brought them together was a concern for rapidly depleting Nature, and also an urge to free themselves from the rigid German mainstream society that was bourgeois and driven by the motives of career and wealth alone. The main stream was also Eurocentric, male dominated and militaristic.

The Alternative Movement was born of 1968 students' revolt, or rather it was a reaction against the failure of 1968.

1.1.1 Getting behind the Scene Why were hoards of people attracted to the idea of disembarking and settling for a simple life for an answer? For an answer to this question the development of the German society from the end of the Second World War. a period in which this generation grew up. must be traced.

17 1.1.1.1 The Adenauer Era From the end of the World War II in 1945 to 1949 the Germans lived under military rule in four zones of the respective allied powers. While they were slogging for sheer survival under conflicting interests of the four victorious powers, efforts were on by the zonal governments to bring back the public life and economy to normalcy. They permitted and encouraged attempts of party formations.

Apart from the traditional workers' parties KPD and SPD, the communist and socialist party respectively, a new party namely CDU, Christian Democratic Union, came into being bringing together the catholic and protestant Germans. The party was not actually so very new. Its affinity with the political Catholicism of the Zentrum party of the Bismarck era is evident. This party had a very heterogeneous social base that is reflected in the post-1945 formation under the leadership of Konrad Adenauer. As it became quite clear to the USA, Britain and France that the four zones could not remain together, they started the process of uniting their three zones into a single economic unit for which the preliminary step was taken with the currency reforms in June 1949. Drawing of the constitution was completed in May 1949.

The new party CDU had opposed the SPD and contributed considerably in the deliberations for the constitution known as 'Basic Law' (Gnindgesetz). And when in August 1949 there were general elections for the first parliament of the FRG the new party CDU won clear majority and its 73 years old leader Konrad Adenauer became ' the first chancellor. A conservative catholic from Rhineland, he led Germany through an unparalleled era of tranquil prosperity. His grandfatherly and civilian image helped assure the former enemy France that Germany was truly intent upon peace. He followed the policy of Germany's complete integration into the West, membership of NATO being one clear marker of the same.

Adenauer's rule from 1949 to 1963 gave FRG a solid foundation for progress. Bonn did not become Weimar. However it also smacked of strong restoration (Time Life Books 1991: 206; Schwarzer 1993: 93; Schnell 1993: 310; Sontheimer 1979: 17). No innovation was possible in many areas. Keiiie Experiiiieiite! (No experiments) was

18 even his slogan in 1957 elections (Wildermuth 1984: 79). A very significant aspect of this is the position of women in this period. Their dissatisfaction with the social order then flared up a little later into a massive movement that shook the structures thoroughly.

Anti-communist feelings were very strong in the Western Europe, not only in FRG. In 1956 the communist party KPD was banned, though it was almost dysfunctional. The politics of the GDR had started exerting a destabilizing intluence. The anti- communist policy was a decisive factor in political convictions of a large section of population, hence also in Adenauer's politics. Any democratic initiative in opposition to the official policy was quickly branded as 'machinations of the East', i.e. East European power block of Warsaw pact countries.

In 1957 Adenauer had to face massive opposition to his policy of rearmament. Eighteen atomic scientists from Gottingen and persons from diverse fields like literature, trade unions, artists, actors, journalists etc. felt it necessary to declare that the small country FRG could protect itself and the world peace the best if it willingly renounced atomic weapons of every kind. They united in processions at the time of Easter. (These Easter marches later developed into the German Peace Movement that has continued till today). But the real question was of suppression and tacit denial of fascism as a problem. Germany of those days had always avoided to deal with it properly. These protesters were against all too eager integration into the West and militarization. But people were so lulled into consumption gifted by the Wirtschaftswunder (the economic miracle) that they overlooked that old Nazis were again possessing power and prestige (Schnell 1993: 243).

1.1.1.2 Integration into the West In general. Christian Democracy emerged after the World War II as the main stabilizing force for the whole of Western Europe (Time Life Books Amsterdam 1991: 49). It promised stability and progiess with reassuring morality of the Roman Catholic Church. The EEC (European Economic Community), founded in 1957. became the vehicle of progress for the Western Europe under Germany's leading role.

19 The idea of a single united Europe is very old. It started circulating again in the movements opposing the Nazis and once more in the post war programmes of almost all the parties in Germany. However, from the original pan-European idea it was reduced to West Europe in the face of the Cold War (Hiittenberger, Peter et. al. 1988: 200). Adenauer decided in favour of total integration into the West, compromising if needed, on Germany's national interest, like unification of the two countries of the German nation. With this he hoped to gain support for Germany's rearmament and reconstruction. He called this the 'politics of strength" (Politik der Starke) with which he brought Germany on equal footing with other west European countries. Whilst many Germans were wary of politics and had developed a stance of "without me" (ohne-mich-Haltung) in the 1950s and 1960s they supported Adenauer wholeheartedly in pursuit of the material well-being that was the result of his economic policy called 'Social Market Economy'. That is an economic system where market forces are not entirely free for their play. They are tempered by government regulations to take care of the weak, to prohibit monopolies and to facilitate equitable distribution of the social product. To Prof. Ludwig Erhard, the economics minister from 1949 to 1963 goes the credit for miraculous prosperity of 1950s 1960s, known as 'Wirtschaftswimder\

The post war British Labour government had estimated that it would take thirty years just to remove the debris of war in Germany and fifty years to rebuild the country (Burns 1995: 209). But by 1960 there were five million dwelling units ready, shops were flooded with consumer goods like TV and washing machines with the reputation of being the best in the world. Between 1950 and 1964 the FRG had increased its gross national product 3 times, its exports by more than 500 per cent. It was second only to the US as exporter. By 1964 the FRG was the third economic power in the world (Time Life Books 1991: 94).

1.1.L3 The Economic Miracle The economic progress of Germany in the 1950s and 60s was so glaring that it became necessary to coin a new term to describe it: The economic miracle. However, behind its fagade lay hidden poverty and social inequality (Hiittenberger et. al. 1988: 203). The so-called miracle had, contrary to the meaning of the term, in fact

20 concrete reasons and explanation: Relatively cheap skilled labour became available in the form of the refugees storming in from GDR as well as from other provinces of the former German empire.

• This labour force was fiercely dedicated to work in order to escape from the psychological complex of war-guilt and defeat that resulted in uniquely high productivity. • Generous Marshall-Plan aid from the USA, which also guaranteed the sales through interconnected economies of Western Europe. • Compared to the eastern part, i.e. GDR, relatively less destruction from war, a chance factor. Four years of intensive bombing had surprisingly destroyed only 10% of the industry. On the eve of defeat the Ruhr industrial area was producing more steel than at any time since 1939 (Time Life Books 1991: 95) • The FRG was not paying any reparations to the victorious powers, whilst the GDR had to pay reparations to the Soviet Union. • On the whole, the world economy happened to enter a general upward phase.

Walter Holstein and Boris Plenth (1980: 15) have remarked that the economic miracle was not a fully curing medicine for the political wounds, though sufficiently satisfying. Apart from its policy of West integration the CDU did not have any brilliant contribution toward world peace. Safeguarding the initial success remained their mainstay of domestic policy. Instead of shaping the present anew, it always resorted to applying time-tested old strategies.

This was bound to end up in restoration and dissatisfaction. Later in 1980s when government officials justified nuclear research as essential for West Germany's highly industrialized economy, the young radicals censured that "such a purely financial argument - putting materialism before quality of life - was typical of the generation that had forged the Wirtschaftswuiider' (Time Life Books 1991: 148). World War 11 was a great leveler of the class-divided German society and the prosperity of Wirtscluiftswunclcr, distributed equally, proved to be another leveler. The social barriers came down, people were more relaxed. 1.1.1.4 The Socialist Party of Germany - SPD The Socialist Party of Germany was founded in 1875. It was the first Socialist Party of Europe. By 1914 socialism had become important political force in whole of Europe. In Germany, in 1912 Reichstag elections, SPD had won 4.5 million votes and 110 seats - it was then thus the single largest party. Unlike the socialist parties in England and elsewhere that depended on donations from wealthy people, the German Party introduced the centralizing discipline of formal enrollment with regular payment of subscription. It had an annual budget of nearly 2 million DM (Sills ed. 1968: Vol. 14:511).

Sills describes further the working class culture which was a sociahstic world of its own, totally different from the main stream culture of the country. The SPD had a large number of consumer co-operatives and housing projects for workers, bicycle clubs, hiking clubs for the workers and other such organizations. A German working class child couJd begin life in a socialist creche, join a socialist school, go to a socialist summer camp, hike with the socialist Wandervogel, sing in workers' chorus and be buried by a socialist burial society in a socialist cemetery. As the workers were excluded from the bourgeois society they responded thus by creating their own community.

Like any other socialist party the SPD was caught in a dilemma by the end of 19"^ century of being forced to collaborate with the very political system which it was seeking to destroy - a practical problem emerging out of its increasing success in parliament. Social democracy grew in parliamentary strength but there was no growth in powers of the parliament itself. The government, though constitutional, was in fact autocratic and responsible not to the parliament but to the emperor. The SPD had publicly dissociated itself from the German state, earning from the Kaiser and the orthodoxy the label 'fellows without a country' {vaterhindslose Gesellen). Little before World War I, however, nationalism proved to be a stronger idea than the 'class' and every socialist party supported its own government in the war efforts. The communists had become enemies of democratic regimes in central and Western Europe. The middle classes in many countries, basically in Italy and Germany voted for the extreme right out of fear of economic crisis. The socialists, owing to their ambivalent attitude towards capitalism, and democracy inspired in them by the Marxian dogma, were unable to provide any effective leadership in these trying moments. The socialists were sometimes thrown into power, as there was no other force left to occupy the power. Then they followed the most orthodox policies, as 'the crisis had to run its course' (ibid.: 519) thus defeating themselves.

In face of Adenauer's success, SPD, the party of long standing in Germany, felt the need to revise its programme. Adenauer had succeeded in making the CDU a mass- based party, acceptable to Catholics as well as Protestants, big industrialists as well as small entrepreneuers, from factory labour to white caller employees, from peasants to landless refugees. He had declared a clear motto of 'no experiments' in his election placards in order to guarantee that all the democratic structures would be intact.

Around 1957 began the new wave of reflection in the SPD. The party had opposed Adenauer's policy of rearmament and total West-integration. But with these goals the new fledgling party had achieved absolute majority, so SPD was forced to rethink. In 1959 it passed the new programme abandoning its anti-capitalist, socialist tradition and also dropping its opposition to west-integration and rearmament. "Democratic Socialism" was still its ideal, but it wanted to create a broad playing field for itself. It declared once more its commitment to parliamentary democracy, total dissociation from communism, allegiance to other Western values like freedom of the individual, social justice and solidarity with the disadvantaged (Time Life Books 1991:206).

1.1.1.5 The Grand Coalition 1966 - 1969 In the year 1966 the two leading parties functioning till then in opposition to each other even came together to form the Grand Coalition (1966 - 1969). Was this a wonderful cooperation or endangering of democracy? Opinions were and still are wide apart.

Now that laws could be passed speedily due to lack of opposition, a certain section of people wishing respite from recession welcomed the coalition expecting the 23 government to intervene deep into the economic activity but those more worried about the democracy were critical. The danger of the state becoming a singularly powerful entity was felt to be gravely disturbing. There were signs of the angst of the latter section coming true. Emergency Laws were pas.sed to ensure stability and granting rights of specific intervention {Stahilitcits- und Notstandsgesetze) to the government. The new emergency laws of June 1968 could nullify the basic rights of the citizens under the guise of inner emergency. If only the natural calamities were meant with the emergency then the existing laws were sufficient. People suspected that strikes and demonstrations were also aimed at. All the Left inclined intellectuals felt betrayed.

As even the USSR was avoiding any direct action in Vietnam, the young students looked up to leaders from the Third World - Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. This adoration took the form of romantic and irrational hero worship. Cuba and Latin America became the symbols for anti-imperialist fervour.

Thus the stage was set within and without for the APO (an acronym out of the words meaning extra parliamentary opposition to the establishment).

1.1.2 The 1968 Generation - Children of Affluence The young people, not only students, had developed a strong dislike for the extreme conformism, formality and hierarchy in the German society. The parent generation had forged the economic miracle and was very proud of it. Its legacy from pre-war period had made the parent generation conformists, working hard and clinging onto its respective position in the hierarchy. It had a strong rejection for any 'ideology', because its recent experience with ideology was horrendous.

But their children however, felt the reconstruction and the miracle had destroyed the environment and also human relations. The young abhorred the lack of any spiritual values (Sontheinier 1979: 28). They set out on .search of their own new values which they felt they found in Marx and Marxism. The Youth in American Universities had protested against the Vietnam War in 1964- 65. This spirit soon reached Europe and politicized the student's community thoroughly. During the initial post-war decades the German Youth behaved with its habitual obedience and docility. But soon it started feeling the strictures of the outmoded and rigorous university system and the authoritarianism of the senior teachers and of parents at home. Now there were children of ex-Nazis who were asking their parents a moral question, "How could you let Hitler happen?" They brought a strong moral ferocity to the movement. Ralf Schnell describes this generation as "guiltless generation" {imhelastete Generation p. 314). Its moral \ indignation culminated in total rejection of the society.

After the formation of the Grand Coalition the opposition in the parliament was reduced to the tiny fraction of FDP party. So the students had to seek their collaborators outside the parliament. Hence the name APO, an acronym of the German words meaning extra parliamentary opposition. The students did not receive much support from the workers, but other young in the society participated in the revolts. They were all possessed by a new concept about life ( Neues Lehensgefiihl), they were poised against all authoritativeness: in the family, schools, offices, hospitals and government establishments. They felt solidarity for all the people under dictatorial regimes of those days in Asia, Africa and Latin America out of the same Lehensgefiihl. Thus the movement was not restricted to political protest; it was also a cultural revolution. When the enthusiasm for the political process faded, they turned their attention to the new forms of living that held the groups together, viz. the Landkommunen and Wohngemeinschaften, that is, community living.

The post war era of Chancellor Adenauer with his policy of 'No Experiments' and the economic miracle had led to ossification of social institutions. This irritated the most of the students who were well cared for; many were even affluent. So they had the time and energy to fight for individual values of intellectual, philosophical, spiritual and moral variety and for societal concerns. 1.1.2.1 Students' Revolts and the Extra Parliamentary Opposition - APO By the mid 1960s the numbers of students vying for university education were increasing. Baby boom after war years resulted 20 years later in flooding of the universities. Till then the universities were exclusively for the elite. Now they turned into institutions for mass education. The German university system till then was meant for a privileged few but by the 1960s it was a "far cry from the green calm of the old Philosopher's Walk above the river Neckar at Heidelberg" (Ardagh 1987: 212). In the 19" century, the universities were noble centers of pure scholarship and erudition. The changed times required them to bring the elitist and the mass education together. Over-crowded lecture halls in the old universities, utility campuses devoid of any beauty of the new universities like Bochum or Dortmund and old rigid hierarchies were anything but inspiring for the students. Their slogan Unter den Talaren, Muff'von tausend Jahren, "under the robes of professors, mustiness of thousand years" shows their bitter disappointment with the university system. Also the young assistants on teaching faculty were teeming with dissatisfaction due to high-handed arrogant ways of senior professors (Muller 1990: 381).

Protesting students identified three major areas for their practical agitation (Huber 1984:79): 1. Exploitation of the Third World, especially Vietnam and Iran 2. The media in Germany, especially the Springer publications 'Bild' and 'Die Welt" as the manipulators of consciousness at key position. 3. Provoking the German democracy by questioning the rules of its game.

The students forced the professors to discuss these issues. They used to appear suddenly at a mass in churches and complemented the priests' sermons with their theory. They blew soap balloons at official meetings to draw attention to them (Conti 1984: 156). The university buildings were daubed with a lot of political graffiti."

In Berlin the students began with demand for some sensible proposals for reform. In June 1967 the Shah of Iran was to visit Berlin. He had been in fact a verv modern

" "EntciiziK't Springer!" (Fxpropriate Springer). "' Macht kaputl. was euch kapult niacin!'" (Destroy ail thai destroys you). 'Trau keinem Uber dreissig!"" (Don't trust anyone abo\e thirty).

26 reformist ruler. But because of his solidarity with the American imperialist rulers he was hated by the German students. They demonstrated against him. The riot police handled the students ruthlessly. One student was killed and many others were injured. This escalated the riots. Their better known leader Rudy Dutschke was crippled for life due to a shot by a right wing fanatic. This provoked students in other universities throughout the country.

Axel Springer publication was specially targeted as accomplice of the 'system'. The posh supermarkets were attacked as symbols of the terror to consume (MiJller 1990: 382). On the 11"' May 1968 about 30, 000 students and young people demonstrated in Bonn against the proposed legislation of emergency laws, which were suspected to give undue power to the government. Only in this respect did the trade unions side with the agitators. Otherwise they were fully satisfied with the state.

The ideas of reform spread outside the students' world into other areas of society like hospitals, offices, schools and similar establishments where the subordinates were being repressed. Overall atmosphere changed drastically. People started dropping formalities. For example, the informal 'du' (second person singular pronoun) came in use instead of extremely formal respectful pronoun 'S/e' for addressing each other. Pre-marital sex was no more a taboo. The authority of the elders and the powerful could be questioned. All the social fields were to be organized by the participants, clients, consumers themselves due to the new belief that only in a free atmosphere could their capacities be manifested.

1.1.2.2 Failure of the APO Soon politically extremist students dominated the movement giving it the name "German Left Fascism" (Ardagh 1987; 213) As the revolts did not succeed at uprooting the capitalist society some highly disillusioned angry agitators formed small groups, known as "A" Gnippen" (communist groups) to continue the movement with physical coercion of the student-members who wanted to leave. As Ardagh describes, they used to roam the campu.ses breaking lectures, locking professors, fighting police and generally speaking an ideology that was beyond the perception of 27 ordinary students. Their aggressive ways did manage to break the age-old university system and usher in a new order. However, a large majority had gone away from the agitation and towards the end of 1969, the movement subsided completely.

The fraction of politically extremists went underground to become a terrorist gang RAF {Rote Annee Fraktion, Red Army Faction)) known also as "Baader - Meinhof gang" by the names of their leaders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Mainhof. It is very conspicuous that this fraction had many female students participating in the direct terrorist acts. RAF called for a socialist revolution. They murdered the chief federal prosecutor Bubak and also the chairman of the Dresdener Bank Ponto. When they kidnapped the president of employees' association Martin Schleyer in order to exchange him against Baader-Mainhof, and hijacked a Lufthansa plane; Chancellor Schmidt took the sternest decision to nip the terrorism. The plane stranded in Mogadishu, Somalia, was rescued by a commando unit marking a turning point in history. All sympathy for RAF was lost, even its most ardent student supporters had turned away. Ordinary students were no more interested in political ideologies.

Another fraction soon made peace with the society and settled respectably with secure jobs. But the third fraction of the rebels was not at peace with anything. Not only were they disgusted with the 1968 movement that degenerated into non-sensical violence and terrorism, but they also saw the futility of their leader Rudi Dutschke's proposed 'Long March through the Institutions'. It was a plan to reform the society by infiltrating into the institutions of the government and bodies such as the universities, schools, churches and the media (Ardagh 1987: 436) which was frustrated by the 'Radikalenerlass':

The divide of the world according to the two political ideologies: the Western capitalism and Communism in the East European Power Block was most visible and tangible in Germany. The demarcation line ran through Germany. Germans were living under constant threat of atomic weapons for mass destruction that had been set

'I'lic g()\'ciiimeiil decree to ban the erstwhile radical students oC 1968 from public prol'essioiis as a result ol'the aLTeeiiient (it the chief nimisters olall stales in 1972.

28 by the two power blocks along the boundary dividing Germany. This endangered life caused a strong hatred for both the systems in the minds of the young.

The attention of the third fraction was now focused on environmental issues, peace and alternative lifestyles. How very serious was this concern is reflected in a 1981 survey of 15 to 20 years olds. 30% of them expressed their opinion that technology and chemistry would destroy the earth while 46% thought such destruction was very probable (Time Life Books 1991:148).

A new phase began in 1975 when vine growers, housewives and young people of Kaiserstuhl and Freiburg occupied the plant of an atomic power station near Wyhl in Baden and defended it for months on, despite the ruthless police action and till they got the court of law to postpone the construction indefinitely. Similar action followed at many other places like Kalkar and Brokdorf, The protest soon turned to stopping of destruction of residential area for the sake of constructing highways and forced industrialization. A new awareness of ecology arose. The conviction that the manner of production and consumption had to change drastically in keeping with demands of conservation of Nature gained firm ground. It affected the lifelong habits of sympathizers of the movement. Around this point of time the name 'Alternative Movement' surfaced. It reached the maximum height in 1977/78.

1.2 The Alternative Scene They decided instead to turn their back on the hated system. They created their own little counter-society. Three major centres of the subculture arose: Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg.

1.2.1 New Values, New Goals Criticism of exaggerated consumption, respect for ecology, restoration of human dignity at work, personal emancipation, abolishment of stark division between work and leisure were the new values and goals.

Many of the normal life-activities that had gone out of the house through ever advancing institutionalization, technologisation, professionalization and

29 monetarization in the course of two centuries of capitalism had to be brought back home in the form of proprietary work or in the form of cooperative work. The advance in technology, about which the mankind was so proud, had begun to show its flip side. Man had invented much more than what was good for him. 2/3 of the conventional workplaces had fallen away due to the microprocessors (Fischer 1981: 14). Even half as much were not newly created, and these too were created in the services sector. In the face of such threats politicians and corporate bosses were striving to have a growth rate of 3.1 at any cost, because a decrease of just one percent would have doubled the number of unemployed (from the German periodical Der Spiegel 40/1980 as quoted by Fischer, Claudia 1981: footnote no. 9: 23). In the year 1973 the mankind was consuming 3 times more copper, four times more iron and 14 times more aluminium than it did 25 years ago (ibid.: 33). This was bound to result in further exploitation of Nature which the youth wanted to halt.

A majority of young Germans was now refusing to enter the compulsory military service. They opted for the alternative of the civil service in hospitals, old age homes, homes for handicapped and for destitute, etc.

Sympathv for the Third World There was a wave of solidarity with the Third World. For example an organization called SKAAL (an acronym from SolidariUitskomitee fiir Afhka, Asien und Lateinamerika) was established in Ztirich. It condemned the continuous imperialism of the industrialized nations, h declared its solidarity with the people and not with the reactionary, military or dictatorial regimes. They pressurized the Swiss government to cut off ties with such regimes of the third world. It was realized that the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America had had only one significance for Europe and America- suppliers of the raw material at cheapest rates and of certain other attractive goodies. Compensating them equitably for it was not the practice. There was also the usual financial aid to these countries. SKAAL demanded economic relations based on justice for the Third World countries (Fischer 1981: 76).

The Movement consisted of various groups and it.s theoretical gvound'mg also wa.s very diverse. The common objective was peaceful reorganization of the society by 30 restricting and reshaping the polity through old and new forms of communality, i hindering the technocratization of work, and expanding the social field. j

1.2.2 The Breakthrough - Netzwerk Selbsthilfe Mutual cooperation and networking - with this motive a group Netz.werk Selbsthilfe was founded in the assembly hall of the Technical University, Berlin in Nov. 1978 in the presence of eminent personalities like Carl Amery, Walter Jens, Klaus Staeck, Volker Schlondorff, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Heinrich Boll, Gunther Wallraff and Robert Jungk. The motto of the project was "Self-help is necessary, so also help for self-help".

It was meant to be a cooperative of Alternative projects. Within a few months it had a membership of about 3000. In the summer of 1980 it had collected a fund of 60,000 DM by way of membership fees. It had a managing committee of seven persons that was to be changed entirely every two years. It had an advisory council consisting of 10 members, five were to be elected from the Leftist scene and five were to be drawn from members' list without elections. Its main function was to accept or refuse applications for promotion of the projects from Alternative groups. Loans or grants were disbursed when the projects fulfilled these conditions: 1. The project had to be self-administered. 2. It could not be for private profit 3. It was supposed not to compete with similar projects; it had to have cooperation with similar projects. 4. It had to guarantee stability of personnel as well as of the project itself. 5. It had to be socially useful.

The initiators of the Netzwerk were clear in their minds regarding their standing. They could not and did not want to make great politics. They did not project their image as the only possible way out of the maladies of the capitalistic polity they called ironically as the 'Megamaschine'. They wanted to create a chance for the socially and professionally challenged people and to realize some of the future models from a large variety of them. They also wanted to make political action more offensive and free of angst. The Netzwerk had considerable success. If a project was found to be worthy of promotion by Netzwerk, the morale of the project was boosted, which in turn contributed to 'Off'eiitlichkeitsarheit', i.e. building of the public sphere. The Netzwerk had of course its share of criticism: Before helping the Alternative projects the Netzwerk itself had to have an Alternative activity and had to be organized on Alternative principles. Its own terrific growth could not fulfill this expectation. There had developed 24 different areas that had to be looked after apart from thepublic sphere building. The second point of criticism was that the Netzwerk threatened to develop into a Leftist counter department of social welfare (linkes Sozialarnt) to which Joseph Huber answers thus: "Seen purely theoretically the objection is correct. But we do not intend to take away the work of the state. Netzwerk is certainly a social agency as it contributes to rehabilitate people on the borderline of the society, e.g. unemployed, drug-addicts, alcoholics and the freaks or flipped-out" (Fischer 1981: 64).

An abandoned factory in Berlin, known as "Mehringhof, was taken over. It became famous as 'Alternatives Rathaus' (council of the town). Many small-scale ventures like vegetarian stores, bicycle shop, a theatre, a publishing house, and a kindergarten were started. Compared to long and highly theoretical complicated discussions of 1968 this was something concrete, modest and fruitful. They shared the proceeds equally among all members. They followed the principles of ecology. 'Netzwerk' provided coordination and guidance and funds to start new projects. The ventures comprised publishing and printing houses, the daily newspaper 'Tageszeitung' {taz) of Berlin, pubs, cafes, theaters {Rote Griitze and Grips) and art centers, shops and workshops of many kinds, organic farms, cooperatives of lawyers, doctors, architects, engineers, social workers and taxi-drivers, kindergartens run by mothers, women's shelter-homes. It was quite possible to depend entirely on this network for work and leisure needs without dealing with the mainstream (Ardagh 1987: 437).

Grips Theatre: A neo-realistic theatre for children arose in 1969. It was one of the off-shoots of the 1968. Volker Ludwig, its founder director, concedes in an interview that "without 32 the '68 movement, I never would have got the idea to do theatre for children" (D.A.T.E. 2001: 31). He and his colleagues felt, the children were those days a suppressed class and they decided to fight for that class.

It was a theatre of protest against the old kitschy theatre of illusion that kept the children immersed in the world of fairy tales and fantasy. It did not heed the fact that the age for fantasy ends at 7 or 8 and the children seek reality. Volker Ludwig, the founder director of Grips Theatre brands the old type of theatre for children as 'deceitful' (D.A.T.E. 2001: 7). Grips as an Alternative theatre chose the subjects close to the heart of children. The Socialist Students' Union (SDS) collaborated in this project. Grips plays were socio-critical and anti-authority. They portrayed real life of children in order to build their consciousness and make them ask questions and identify reasons of their grief. The plays were of course humorous and entertaining for children; but they were not frivolously light. They were not meant as objects of art but as useful objects, useful to children as well as to parents and teachers.

This theatre found great response in many countries of the world. In India three of the regional languages, namely, Marathi, Kannada and Bengali responded with creative enthusiasm. It allured many theatre personalities in Pune who sustained it for more than twenty years with production of new, original plays on the lines of Grips. This is a noteworthy cross cultural achievement of the movement.

1.2.3 The Motivating Factors Angst and yearning were two major emotions shared by many Germans about this time. People felt the need to recapture the warmth of pre-Nazi days as they were afraid of the cold rigidity of the modern German society. Germany's exposed front­ line position in NATO had given rise to a deep angst (Fischer 1981: 9) in the minds of many. Claustrophobia due to density of population had resulted in yearning for more "natural kind of Nature".

Angst Angst about Atomic Energy and Radioactivity;

^^ It had set people thinking about their own consumption of energy. Horrifying pictures of death through atom bomb after Hiroshima had remained in the public memory. In view of the fast depleting traditional energy-sources of the earth the promise of unlimited atomic energy was irresistible for the governments. Some scientists had warned regarding the 'growth' of economy that man need not and should not do everything that can be done, that infinite growth would collide with the finite nature of the world. This made thousands of Germans come together for the first time for demonstrations against atomic energy at Gorleben - the excavation site for dumping the atomic waste - in May 1980 with the slogan ^'Gorleben soil leheii" (Let Gorleben live!).

Angst about Excessive Bureaucratization: In order to keep the huge machine of the economy of the consumption-oriented society rolling, laws had to be passed constantly resulting in a flood of legislation for the citizens. They found it extremely difficult to know exactly what their rights and duties were. Moreover they felt that through bureaucratization of their life they were being watched and observed. The personal data that the state and economy need to store was susceptible to unauthorized access, which violates the fundamental rights of the citizens.

The Performance Anxiety: The work and employment was assuming such pattern that workers had to be under constant pressure to perform forever better and perfect. One had to constantly unlearn and relearn in order to cope with frequent changes in work and machinery. The people thought they were being robbed of their very basis of life, i.e. work. Especially the microprocessors had begun to threaten thousands of jobs at once. The microprocessors were called 'social bomb' (Fischer 1981: 14). This raised a feeling of resignation toward the bourgeois society leading many to disembark.

Angst about Material Poverty: There were some less fortunate for whom the welfare state had no jobs to offer. They were mostly young trainees and helpers who could not set their foot in (lie 'system" after passing school. They turned to the Alternative Movement for livelihood. These people were however understood to be a latent risk to the Alternative scene because they lacked the conviction of a well to do manager or a student who had tasted affluence and then turned to simplicity. They could be corrupted and could return to the 'system' (riicksteigen).

Yearning The consumption-oriented society was becoming cold and ruthless as work and productivity became the high virtues. Some people were yearning for humane contact and sociability. "I just wanted to belong to the Movement", "Because there was someone to talk to", "I was tired of being alone" _ these are some of the repeated answers by participants if asked why they joined the Alternative projects (Fischer 1981: 18). These vague uncertain answers in fact define a large field of motivation. These people had either not received help in their personal crisis or were deprived of warmth and sociability or had a tremendous lack of communication skills due to , :^ ruthless atmosphere at workplace. i- Yearning to Communicate: ^ "^ Many a youth had experienced that they could not communicate with their pareni any more. This was not only the age-old generational conflict, but also symptoms of a much more serious development over previous two-three decades. Children saw that life was possible without 'goods'; that consumption was not everything in life. One works in order to live and not vice versa. The elder generation was shocked and enraged with this stance of the children. After all they had reconstructed the nation out of war destruction up to the 'economic miracle' through a great personal sacrifice. And it was worth nothing in the eyes of the children. They were not to be enticed even with a new car. It was a painful revelation for both the sides that consumption had replaced communication; that they had forgotten how to communicate with each other.

The problem of incapacity to communicate was not restricted to generations. Even in the peer group it was difficult to express emotions. The same was true of sensuality and physiaihty which was jammed, inhibited, and awkward. The desire to rescue oneself by slipping into alternative lifestyles was strong. Fischer quotes Robert 35 Jungk, one of the leading theoreticians of the Movement, saying, "I have gained not only teammates but also friends. The Movement bestowed on me energy and hope that are difficult to be expressed completely in words. These are foremost bonds as if between people of kin or between lovers. They impart a feeling of security and closeness. I am not lonely any more" (Fischer 1981: 19).

The Urge to explore one's Deeper Self: It made some people abandon the materialistic affluence that came invariably with hypocrisy and sham, and return to simplicity. The idea of modesty, humane life and humane working conditions and conscientious responsibility toward ecology, facilitate the exploration of deeper self. For a considerable section of the followers the psychological offerings of the Movement made a major motivation to disembark. They were: sensitivity training, self-experience groups, self- hypnosis, meditations of different styles, dance and expression groups etc. In some way or the other they wanted to develop their individuality and manifest their personality.

These goals were impossible in the Fordist system of as.sembly line production based on sharp division of work and resultant specialization. The Marxian analysis of alienation of the worker first losing control over the product and then over the conditions of work was too simplistic for the theoreticians of the Movement. If the worker continues to fix the .same .screw in the same bolt in the factory he owns along with fellow workers, he would still be alienated. The working pattern must be changed. The pleasure in work must be restored. Mindless and tedious sections of the process must be equitably distributed. People with a radical drive for creativity could realize their dream in the land communes: to till the land and consume the produce.

1.2.4 The Alternative Milieu Jo.sef Huber is a scene-insider of a special kind. ("In Wirklichkeit ist diese Zunft, zu. der (inch ich ^ehore. weiiigstens so grofi " 1984: 32). He has recorded the entire spectrum of men, milieus, motives, opinions and ideas of the Ahernative Scene. He differentiates about 11 streams as regards the politico-ideological convi­ ctions of the participants of the Alternative Movement in his, by now classic, book.

36 1. Citizens' Initiatives: Toward the end of 1960s people started founding groups initially as support groups for the SPD, which soon developed into groups for extra- parliamentary activities for environment. The Citizens' initiatives were basically critical of bureaucratization of the democracy. They opposed construction of new airports, power stations and motorways, which cost natural soil. They had, and some still have, good network from local to federal level. The Citizens' Initiatives have been successful in Wyhl, Kaiseraugust and Gorleben. Some conservative sociologists have labeled them as the New Fourth Estate endangering democracy and rule of majority.

2. Environment Movement: It includes Anti-Atomic Energy movement and movement for Alternative Technologies: Its pivot is the realisation of limitations to 'growth'. Its opposition was aimed at industry and technocracy. They proved that the growth in industrial production is held high artificially through induced consumption and through competition, profit motive and power politics. It rests on ruinous over- tilling and wasteful economy. While initially the industry could produce huge quantities with fewer resources, by the 1970s it was revealed that the industry had reached such a stage that it was consuming huge resources and producing less. The atomic energy, which is almost without any limits, could apparently help out of this crisis but the damage to the environment was unacceptably severe. The Anti- Atom Movement has not been able to hinder this suicidal 'break through' but it helped raise the awareness. Simple ecological awareness of the citizens developed here into systematic environment conservation. Recycling industry and environment industry appeared first to offer the solution but soon it was realized that even they need energy.

3. Consumption Critique: This is just another aspect of the eco-movement. It was realized that a change in wasteful, extravagant personal lifestyle was a necessary complement for the conservation. They wanted also to restore the human dignity in work and wanted to improve the 'quality' of life. The industrial mode of production saps the sense and satisfaction in work, alienates the worker leaving him stressed. Industrial societies can survive and thrive only on the consumption, hence it is artificially induced, which had led to fatigue of consumption. The life in such

37 societies - and the German society of the late 1960s and i970s was definitely one such - has to be career oriented and as such is dissected into childhood, youth, adulthood and pensioner stage. This leads to segregation of society into age groups, professional groups and interest groups. The society becomes a 'heap' of milieus and subcultures, which is held together through the Megamachine of state and polity.

The strict .separation of work time and leisure time is typical of an industrial capitalist society, which puts schizoid demands on the individual. One has to be an eager, diligent, punctual, disciplined, docile person carrying out orders at work and has to be a freaky consumer; relaxed and permissive at leisure time. In short one has to sell off oneself first to labour market and do what the system demands in order to later be able to buy only what the system offers and not what one finds meaningful and useful. The individual is just a tool of unecological, exploitative imperialistic production. Thus goes a popular ban mot about consumption: One buys things one doesn't need, to impress people one doesn't like with the money one doesn't really possess (Renn 1980: footnote no. 26: 107).

The beatniks, hippies and loafers {Gammler) had already given a reaction on this, but it was short-lived. This stream tried to give a long-lived answer. Their slogan was 'simple but in style'. This is not the same, as 'ascetic' culture propagated by likes of Carl Friedrich von Weizsiicker in Germany. The Alternative lifestyles involve critical and rational, conscious buying, organized campaigns and boycotts to force the state and the industry to produce buyer-friendly and safe, durable, eco-friendly and properly priced goods and services. The Life Reform movement of the turn of the 19"' century may be remembered here.

4. The Movement for the Youth and the Old: From the beginning to the mid of the 1970s there was not a single town in Germany which did not see demonstrations for youth centers. The idea was to create for every young and adolescent person a place to communicate freely with compatriots without the supervision of the elders, and to design his/her own leisure time activity as well as extra-curricular education. Many local administration authorities obliged. These centers serve to train the young in self-government and to establish the principles of direct democracy. In the same

3S manner cities now have recreation centers for the old, who otherwise could not finance their recreation and who are certainly left out by the commercial Megamachine.

5. Land Communes or the city-flight: Parallel to the ecology movement many a young people fled the cities in 1970s. This had an additional feature of a reaction on the exploitation of the countryside by the cities, a center versus periphery conflict! The multinational mega-coiporations can exert an influence on destiny of the regions through their decisions about investment. This was known as 'inner colonization'. They protested against the regions being made dependent on the cities. In fact the regions provide the foodstuff and other services to the cities, but they are given demeaning treatment. For redeeming the regions, traditions of the local dialects were revived. Local specialities and cultural diversities were encouraged.

6. Women's Movement and Homosexuals etc: Next to the Eco movement the Women's Movement is politically the most effective stream of the 70s. Its spectacular climax lasted from 1975 to 1978. As in case of the environment and ecology movement all the established parties tried to adopt this movement to acquire a feminist profile, but it successfully remained autonomous. This stream had many self organized projects true to the Alternative spirit: Nourishment and health, self- observation/analysis, medical and therapeutic self-help, shelter for women in distress, holiday and seminar resorts, film circles, periodicals and publications, bookshops, cafes, workshops for craft and arts, theatre and music groups etc.

Apart from politico-economic questions of equal rights, liberties and responsibilities in private and public sphere this stream brought about a new awareness about the 'body' and sensuality. The homosexuals (and even paedophiles) could muster up courage to enter the public sphere due to this new awareness; especially the male homosexuals have a whole network of their own projects and are also equally active in other Alternative projects.

7. Psycho iuid Sensitivity Movement; Development of individuulity and manifestation of the personality are the themes here. Around 1970 there was quite an

34 explosion of the psycho-movement. Along with the traditional psycho and social therapy there were groups for sensitivity training, theme-oriented interaction groups, groups for practicing survival, self-experience groups, encounter groups, sensual perception promotion groups, psycho- and socio drama groups, transactional analysis groups, primal cry groups, conflict management and life laboratories, psycho- synthesis, TM and other meditations, movement therapy, expression corporelle, gestalt, bio-energetics, dance, pantomime, breathing therapy, auto-suggestion. Yoga, Massage, Acupressure, Karate, Aikido, Zen, Tai Chi and many others. These groups were of help in psychological and life crises, which had to be sustained individually.

Around 1972 - 74 there was a talk of the movement of emancipation, which stalled itself against the ascetic and dogmatic style of old Stalinists and communists. This faction developed later as the Spontis. They use theatre forms to analyse their actions.

In the 60s, towards the end of the students' movement, there was a demand that the change in socio-politico system had to go parallel to the reform of the subjectivity through psychological deep-structure analysis of the self and personal emancipation should be a part of the political emancipation. This was mostly understood only as sexual emancipation. Wilhelm Reich (1897 - 1957), an Austrian psychoanalyst, was rediscovered. He had to flee to Denmark in the Nazi era. In 1931 he became professor for medical psychiatry at New York school of Social Research. His contribution is to bring together theories of Siegmund Freud and Karl Marx, which made him propagate removal of sexual repression.

The contrast is amusing. Whoever wanted to project an 'image' in the 60s, would project himself as man of spirit and intellect (Kopfmensch). Now (i.e. in late seventies/early eighties) one desirous of an effective image projected himself as 'physically' driven [Kdrpenneiisch).

Psycho movement was a revolt against rationalistic, analytic intellcctualisni. It concludes a turn toward holistic experience of the world that harmonizes body, soul and mind. The holistic experience then grants a legitimate place also to intuitive and 40 emotional knowledge, a postmodern turn.

8. New Religious Sects and New Spiritualism: German media referred to the new religiosity as 'new inwardness'. It was very strong in the land communes. Members of 'Findhorn' in Scotland, for example, are said to be in contact with fees, Kobolds, gnomes, elves, angels etc. Castaneda's books were a rage among city youth. Seers and prophets were in vogue. Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy found new following. This is a connection to the old 'Lebensreform' of turn of the 19'*^ century. Occult traditions were also tapped. Huber says (p. 22):

Advance of natural sciences and technology appeared first to demystify the world, but it appears today as instrumental rationality - the more we bring the world under microscope, the more is the loss of soul and spirit. Are we only a heap of atoms, molecules and cell structure? Am I my body or do I reside in my body?

The youth was plagued with such questions and resorted to drugs. The drug addicts of the 1960s have been a part of the movement. Drugs helped bring about extension of the consciousness. Consumption of 'shit', 'gas', LSD etc. had seeped into broader masses and was no more restricted to the 'scene' as such. They formed a pathogenic and somewhat criminal subculture and were a burden to the Alternative Movement proper. For example some people still grew 'cannabis' in the balconies. Today there is a hardcore subculture of drug addicts with whom the Alternative Movement has to do in the form of rehabilitation centers. Only if a fixer wants to cleanse himself he is taken into an Alternative Movement's project.

In the sixties some old songs of workers were revived. One could hear Ravi Shanker's Sitar. For many, a trip to India, to Bhagvan Rajaneesh in Pune was the next thing, but mostly for therapeutic and not for spiritual reason.

9. Third World and Peace Initiatives: The peace movement dates back to 1950s when the question of re-armament and atomic weapons came up in Germany. About mid 60s mostly young men denouncing the conscription and groups of students organized by protestant church joined hands with the peace movement. Its impulse is not purely political but also ethical as is shown by the backing from protestant church. They

41 abhor the politico-militarist interventions in the third world countries and also the economic imperialism that these countries are still under the yoke of. They uphold principles of non-violence and civil disobedience that have seeped well into other streams.

10. Civil Rights Groups: Modern state constantly tries to delimit the rights of civil society. The police state infiltrates into the civil society. Groups like 'Humanistic Union', 'Terre Des Homines', 'Amnesty International' have protested against the police and surveillance stale. Especially from the time of 'Radikalenerlaff i.e. government's ban on the employment of radical teachers and civil servants in 1972 in Germany, they carried out campaigns against these decrees and against coercive practices of solitary confinement (isolation) and other modes of aggravation of punishment. In Berlin there was even a group called 'Citizens observing the police'"*.

Joseph Huber comments, the Establishment feels, something that is not, or that does not want to become a part of the dominant system {'Megamaschine') is perceived to be a threatening trouble maker that has to be maimed. The elite bureaucrats do not hesitate to resort to violence, which is a state monopoly and is forbidden to the citizens. The modern 'welfare' state appears not to have dealt with the inner 'warfare' state. Under the pretext of security concerns, control and surveillance systems are set up. Formerly only actual incidents of danger to security were acted upon, now there is hyper-sensitive prevention against all potential cases. The system feels secure only when everybody without exception is under control.

11. Spontis and the Undogmatic Left: Located between SPD and Jungsozkilisten on the one hand and DKP and other K-groups (communist groups) on the other, the Spontis is the residue of the student's movement of 1968 and the APO, Extra Parliamentary Opposition. Leading personalities from these two movements were represented in universities, schools and social paedagogy in the 1970s. Formal organization is anathema to the Undogmatic Leftists yet they formed a very stable social field that could be incorporated into the neighbourhood of the Alternative

Address given in Hubcr p. 137: c/o Huiiianisiisciic Union. Kul'slcincr Sir. 12. lOOO Berlin 62 Movement. They were now mature enough to try to go beyond Marxism, however Marx was still relevant for them in their fight against monopoly capitalism.

Politico economic careers soon got out of fashion and politics itself developed totally differently from what the theory had predicted. But their basic criticism of capitalism holds good. Their solutions were the goals of the socialistic tradition that had been revived unscathed in the 70s - planning of economic value, rescinding of profit maximization that is the result of competition, fair income and other social guarantees that could be paraphrased as libertarian .self-administrative socialism..

As the older generation of 1968 gradually lost its anti-authority fervour and even began to accept professoral assignments, the younger generation of students - Spontis - came forward around 1975 with an equally provocative programme. They were motivated - apart from Marx - also by Bohemians and Life Reformers like Bakunin, Kropotkin, Landauer, MUhsam, Buber and so on. Opposed not only to giant - businesses {Grofikapital) but also to the state itself they have finally freed the anarchist tradition that was languishing. Their political style emphasizes the principle of relish and enjoyment. They are fiercely egoistic to declare their own requirements as the hub of the universe. Driven by the principle of 'here and now' and by the slogans, 'we want everything', 'we are the ones against whom our parents had warned us {Wir sind die, gegen die unsere El tern iins gewarnt hatten) and wandering in colourful clothes as city-indios ready for all sorts of foolishness, they represent the 'Sponti^ ideas most aptly which goes to show that even politics can be relaxing.

1.2,5 The Intermediate Culture Joseph Huber counts himself as one belonging to the intermediate sector of the Alternative Movement. It is practically a double track life. He and a few like him function as the pivot. They have interaction both with the Establishment and the subculture. In neither of the two do they feel fully at home. They enjoy attention and respect in both and hence can function as mediators very efficiently. He mentions a few names of Green public sphere: Heinrich Albertz, Joseph Beuys, Peter Bruckner. Jvan Illich, Ossip FJcchtheim, Wolf Dicier Narr, Klaus Traiibe, Robcvl }ungk imd Heinrich Boll. These are only exceptions; the rule is built by hundreds of 43 sympathizers who carry out the function in a very non-spectacular way. They consolidate the intermediate culture.

These pivots are not adjusted enough for normal family and professional mode and not broken away enough to be subcultural disembarkers. They are again, too ambitious and seek recognition. Huber calls them 'taoistic fish' that swims not against but within the current. They press against the revolving door when others pull and pull when others push (p. 98). They attain the synthesis out of theses of the Establishment and antitheses of the subculture that are livable and feasible. Typical examples are teachers, journalists, social workers, artists and all sorts of free lancers. The separating line between work and leisure activity, private and public life is not sharp. However, they refuse to live in a commune or a project or a city WG. The UFA-Campus in Berlin is a typical example of the subculture, Mehringhof is a typical example of the Intermediate culture. It houses thirty self-managed projects including the Netzwerk, but none of the projects has a residential component. This milieu keeps intact its niche of personal retreat and recuperation. Their thinking is long term but doing is not for the whole life. They find it difficult to settle for some o n e thing. They constantly overstretch themselves. They are totally the elites of the intelligentsia.

It is a philosophy of total freedom as well as of simultaneity and hence of mediation and balance between institutional and informal sector, between centralization and autonomy, communality and individuality, organization and spontaneity, materialism and idealism (Huber 1984: 100).

In order to comprehend where to the Intermediate Culture mode may lead one has to see which ways are to be avoided. 1. The totally service oriented economy of the establishment. 2. Dead-end of exploitative dual economy of the subculture. The first one is the apocalyptic vision of the Big Brother and his police state. The other is an eternal walk towards the lost paradise. The true way has to be above and outside of these two: Avoiding untenable aspects and adapting positive aspects. Incessant expansion of the Megamachine by means of exaggerated marketing, institutionalizing, professionalization and monetarization, steady transformation of 44 'needs' into marketable offers, segmentation of life into consumption and career based age groups like childhood, grown-ups and pensioners must be avoided.

Huber elucidates further, that subculture communality and personal orientation must be adapted; also the integration of life and work, collective decision-making and emancipation of the gender. But one will have to keep alert that the communality does not turn into regressive rural community under leadership of some Fiihrer, his word as the law and economy into crude subsistence economy. He warns that there are some fantasies about abolition of market, money and manager; in short, the 'small small mania'.

The synthesis will have libertarian and egalitarian form of social market economy of self-management. Organization of ownership will have to be changed. Private ownership of means of production will have to be abolished, but not simply turn into state ownership. Huber speaks here about capital neutralization.

1.2.6 The 'Megamachine' The Alternative Movement is an alternative to a 'system', that is in force almost worldwide, and which is supposed to be engaged - to use the Marxian terminology - in 'production' and which tolerates a certain amount of 'unproductive' elements in it. It is usually referred to as the mainstream economy. It consists of national and multinational companies, military establishments, bureaucracy of the welfare state, big banks and insurance companies at the centre, the middle sized businesses in the secondary sphere and small and family enterprises, 'Aunt Emma corner shops' and different clubs like rose-cultivators on the periphery. In Germany of 1970s the big businesses occupied app. 0.2 % of space employing 24 % of workforce, the middle size businesses occupied 11 % employing 53 % and the rest occupied 88 % employing 23 % workforce.

Huber calls this mainstream economy as "The Megamachine". It is regularized through national laws, organizational rules and official regulations; also through stiitules and contvacts. The clock decides the rhythm in which everyone has to function. Fortunately the system has not engulfed everyone, at least not yet. 45 Also household work, gardening, neighbourly help, honorary work etc. belong to the total economy, however not forming a part of the fisc (LaUn fisciis). This work also requires expertise, experience, knowledge, skill and practice, but it cannot produce certificates and proofs. Obviously this sector is not capital- intensive but labour- intensive. Human to human relation is its base. It follows the politico-economic laws only indirectly, but follows norms, values, customs and traditions of the particular community directly.

The activists like Joseph Huber strongly oppose that this field is labeled 'unproductive sector' or sector of 'reproduction'. According to Huber the Megamaschine devours scarce resources to fulfill the artificial and induced needs. Because the system consumes undeniably large quantities of resources and vitality of the labourers that come from Nature and from the informal sector, the system should actually contribute to sustain these real spheres of production in the social life world.

46 The Table of Comparison of Distribution of Projects In Joseph Huber, 1984, p. 33

Workplaces in the System. Workplaces in the Alternative Projects

Agriculture Agriculture 1% 4% Manual labour and Production & repair Industrial production work 30% 8% Transport, Traffic & Transportation Commerce 9% 37% Media education & Media, Research & Public opinion Training 27% 8% Other social leisure Other recreative and time services Human resources 29% services Political 20% organization and co­ Public setups. Political ordination projects associations & churches 23% 4%

While in the 'system" only 5 to 10% of workplaces are engaged in political education, awareness building and opinion formation, this is the goal of a staggering 60% of Alternative projects because what transpires in the Alternative bookshops, cinemas, theatres and galleries, schools, children centers and therapy groups is construction of desire to change social and personal life. This disproves the verdict of some old APO activists, that Alternative movement is apolitical.

2/3,ri l of workplaces in the 'system" fall in industrial production and its

47 distribution. Only a quarter of Alternative projects fall in this category. • In 'the System" only a quarter of the enterprises are in service sector; whereas 2/3" of the Alternative projects deal with personal service for education, leisure, entertainment etc

All of this points toward the certain direction of service-oriented society as Daniell Bell and Herman Kahn had predicted in the 1960s (Huber 1984: 34).

Schoolchildren, youth, housewives and pensioners, the so called 'unproductive' population have a potential of becoming the vanguard consumers assuming the function of "revolutionary subjects", through whom the systemic compulsion of production- and consumption-oriented industry can be overcome to go over to consumer- and need-oriented post-industrial production. Hence revolutionary strategy has to be designed for not only the production sector but also for reproduction sector. In short, the development has to be from avant-garde of proletariat as was done in workers' parties to consumer avant-garde as is done in the Alternative Movement. Hippies, Yippee, Flippies and freaks thus appear to be the unrecognized path-breakers of a new system where one will be less administered, where 'unnecessary' help will turn more and more into self-help, one will be provided for less and will become a self provider (ibid.).

The system had compelled the people on the one hand to toil endlessly and on the other to idle endlessly. It was hoped that the Alternative system will bring together the producer and consumer on equal footing. There will be more of 'do it yourself" culture. This presumes, however, that 'the system' will grow forever through new institutions, new occupations and new markets. But the ecology discourse has proved that systemic growth cannot go on unabated. The constraints are not only of material nature (scarcity of raw material and other ecological considerations) but also of socio-human nature: There is a subtle difference between the right to act and have a humane and dignified treatment - of course by fulfilling the duties - and the freedom, either to claim this right or simply not to claim it and become happy fulfilling human- social responsibilities in one's own way (Ncich eigeiier Fagoii selii^ wercleii).

48 Huber doubts the much discussed prognosis of Daniel Bell and Hermann Kahn that mechanization, automation and electronification would first lead to a decrease in number of people in agriculture, then in industry and further less in service sector. Huber feels the opposite of Bell's prognosis is more probable, considering the exhaustion of raw material, scarcity of power and environmental degradation-that again some people will have to work in agriculture, inanual trades and small industry (p.35).

1.2.7 An Excursus - Berlin There were well over 100, 000 people attached to Berlin's various sub-cultures living on the margins of the normal society. Squatters, health food communes, sexual liberationists, visionaries of the NEW AGE religion; in short, "Any body who wants to be different and to feel alright being different, who doesn't want the things he or she is taught to want, flees to Berlin" (Time Life Books 1991: 148).

The Alternatives established their own shops, restaurants, theatres, garden colonies, schools and many other social centers. For some people drugs were essential, while others shunned drugs and alcohol fully. The story of the movement's own newspaper is interesting. The first Alternative newspaper taz' appeared first on the 17'*^ April 1979 in Berlin, hs incubation lasted long for two years full of hefty discussions. Citizens Initiatives, K-groups, women's groups, greens, anti-atomic energy groups all wanted to have a say in its conception (Fischerl981:125). It had to be thus free of any particular ideology, a forum for all diverse groupings.

Frank Berberich, one of the editors, had stated in initial numbers that the taz would not shun controversies, it would even initiate controversies and provocations. In its technical production values it is not different than any other daily paper. But the inner organization is a lot different. There is no chief editor, a boss or any other single 'very responsible position'. The matter to be published is decided by the committee of editors and the technical personnel. The typesetter and the layout-man have equal

^ Aparl troiii Uiz there was Bliinlc from .Stullgart. I'hcy also worked vvillu)iit hierarchy and spccralf/a(iar! live and many

49 rights. Everything is discussed in long drawn meetings till consensus is arrived at. They have to bear a great deal more stress than editors at any other normal newspaper. They are 'professionals' only to some extent. Everyone gets the same salary; it was 1000 DM in 1979. If one has children then it is a little more per child.

Subscriptions did not come in large numbers that was expected. The reason was taz did not nurture enough contact with the base. Especially the groups in south Germany had this complaint. There is lot of leaving and joining among editors. The taz is leading an existence on edge, but the will to continue is yet strong. "Our appetite for the world has become so strong that we want to make a journey of discovery down upto the center of the earth" is their motto (Fischer 1981: 127). Apart from taz there were hundreds of small local newspapers.

The Squatters A special mention must be made of the squatters in Berlin. By the late 1980s some 30 000 flats in Berlin were lying empty. They were old tenement buildings owned privately. Owners had deliberately let them lie unused so that they would crumble one day giving the owner an opportunity to obtain state subsidy to construct new residences that could be hired out to rich class. Even the ruling SPD (socialist) government of the city-state of Berlin had connived in it. Its own policy of low fixed rates had made it impossible for the landlords to undertake proper repairs and maintenance. The Alternative flocks had nowhere to live. So they simply occupied these tenements. They claimed that they were not acting illegally, because Berlin's constitution said that all housing if not pulled down, should be kept in order and made available for use. It was thus the owners who were breaking the law. The city authorities were confused. Students continued the occupation. Then CDU, right wing party, came to power in 1981 and ordered the police eviction of the squatters. A drama lasting several months followed. There were street demos against police brutalities. In the mean while landlords were persuaded to negotiate with the squatters. The most of the squatters signed a contract with the landlords. They more. Tlic live cdilcrs o\Motzcr li\c al Inc dilTcrcnl places anei take luriis in edilorsliiii. .An\ Allcrnalive publication liati a strong local colour.

.^0 renovated the flats and could continue with lower rent. This is taken to be a moral victory against the capitalist system.

The following extensive quotation from John Ardagh (1987: 59) will furnish a vivid description of the scene in Berlin: This is one focal point of an excitingly varied Kreuzberg scene that is rich in romantic squalor and quirky self-expression. Provocation graffiti abound - Rous mit dem Schweine-Schwanz System (Away with the swinish penis system) scrawled by feminists at the entrance to an old ballroom offering tango and swing sessions; slogans in support of Nicaragua and extreme -Left terrorists daubed on the doorways of fancy new blocks of expensive flats beside a tree- lined canal (not all of Kreuzberg is a slum). Blackened bomb-scarred buildings stand next to bright pop=art facades newly painted by squatters. Turkish women in .scarves squat on the steps of a neo-Byzantine church. Nearby, sinister black- jacketed punks hang out around the Kotthusser Tor, while drugged weirdies and drop-outs of the saddest kind haunt the night-bars of the Orunienstrasse.

"So long as they do not behave violently, we recognize that they add spice and colour to the city's life and thus are good for tourism". One CDU pohtician confided in Ardagh (ibid. 60).

1.3 The Lived Movement The earlier point (1.2) illustrates the initial euphoristic phase with inner fervour and agitative mood. It depicts the psychology of the scene-insiders and sympathizers, whereas in the following, the Movement is seen as stabilized and manifest mainly in the four areas.

1.3.1 The Alternative Projects Joseph Huber describes the Alternative Movement as a 'Camssel of Projects'. In 1980 there were about 2 000 projects (Conti 1984: 167). In the period of students' movement the projects comprised Kinderladen (children's playgroups organized on anti-authority principle of Leftist ideology), land communes, publications and newspapers, bookshops, youth centers etc. After 1975 other types of projects came up which aimed at living out the theory 'here and now' (Conti 1984: 169). They had given up waiting for the revolution and turned to shaping of their life and work differently .Now there were bio-shops, taxi-cooperatives, therapy centers, communication centers, physicians* cooperatives, cooperative bakeries, theatre projects, clown groups and many more.

All of the projects were not commercially viable. They could not bring in money for full life expenses. But they were the means of self- realization, of fulfillment of one's earnestly cherished desires: work as enjoyment, no boss nor any other external oppressive force. The work had to become, once again as in pre-industrial days, meaningful. Not only the end product, but the entire process of production was the source of satisfaction. For this, people agreed even to lesser remuneration arranging for additional income from elsewhere, that is obviously from the Megamachine. In the Alternative projects the decisions were taken collectively; no one was to be fixed to one and the same monotonous act of the production process.

The market for such products was naturally limited. Their production could at the most fill up a gap but could not be a mainstay of the pampered consumer society. Workplace and the living place were mostly not separate. 12% of the projects were in production, 70% were in service sector and 18% in the Political sector. Huber gives another more illuminating way of division: 29% were in craft and handwork, which he names as 'hardware labour' and 71% in intellectual work 'software labour' (p. 28). Huber declares that these percentages must be taken with + or - 5% error.

In the hardware there were agriculture (tilling of the land, horticulture and animal rearing), processing trades (baker, wool spinner, dyer, floor layer, carpenter etc.), circulation (transport, trading, book shops and leisure time infrastructure provision). Under software were included (a) Information and public sphere building activities in the media publication (b) Consulting and networking units, child development, schools and informal education, medical and physiotherapy, and social education (c)Theatre, arts, circus, music and dance, martial arts (d) Political work - community development initiatives, different peoples' committees - for example, for prison improvement and prisoner rehabilitation, for helping foreigners, tenants and victims of 'RacJikiileiierldss' (e)Lastly there were groups like Greens, voters' lists, trade unions, church parishes with 'Alternative' leanings.

Explaining the statistics further, Huber says that approximately every tenth project 52 was engaged in agriculture and related activity. The 90 % were in service and political work, i.e. in the so- called tertiary sector. If there were app. 11 300 projects and if every project had 5 to 9 members then 80000 persons were engaged in the "Alternative" activity (p.29). These assumptions and approximations are based on his constant empirical data collection. At the very least the figures come down to 6000 groups and 30 000 people and go up to 15 000 groups and 1 35 000 persons, both extremes according to him being highly improbable.

Any social movement has a surrounding field of similarly dispo.sed people and sympathizers. The Alternative Movement especially lived by the support of such sympathizers. If four to five sympathizers per Alternative person are presumed then the entire forcefield would count 300 000 to 400 000 people (with less probable minimum at 150 000 and maximum at 750 000).

This is on the one hand very impressive; but on the other not enough in many respects. For example it was not even one full percent of the entire adult population of 45 million of those days. In order to make any impact politically, that is to procure the required 5 % of seats in the Bundestag it required 2 000 000 votes, which these figures do not promise.

John Ardagh, citing Brigitte Sauzay from her portrait 'Le vertige allemand' (Orban, Paris 1985) expresses his disbelief of her estimate of 500, 000 people and 90,000 projects (1985: 437). Conti has given his estimate of 12 000 projects (1984:167). Sheer numerically the Alternative Movement was then really a movement of a minority. Hence it had to be consistently aware of the conditions in the majority, that is, the mainstream public sphere.

This destroys a popular Alternative 'myth', which had been immensely constructive of the movement; the myth of handwork, artistic work, workshop, farm and farm work. The words 'Fa/;/7A''(factory) and 'Werkstatf (workshop) were used in plenty. The myth used to be underlined with a pretentious anti-inlellectualism and with show off of disgust with theory. In reality social self-help groups, youth centres, sport centres, hobby groups for art and culture, for political work etc. have occupied more 53 space in the Alternative scene than the mythical centers involving physical labour.

Roder (Jungk; Miillert 1980:176) complains that everything was always untidy, sloppy and neglected in the Alternative projects. Programmes ended up having an altogether different course than the prior announcement. Workshop-seminars and menu cards were a matter of chance like lottery. Information was mostly cheeky. Chaos, hitches and goofs were the order of the day. There was high fluctuation within and between groups. Things were borrowed and never returned. Huber has a similar complaint (p.51). There were grand plans of networking all the Alternative projects. But before the lists were made and contacts were established, entrepreneurs from the System had already grabbed the ideas and started the production of solar discs and insulation material. The inbuilt slowness and time spent in theorization left real doing to the cunning doers from the system.

As there were many half baked, defeated, failed persons who found easy acceptance into the Alternative projects, the projects were thrown to dangers of excessive psychodrama that resulted in lower productivity. If there was a project with a better look then it had invariably stressed out people effacing themselves till it became impossible to continue. But Roder is still hopeful of improving the state of affairs because the Alternative Movement still embodied the will to protest and that had to be nurtured.

Leading function in the project brought for that person some power also. However, as power of any kind was anathema, certain leading functions were simply not filled. Depending on the desire and ability to assert oneself, positions were just assumed by early retirees or elderly unemployed depending on social security allowances. Also the voluntary supporters who were committed elsewhere u.sed to help out and the job would be somehow completed. Naturally severe frustration prevailed.

The lacunae of the mainstream economy are too well known: Loss of coherence, cogged procedures leading to lack of transparency, the idiotic subject expert {Fachhliot}. and the worst - the hierarchy resulting kom branding of work a,s 'physical or manual" and 'cerebrar. In face of such a scene it was found to be alright 54 to have rattling, sloppy projects. Expert and novice, skilled and unskilled, people of longstanding and raw young, all tinkered freely at the same job. In effect the projects rattled, yet they could make an entry into public arena, sometimes even very successfully. Lack of exactitude, punctuality, disrespect for civic rules were taken as signs of inner protest against the establishment. This behaviour was then in keeping with the Alternative attitudes.

1.3.2 Community Living The yearning for community living arose out of dissatisfaction with modern nuclear family, which developed out of the necessity of capitalistic industrial civilization. The children suffer in this type of family, as they are deprived of versatile contact with many other relationships. This family becomes conformist and rigid. The Alternatives experimented with other forms of living together wherein the flaws of the old system were removed. The urban experiments are usually referred to as WG (Wohngemeinschaften); the experiments in the countryside are known as Landkommiinen.

The urban WG Here flats were shared and one usually had one's own separate room. One did not share here every friend or partner. This has continued till date even when the movement has subsided, perhaps because this alleviates the problem of high rents. The experiments as large settlements in the countryside were more in nature of self- sufficient production units carrying out agriculture, animal rearing and other trades.

WG^ were a conscious choice of 'context' for life. Nothing was self-evident or obvious as in a family. One had to build up a relationship patiently. Hence the most outstanding feature of the WGs was "psycho" involving long discussions. Everything had to be brought meticulously under the rules of organization: time for meals, procurements like grocery, washing of the vessels, cleaning of common space and also interpersonal action. The long discussions could end up in quarrels. On an average people stayed together for about 18 months. But then it used to be in a new WG and not back to the family mode (Conii 1984: 167).

35 Mathias Horx (1985: 21) disagrees. He says, the WGs no doubt enable group dynamics and self-experiencing. But it does not lead to a stable model for life. The very culture, which had sworn by affection and solidarity among people starts wearing out its members fast. The WG eats up the positive aspects of togetherness. This personal view of Mathias Horx apart, the VVGs have established themselves as an enduring model; because interpersonal contacts, discussions and stimulation through this were the new cherished values of the Alternatives. The WG protects from total isolation in case of singles and introverts. There is no pressure of playing the clear-cut roles that one has to play in the family. One experiences oneself in the mirror of others and can ensure one's special identity against the claims from the world.

In 1980 the number of WGs was estimated to be about 30, 000 (ibid.) with the membership of about 1, 50, 000 individuals. From this 2/3 were students; the rest were social workers and unemployed young. Men and women were almost equally represented. There were also about 5 % children.

WGs have endured but remained controversial. Living in a WG required a lot of psychological energy (p. 24). Tolerance, and also a will to thrash out the differences, solidarity, reaching out and responding to all these facets of group dynamics were practiced honestly.

Two levels used to be simultaneously at work. If anyone complained on pragmatic level about the filth in the kitchen, the others would jump onto the psycho plane saying the problem was not cleaning per se, but the fact that there was so less happening amongst them. If anyone demanded a rotation plan for turns in cleaning so that he got definite time free for himself it was taken to be self-centeredness not fit for the group.

Horx cites (p. 31) two interesting examples of advertisements. In early 1970s it read as follows: "I. full of dreams and yearning for other humans, am looking for love and an open WG". Now in late 1980s it would read: "A male, 29, professional, looking for a room in a WG without psycho for 300 DM". That shows a change in

56 composition of the WG; they are preferred more for economic convenience and psychological experimentation is shunned as encumbrance. Horx reveals that the so- called revolution of WGs has to do also with economics and not only with culture.

Land Communes Land communes were the result of city flight of the young who were under great impact of ecological thought. They would hire or buy the estate of a small farmer and try out farming themselves. They were not quite welcome to the local population. It would take real efforts till the local people accepted them. They were resolute in changing the consumption oriented life style. They would eat only their own home grown stuff and buy only very necessary things in the market. The number of such land communes was not large in Germany; but they were the media's darlings. They received a lot of publicity for their sheep breeding, cattle rearing, organic style agriculture and in general their Alternative striving. They were organized along the principles of common economy, consensus, end of hierarchy and ecologically sound life. Full surrender of private possessions to the commune was essential. All the members would receive the same amount as monthly pocket money for fulfilling very personal needs. But if one felt his or her need for something extra was justified, she could simply take extra from the common kitty. Common household made the life in communes more viable than in the nuclear family because only this way the resources are spent thriftily, 'eurotopia' has recorded new foundations of some 50 communes in 2004. Commune are relatively stable as they are registered with the government and it is a matter of invested money.

However, sometimes there was discrepancy in theoretical goal and actual practice. One gets to read such a story by Gabrielle Goettle (1993) who describes her concrete experience of visiting a 'land commune' where the dynamics of a 'land commune' appear to have degenerated into a 'pseudo' phenomenon.

Steyerberg in Lower Saxony, is a town with 3000 inhabitants living together happily with whatever their parish government (Gemehulerat) does for them. Close by on the hills there is an Alternative settlement "Lebensgarten Steyerberg" (Garden of Life) 57 that is known as one of the largest Alternative communes in FRG founded in 1980 on the erstwhile Nazi labour camp for non-German workers. On a plot of 4 hectares there are about 60 dwellings sheltering 100 adults and children. This commune was suppo.sed to be on the lines of the famous Scottish commune 'Findhorn' of 1960s. The inmates are - to use Goettle's term - 'solid' citizens: doctors, architects, opticians, nurses, social workers, geriatric care givers, non-medico health practitioners {Heilpraktiker), teachers and academics etc.

They have drawn rules for community living holding up tolerance, abstinence from drugs, alcohol and smoking, advocating whole grain vegetarian diet etc., the typically Alternative policy. They could not imbue fully the idea of free sex and abolition of private property. That remained. But inviolability of private property has left their desire for shared experiences of laughter, weeping, meditation, thinking and feeling as inconsequential leisure time hobby. They conduct a lot of group activities: Tantrik experiments of Shiva-Shakti for erotics, animal liberation trails and warning demos in front of the firms that experiment using animals, workshops for feminine mythical experience, rituals and spirituality for women, Indian fire ceremony of Agnihotra, permacuhure , acqua culture, non-verbal communication sessions. One can learn paying 360 DM, to "Turn frustration into creative energy". There are sacred dances, folkdance for men, sweat ceremony of Red Indians and many similar rituals.

But none of this is of great help to exorcise the emotion of togetherness. The inmates do not live like communards, they live more like middle class, well off citizens from the mainstream society trying to learn elementary community living. Their Alternative convictions are hardly manifest. Goettle describes how after a session women throng at the table, gulp dollops of food not expected of them, and disappear fast without bothering to clean the table and the place as agreed before. The commune has two paid servants, a fact that defies the ideal of respect for labour.

The inmates would have us believe, (hinting at the Na/.i past of the place) that they take upon themselves salvation of the place by "taking the challenge of this place and

' It is an agricultural technique learnt from Australian aboriginals that identifies and copies the processes of complex growth in Nature

5S

American movement and began writing. His poem Frankfurt and its surroundings was taken in the anthology "We Children of Marx and Coca-Cola- Poems of the Latest Generation" representing about 126 poets born between 1945 and 1955. From 12000 entries only 226 could be accommodated in the anthology published by Peter Hammer publishers. This made Wintjes take up the cause of young amature poets and establish his center. For his flagship monthly journal Ulcus Molle Info he had about 880 regular subscribers. It was not to be found generally in the kiosks. By 1980 it had published about 500 titles of all sorts of literature, but 'Sachhiicher i.e. the non-fictional informative books formed the major chunk.

This alternative press in the form of mini-press or self-publishers existed in Germany also prior to 1968. Even Goethe, Lessing and Leibnitz had tried to be self publishers, but not with much success (Daum 1988: 22). Alternative press consists of smalltime publishers who produced fine works of art for rich bibliophiles. There the exchange value of the book was greater. For the Alternatives of the 1960s the use value was greater.

These writers did not perceive themselves as mere addition to the ranks of the already existing anti-authority periodicals of political press. They were producing literature of aesthetic claims An appeal to senses was an integral feature. No alternative publication came without graphics They were not satisfied with their existence away from the mainstream. They wanted to be th( antipode, diametrically opposed to bourgeois but in the common public arena.

Handhuch der altenuitiven deiitschsprachi^en Literatiir: is a computerscript of 117 pages edited by Peter Engel and Christoph Schubert and published in 1973 by PE.CH publication from Hamburg and Miinster. It carries no other publication data. The editors intend to introduce the 'alternative' creativity in literature to the large audience. The book has completely done away with capitalization of letters.The editors understand 'Alternative' as follows;

"A literature that is not only read but calls for communication, a type of literature that manifests itself through other types of productit)n and distribution than pracficcd by culture ijidu.stry. Thi.s pvoduciion is not accomplished In an isolalcd chamber but in collaboration and exchange with other authors. The audience at large is not very important. We do not publish via established publications and 60 editorial offices as they are only trading centers for literature. Many of the 'alternative' writers have therefore procured printing machinery and published

such stuff that the established market cannot imagine-•fc' .

This does not however mean that all public and mass-media should be left to those who always made use of it and gave scope to 'young' and 'alternative' literature only for the purpose of decoration. As communication is the prime purpose we will not allow our ghettoisation. Expansion is our legitimate claim".

The manuscript contains in 73 pages short biographical information and addresses of about 120 writers. From city of Constance in the South to Bremen in the North whole of West Germany is represented. Most of them are born in 1940s or early 1950s. Further 30 pages inform about the magazines that were published fairly regularly. Some of the writers have restricted their entry to address and list of published material and current activity, but some have expressed themselves heartily. In the following we furnish a few glimpses of what these writers have to say about themselves, their writing and state of affairs in general.

Elmar Wims from Miinster declares that he condemns the terror of the taste. He probably means the 'high-brow' taste. Klaus Peter Wolf from Gelsenkirchen appears a great deal in public readings on the roads - because "otherwise one loses the sight of grass-root level." Rein Anton Zondergeld, Gottingen endorses no committed literature but literature as commitment. Dieter Karl-Erich Walter from Hattingen (Ruhr) is now amused to read his own declaration of refusal to join the compulsory military service. He loves writing letters. Fred Viebahn from Castrop rauxel is a JUSO (Young Socialist, a special cader for young members in the SPD) who sees many possibilities for short term political engagement in socialism. He finds his earlier anti-authority stand a bit naive. For Jiirgen Theobaldy (Heidelberg) poetry is adventure. Kurt Wolfgang Stalter from Frankfurt feels, any representation is reproduction, reprocessing of the available material. When reality is turned into a film with miserable actors, the inner dimension is easily understood. Writing is a possibility to vary the thousands of possibilities. The method would be: Speak ten texts on a cassette, cut it to create a new one out of them, just play forward and backward. Heinrich Wagner, from Erlangen, has advised his fellow alternative writers to be self-critical and not to send away everything that comes down on paper because the receiver gets bored and blocks the next dispatches strongly. In 1971 Peter Engel, one of the editors of this handbook, had conducted a survey amongst these writers about their preferences. Benno Kiismeyer declared; "What I certainly will never write is long prose; because there is no time to read or write long prose". This was reiterated by many. Their preference was to short provocative genres packed with meaning. A few years later Schubert, the other editor, complains of laziness, lack of imaginativeness and among these writers. This milieu was turning into a ghetto. He ascertained an inflation of literature of self-understanding. The handbook records no more than ten items of longer fiction. Lyric and autobiographical writing abounded.

As the editors have commented, the Alternative press had a constant danger of being used as a springboard to jump into mainstream. They have mentioned Imre Torock's 'Butterseelen' as the only one example of longer fiction from the Alternative stream published in the Counterfare of 1980.

Ralf Schnell does not take any cognizance of this section of Alternative literature. His account remains restricted to protesters, who were famous - and mainstream.

1.3.4 The Political Arm - The Greens In January 1979 the Greens constituted their party. It was then lightly ridiculed as a party of romantic radical dreamers. But soon in 1983 they walked into the Bundestag, that is the West German parliament, proving the mandatory five percent of the entire votes. Still the political observers believed that they would disappear from the Bundestag in the next elections. The Greens triumphed once more in January 1987 and established themselves as the 4' power ending the long prevailing three party system. Since 1998 they are actually in power building a coalition with the SPD, the socialist party of Germany. They constitute an unwelcome challenge to the traditional conservative parties.

This success has been possible only along with some problems. The initial idea was to present a permanent opposition by never being in the government. They wanted to be ''Sand im Getriehe'\ i.e. sand in the gear. Soon there was a split regarding this ideal. Those who preferred power to realize their Green dreams are the realistic 'Realos' and those true to the fundamental idea are called 'Fuiidis\

62 The sociologists have observed that the followers of the Green party are a new middle class as they are mostly well-to-do citizens extremely dissatisfied with the then existing political structures. They are the very activists of the new social movements Of the 1970s. On this background it is rather surprising that the Greens have not given enough consideration to questions of culture and aesthetic in their manifestoes (Hermand; Miiller 1989: 24).

Greens were the political 'home' of the Alternative generation. Though not always in the government, Greens have been the strongest and most formative force in Germany for last 25 years. However at the moment there is grim emotion regarding many compromises that the political Greens are doing. Their leader Joschka Fischer, next in government to the chancellor, has proved a lot of political savvy and has survived many crises, but at the same time created alienation in fervent followers.

"Before the Greens whosoever said anything against the atomic energy, was an enemy of the state, was treated like today's Al-Quaida member", says Walter Wiillenweber in his "Obituary to the Greens" in 'Stern' (22 / 11 / 2001: 48). He continues stating what the Greens have achieved. A total shut down of the atomic energy has been finalized. There is again fish swimming in the Elbe and Rhine. The enterprises have understood the economic importance of sound environment policy. The homos and Lesbians did not exist officially before the Greens. They do now. The chancellor is leading life in the fourth marriage, his vice is in the third marriage - an impossibility in the pre-Green days. Even in most orthodox of the parties, i.e. the CDU, women are being elected as presidents (e.g. Ms Angela Merckel). No other party has brought about so many changes in socio-cultural arena of the country. Today's FRG is doubtlessly the product of the Green-Alternatives. Wiillenweber reminisces further:

"None of the changes would have been possible had the Greens been only a political party. We ale miisli, bought only in a 'hioluden' or the Third World shop. We were in vacation with only a rucksack. We decorated our vehicles with stickers flaunting 'Fuck the army', 'Nationalistic census? No, sorry!'. In every such life situation we were Green-Alternative. Now most of us have left the Green home, what survives is only the party. Those days, saying clear 'No' was the right method, now the Green party keeps saying 'Jain' { Ja+Nein, i.e. yes+no, meaning the non-committal, compromising stance ). The party has not bothered to study the new challenges. The existential question of war in Bosnia was answered with most ambivalent 'Jain'. 'Oline Waffeii keineii Frieden' ( No peace without arms) is the new lesson that the Greens did not learn. For today's young the Greens are as attractive as Kohl was to us 30 years back. The new states (LaiiJer, that is the states of the former GDR) do not have a place in their scheme, nor the debate about genetics. They have not yet developed any policy even on globalisation". fc'

He finally says without any irony but sadly, that the Greens have done their duty; they should now take leave.

Stephen Brockmann (in Hermand; Miiller 1989:25) remarks that the political programme of the Greens remained lacking regarding culture for a long time though the Greens came basically from Germany's Bildimgsbiirgertum (educationally privileged section of the society) and professionals. Only one last page of their manifesto is allocated to the area oi cu\ture, and even this one page is the testimony of lack of theorization.

Many Greens have turned to philosophy of radical conservatism, in the original positive sense of the term conservatism. They proclaim conservation of the environs and of the man through a resolute rejection of the values of 'technological civilization".

Anna Brammwell (1994: ix) remarks that the movement of ecologism is hostile to science yet is inextricably bound to science for its justification; its rationale and values. Towards the end of the 19"^ century there was a "revolt of science against science" in Europe and America with the development of Green ideas. Environmentalism was a non-issue untiJ the iate J 960s. And by J 970s and J 980s these ideas became a major player in local as well as national politics in Germany. Today on the one hand support for environmental causes has grown immensely but it hardly gets translated into 'political" behaviour. How is this paradox to be explained?

German Greens declined because unification the other parties plagiarized whatever could be absorbed leaving the unahsorbable for the Greens. Also the German Greens were not predominantly Green at all according to her. Ecology is an urban passion, 64 belief of a city dweller rather than that of a peasant. Brammwell differentiates between Green movement and environmentalism. With Green movement she means the brief era of dedicated Green national politics. That was a 'soft right' movement going 'soft left' in the 1970s (p. 1 Intro.). She makes a rough division into 'reform ecologists' and 'deep ecologists'. The reform ecologists are pragmatic. They believe that one can work through and with the existing system. They feel a supra-national body like EC is fair enough and an effective means to enforce environmental legislation than national governments. They take into account the need for economic growth. The deep ecologists are radical. They have passion for the ecology and have a puritanical approach. Realos and Fundis correspond roughly to these positions. Reformists, leftists and conservationists see Capitalism as the enemy; deep ecologists see human nature as the enemy according to her.

For ecologism to flourish, an urban and scientifically literate society is a necessity. This is a postmodern paradox.

1.4 New Attitudes Many identification symbols had become popular from the time of the 1968 movement: key-chain with screw, hammer, and chimney of a factory, typical facades of a factory, strong fists of a worker, a jungle of red flags, masses of happily laughing humans. The Alternative scene had a comparable arsenal of symbols: smiling Sun with the slogan "Atomic energy? No thanks!", windmills, cycles, gardener's hat, pick-axe and the colorful rainbow. They symbolized the deeply cherished world, much away from the existing world.

1.4.1 The Body More than the projects and WGs the common characteristic for all the Alternatives lies in their new attitudes towards body, sexuality and identity. This is one line of continuity from 1968 well into 1980s. Forms of self-representation, styles of speech etc. were the markers by which an Alternative person was recognized within and outside the scene.

65 Laxity: The new ideal regarding the body was laxity. Anything jaded, stiff and stark was banned. Their long hair and beard contained provocation for a long time till it was imitated by the main stream itself. The clothes were supposed to underline casualness and informality. Necktie and stiff collar, suit and high heeled shoes, ironed crease etc. were badly ridiculed. Alternative clothes facilitated free movement, hence were formless, and sometimes even sloppy. Baggy breeches and bib trousers {Latzhoseii), long robes, ponchos and scarves, oversize shirts and pullovers were their preferred outfits.

Vivacity: was one more ideal making the clothes colourful. One did not want to be seen as conformist gray. They did not hesitate to appear as blob of colours in the toned down world of the bourgeoisie. The fact that the Alternatives called their candidacy panels for elections in the initial stage as colourful lists (buiite Listen) shows the significance of colours for them. Life had to become colourful. Openly discussing the body and its functions was a part of the new attitude. They did not feel any inhibitions to speak in public about their own body or other's body. That is not so even today in circles outside of the Alternative Scene. Like long hair this facet is also accepted today in the mainstream German society. But the revolting students of 1968 had to free themselves with great effort from the norms of their parents.

Sexuality: They intended to pursue a certain sexual politics in order to bring about the changes in character. Restricting the sexual relationship to a particular person was for some of them equal to raising claims of possession on the partner. Some of the groups went even to the extent of declaring that whoever slept with the same person twice was already a member of the establishment (Conti 1984: 176). The women's movement has partly kept up the sexuality revolution. Followers of Bhagwan Rajneesh have continued with it. Zweierheziehung is the new word with objectivity and gender neutrality.

Frankness: Level of shame attached to body in almost all societies has gone down due to the Alternatives. In many Alternative communes the toilets are not lockable. Changing clothes in the presence of others is quite common. Physical proximity with the others is no more shunned. Embraces for welcoming and bidding farewell

66 became common.

Communality: The furniture in an Alternative hou.sehold was conspicuously low. Someimes there were no chairs and guests were expected to sit on beds, mattresses or simply on floor. There were no financial reasons behind it. It was only an expression of attitude towards one's own as well as others' body. The constellation of persons had to be easily changeable at any time. One had to be able to get closer to or get away from the other, lean against him/her or just stretch oneself. In short the arrangement had to be conducive for communality, choice of the distance to others and flexibility of the physical positioning.

Spatial Freedom : Work, eating, sleeping, music, all of these activities were no more spatially separated. The living space was not strictly divided into different life activities. This was markedly revealed in the new appreciation of the bedroom. It was once most guarded and very personal, intimate sphere. The Alternative households rarely had a distinct bedroom. Bed had become a representative part of the house. Covered with Mexican or Indian decorative bedcovers it became living cum sleeping cum study space. It meant that the night aspect of life: sleep as well as sleeplessness, dreams and nightmares, sexuality - everything was openly acknowledged. It did not need to be shoved away from the public eye. Corporeality was not banned to a distinct area.

Music and Dance; were parts of their new association with the body. Rock and many other styles of music made them sway freely throwing away moderation or limits, so very characteristic of the traditional music. Rhythm was the dominating element in the music, which spurred immediate physical movement. Their dance had very few rules. It left a lot of scope for self-depiction. Not only did the couples dance, but also groups or singles also danced.

No Tensions: The rules of the so- called 'decent" dealings with body were so relaxed that even burping and farting were tolerated. Emanations and transpirations of body ciiiised no offence. One could laugh, speak or screum loudly. Re.sfrainf and moderation were no more virtues (Conti: 1984: 180). The.se attitudes developed

67 without intentional reflection, naturally out of the mottos "Not to be tense or cramped". "Let everything flow", "Let everything be manifest". And they have formed the Alternative personalities uniformly and more decisively than the respective theories of the Marxist students of 1970, feminists of 1975 and peace- workers of 1982.

They believed that the human body -just like all Nature - was a legendary thing having unbelievably immense capacity. All the technological "contraptions' that have existed till now - do not come anywhere near this capacity (HoUstein, Walter 1981:134 as quoted by Conti 1984: 134). They looked for alternative theories of body in other, especially oriental, Asian cultures. This apparently naive belief was well thought over. All the streams of Alternative movement have strived after assimilation of hand and head, both in production and consumption. This conviction made them explore the body through two sources: psychological self-knowledge and self-exploration. There used to be body centred forms of therapy, oriental spiritual techniques of body like Yoga, Tai Chi, Aikido etc.

Wilhelm Reich was the guru for the matters of body techniques. He maintained that emotional repression precipitates as physical tension. Every psychic dissatisfaction entails a corresponding physical change (ibid. 181). Societal change was to be achieved via transformation of the self, which in turn was not to be achieved without change in body. Bodily straightjacket had to be removed so that long standing tensions would dissolve making the man capable of joy and happiness. This was to be trained in different "workshops" - the Alternative Movement is known for its workshop culture - like the primal cry, psychodrama, pantomime and passion dance, acupressure, massage, dynamic meditation. The bourgeois ideal, especially for men, was pulling oneself together and having a t"irm grip over oneself. The Alternatives learnt to let go of everything and open up.

One more concern regarding the body was at the center of the idea of natural life. The industrial mode of work thrusts damages on the body, a problem to be dealt with hy means of political action. However before the political action, the individual - live to the ideal of change in the self- strived to change here and now. Biologically

6S cultivated foodstuff, natural methods of healing (and not the modern medicine), herbs and muslin breakfast were to help remain as healthy as possible. Every town has a "Bioladen', no landcommune uses chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Homoeopathy came in vogue as it was individualistic in orientation. The body strived to live naturally.

1.4.2 The Identity The Alternatives liked to think of themselves as 'different'; different from ordinary citizens, non-bourgeois, freaky and to be precise, different than their parents. They are on the search. They knew what they did not want to be. The society is at war with them. Her structures destroy their identity. The psychologically and spiritually oriented Aternatives of late 1970s were searching their true, natural grain. If they accepted a socially determined role, then only grudgingly, that is, perceived as coercion, as they could not realize themselves in such roles. They realized themselves only in relationships. But they resisted being fixed. Every change had to be in principle possible. An Alternative would like to have his identity emerge out of ever floating conditions. This is a very postmodern feature.

In course of the 1980s the Alternative culture had successfully occupied urban centers like pedestrian zones, central .squares, open precincts of town halls, underground rail stations etc. These places became the stage for performances of music, drama, literature readings, political cabarette and dance. With the entry of the Greens in the parliament, the Alternatives gained a high degree of acceptance into the main stream. Some local councils {Gemeinden) even subsidized the Alternative culture. Was it then no longer Alternative?

Alternative Culture was neither a substitute for traditional culture nor just a bridge to it. Alternative and traditional culture were not mutually exclusive but addressed the public in such a fashion that it profited alternately from both the spheres. So Alternative need not be permanently marginalized, but can be accommodated as a recognized component of truly pluralistic culture. Its major contribution could be to deliver an antidote (o (he pap delivered by mass cnlertiimmeni indusiv'ics and care for minority taste. It can do great service to locality, which the mass entertainment is not

69 capable of.

1.5 The End of the Alternative Movement? This is an extremely debated and controversial subject. Alternative Culture, Underground, Social Criticism, Oppositional Culture, Anti- globalization Movement, Anarchism, Punk and Hip Hop Culture - all these expressions appear in the Internet as variables of Alternative culture , according to the editor of 'Passagen', the periodical of Pro Helvetia, a Swiss foundation. It has today become amorphous and hides behind the array of these expressions. It is difficult to state what is today's Alternative culture an alternative to. The commercial interests can change any negation into conformism or a consumable novelty. (One may remember here the pop and hyped events in India that took place to commemorate fifty years of Gandhiji's Dandi March.) So today's Alternative Movement mainintains a low profile. It doesn't shout about 'changing' the society.

It has appropriated some of the conveniences of the mainstream: the media, the fashion, marketing techniques etc and the Net. They organize themselves in small and big networks and operate coolly parallel. The protest culture will grow or decline depending on the pervasiveness of the mainstream culture. The more forceful the mainstream culture the more intense will be the protest, for example the anti- globalization movement 'attac'^.

'cittac' believes that the economy must serve the people, it should not be the other way. It has 90,000 members organized in 160 local groups in 50 countries. It calls itself an educative movement with expertise and action. It organizes public speeches and pubHcations on how to counter globalization's detrimental effects, cares for disseminating information to broad masses through media and acts as a pressure group on the respective governments. Its motto is "Globalization is not the fate, an other world is possible" (Glohalisiening ist kein Schicksal, eine andere Welt ist nidi>lich).

70 1.5.1 Mathias Horx He has engaged himself intensively with the theme of the end of the Alternative Movement in his book 'Das Eiule der Alteniatven' (Hanser 1985). He feels, the political debate that started in 1970s became increasingly subjective, and radical. It is now passe. It was a period of oscillating between social Utopia and unlimited subjectivity, between emotion and analysis. The followers of the movement were on constant search of something totally 'different': a totally different society, love, communality and a totally different self (p. 6), The word 'Alternative' is not capable of expressing the force of this search according to him.

Horx counts himself as a protagonist of the Movement but analyses the factors that led to its end most ruthlessly. He feels many of the Utopian ideas did come into realization, but thereafter revealed themselves as useless, unbearable, even inhuman (p.9). He feels, his generation carries the responsibility of discussing the promise shown, the promise of a different life to be there on the yonder side of the old cultural norms. But hardly anyone does it. He accuses his compatriots of not coming forward to discuss their 'differently' lived, i.e. Alternative life. With this the desires and dreams of those days are being pushed into obhvion. There was always an urge to think everything to its logical end. He remembers his confidence to be the vanguard of a new generation yearning for the collective identity, for the merger into community that has been characteristic not only of political groups, but also of Alternative groups. And he suddenly realizes that these were exactly the characteristics of young groups just before 1933 also, the youth groups of the Weimar period; wanderers and nature trailers who had mass migrated to Hitler-youth (HJ).

Horx feels that Alternative groups were equally violent in pursuing their ideas about what was bourgeois and bourgeois system. They knew that the revolution could not be in the form of storming some palace. The man had to change so that something changed fundamentally. They knew that the dichotomy between politics and the quotidian, between private and public sphere, reinforces the power. "We wanted not only another system, we wanted total life".

' vvwvv.attac.cic 71 RAF, the most subjective type of fighters, he says, could rescind the dichotomy. In the Stammheim prison they lived out the exemplary "collective" without any cuts or half-heartedness, unperturbed unto their death. That was the total, revolutionary identity that did not hold anyone in the cogwork. He is watchful to state that he was politically opposed to RAF; however, he cannot help acknowledge fascination for RAF in this regard.

It appears from his writing as though he is announcing the end of the movement and also his relief that the movement has ended. He is not regretting having been its fervent member; however he finds it not worth continuing with the movement.

1.5.2 Communes Today As recently as in Nov. 2001 Stephen Drucks has undertaken a sociological classification of presently functioning communes. He has furnished e-mai! addresses of most of these communes. They are mostly from Germany (Refer Appendix I).

Some projects are caught in process of genesis ("\..noch entstehender Freimdes- imd Grundungskreis" ). They are being founded now, in late 1990s or even in the 21" century.

Drucks has identified 5 types of motivations behind formation of communes today: ecological, spiritual, political, social, and the fifth is "work" as the basis of communality. While the first three orientations are clear in meaning, the 'sociological' may need explanation. People in certain problematic situations like psychological crisis, drug addiction or destitution need extra and specialized help and care. Neubeginn is one such commune that is founded by individuals who themselves have suffered from psychic crises. The commune creates an atmosphere of trust for therapy without clinic. The patients come there as "guests" of the commune. The commune draws on expert help from psychiatrists in the vicinity.

72 Synanon was founded by people, who were once hit by and have recovered from drug addiction, for people who are being hit by the problem of addiction and other young age problems. It strives to keep the patients away from crime and violence. The patients seeking help can knock on their door at any time of the day. They have to however agree on renunciation of alcohol, hard drugs and other such matters, and no violence or threats. Work as the common binding principle: Apprentices and collaborators of the same commercial enterprise, for example of a publication or of a service like body culture. They are friendships that are also commercial/ business partnerships. Esoteric conversion is ridiculed. Visitors that speak a lot about planes of energy or fine supernatural powers or want to idle about find no ready or eager hosts here. When they are tactfully cold shouldered, such people themselves mostly take up their own problem and deal with it or they leave the commune.

Diamond Lotus Lounge was initially conceived as massage-practice, which grew into commune for experimental self-experience. The inmates live by 12 rules of Diamond Lotus Tantra. Nobody has a separate room, but rooms for massage, cure and therapy. Eco-communes strive to be self-sufficient by practicing agriculture, they carry out some exchange with other communes in the region. There is almost no time for interactions or reflection. One has to be completely careful that his own individuality is not sacrificed for the sake of commune.

What is their collective impact on the society? A report by Niederkaufungen is rather resigned: "We are not in the pre-revolutionary phase in which it may be presumed that the whole society would participate eagerly in the process of change. The ongoing attempts are not capable of achieving this goal. The work of trade unions and parties is not enough for total systemic change, an armed uprising is not our intension. We refer first to the FRG and try to infu.se some changes in the countries of the Third World. It is quite clear to us that our present doings cannot offer anything for large- scale change. We see it as a personal experiment to go about our personal Utopias".

Beringhof is not so resigned. Though they concentrate their energies on the local project they see it as a part of the global movement of new departures. They do

VersHch einer sozioloiiischen Syslcmatisienin^ von Geineiiisiiuiftsprojcktcn - This is a coinpuscripl of 15 pages nicanl for private eircuialion which became a\ailabie lo us ihanks lo Ms. Andrea Slangel IVom ministry otcLihure. .Austrian Ci()\l. Austria. 7,-^ participate in the larger political action at the time of special occasions".

Tamera focuses on 'mediumistic' capacities of the woman. They strive to appraise their own project. It considers its own work as the beginning of the world-peace culture. Dieter Duhm is an important name in this context. His political theory that attracts mostly young people, contains enough promise for them to imagine a world without conflicts. Duhm's theory is based on research of chaos, morphogenetic field theory and holography. He incorporates also political and historical processes and their cross connection with spiritual processes in the man. His political theory ends in a plan called 'healing biotope'. A community of a few hundred men, animals, plants and a peaceful lifestyle of co-operation, communication and complementation is the healing biotope, which Tamera is presently developing. Today's scientific avantgarde has rediscovered the old feminine knowledge about connection of everything with everything else. All living things are connected amongst themselves. A much quoted saying in this regard is: "A butterfly in Hong Kong can cause a whirlwind in New York" (p. 13).

We may make a note here that one of the leading scientists of India Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar has been upholding and propagating the feminine principle. There are some groups of men who take the same stand openly regarding this: Purii^a Uvdca and 'Men against violence to women' MAW A in Pune and Mumbai respectively.

Duhm believes that world does not progress in a linear manner. Every development comes by leaps. Science hesitates for reasons of objectivity to put forth certain questions, which Duhm puts: Which kind of mutation can heal the global violence? How to tap the butterfly, which causes the whirlwind in New York? What information will .set the field for global peace? Tamera is trying to be the place of fluttering of the butterfly.

Der Stamm Filsseii I looks at its work as steps toward total descending out of human blunder and stepping into positive human future.

74 The Organisation The critical point appears to be the choice of dwelling place if one gets to read their terms of association; because from this point on the project takes a concrete shape. The commune Damaiihiir chose the point of energy-meridian from the long forgotten knowledge about energies. Gut Stolz.enliageii struck a new idea of having relatively autonomous neighbourhoods as members, as the members could not come to terms on common binding vision about the project.

Komm Frei - Grofikommune is meeting and discussing since Easter "99 the terms of association. It feels 70-100 members would be enough. Eurther the decision about establishing co-operative enterprises, which are capable of existing in the concrete circumstances of capitalist market economy weighs heavy. It needs financial investment that must be earned in the first place. While it asks its members to be prepared for 40 work hours per week, it discourages anyone who works more than the others. The communards want to tap and demolish even informal hierarchies. Equal participation of those who are somewhat at a disadvantage as regards linguistic expression - for example children - is guaranteed by change in the mode of communication. Eor the sake of ecology and protection from exploitative structures of globalisation they prefer being a subsistence economy.

1.5.3 Passagen This is a biennial magazine of Pro Helvtia, the cultural foundation from Switzerland. Its Winter 2002 number 33 issue is dedicated to inventory of Alternative culture today. The editorial gives its unequivocal opinion that the movement exists. The editorial in fact appreciates how the Alternatives are exploiting the chance of Internet. The Net has become the ultimate place to deride bureaucracy and profit motive of capitalism: exchanges and gifts economy is carried out by means of the Net. This is an attempt to defeat the market making it redundant. There are courses offered in ingenuous hacking, in order to frustrate the attempts to sell information. Boundaries between the original and the copy are being smudged. Artists mess up the genres. A lot of misinformation is roped in. Thus the protest is spread. With the development of the Net (he protest will also develop. The protest has a bright future. As the system gets cleverer and tries to harness the deviations and aberrations, the 75 protest gets equally stronger; it will ramify and slip out of the grip of the system.

'Divided we stand!" Music has been an essential facet of the Alternative movement right from the beginning. If it was rock in the 1960 s, it is Techno, Electro, Heavy Metal, Rap, Skateboard, Hip-Hop and many such styles today. They are distinguishable only with great difficulty. Maxime Biichi, a 24 years old practitioner of Hip-Hop, has analysed present styles of 'Techno' and 'Electro' as markers of protest culture in "Passagen"(p.38-41).

This music needs a computer and a gadget called mixer, which is available practically in every household today. It can be produced 'live" to make it difficult for the music industry to mass-produce it. This music is hardly fit for individual, private enjoyment. Techno and Electro are without words, hence no direct messages of protest. Its heavy beats and extremely fast rhythms motivate to dance and go into trance through the physical movement. It thus forges communality.

This music is basically from the US. A typical idol of the music scene hails from a ghetto. He is now wealthy and when he appears before the wretched kids they see the promise that they too may one day ri,se above their surrounding. If he tries to give them messages of peace and protest he is likely to be booed. He has to describe his milieu with all its shady sides and drawbacks. The subject matter can be pimping, prostitution, drug trafficking and addiction. He has to own his background. When this music established it.self in Europe in early 1990s it kept up the American tradition of non-ideological protest. The protest lies also in the fact that they exploit computer, a product of modern capitalist industry for their purpose. The music renovates itself constantly. The musicians and groups remain divided, diverse and impermanent in order to fight absorption by the mainstream.

1.6 The Forerunners Germans have a considerably long tradition of rejecting bourgeoisie in search of life that grants the individual total freedom to practice his alternative moral, paradoxically in a group of iikeminded fellows. In the following we see these

76 historical moorings of the present Alternative thinking.

1.6.1 The Bohemians Around the year 1900 there were two centers of the Alternative culture in Germany, Berlin and Munich-Schwabing. They were just small islands of unconventional life in the vast sea of bourgeois society. But the small islands have left an enduring mark on the cultural history of Germany. Berlin had then a population of 2 millions, Munich had 40 000 (Conti 1984: 11). Out of this not more than a few hundred individuals could be counted as Alternative. They were predominantly artists or literateurs, Wedekind, Ringelnatz, Dauthendey, Dehmel, Holz, Hart etc. to name a few, and students of bourgeois origin with a few aristocrats and working class people also to be found among them. They lived in conditions of material poverty. Externally they may have appeared as 'kaputt', i.e. broken and ruined, but that was so because they did not renounce their inner liveliness and conviction to live with full freedom for their 'self, the ultimate stage of freedom being frenzy and ecstasy. The Dionysian frenzy and ecstasy of festivals, sleepless nights spent in discussions or in creative activity but often also of alcohol and drugs.

They rejected the bourgeois society for its mentality of the quick and opportunist adjustment, pedantry, intolerance, intellectual sterility, absence of any passion and finally firm belief in authority. They hoped for a new matriarchal organization of the society. The future was according to them more secure with the feminine values (ibid. 12, 37).

The example of Otto Gross, a prominent figure of this movement can illustrate the lifestyle and the fate of a typical Bohemian. He was a psychoanalyst and disciple of Siegmund Freud. Distrust in authority, belief in women's emancipation, criticism of monogamous marriage and of the forced sexual loyalty in it - these are some of the postulates which are today a part of almost all types of Alternative thinking. While psychoanalysis was being ridiculed as pseudo-science Gross perfected it in discourses which are today respected in the scientific literature. The Freud-biographer Ernest Jones said ixboul Olto Gross that he had nol met anyone who had sharper intellect than Gross in analyzing the innermost thoughts of others. Freud himself considered 77 Gross to be very original among his students. However, soon Freud had to remove Gross's works from his "Bibliography of Psychoanalysis" as Gross's ways started taking a dangerous turn detrimental to Freud's pursuit of gaining social acceptance and recognition for the therapy. Gross then turned anarchist. He is supposed to have left poison easily available to two of his patients he could not bring away from their decision to take their life (Conti 1984: 30).

Gross was forgotten till 1976. Today his ideas do not strike as something original. But long back he had said that the patriarchal family suppresses the child enormously. Every child is born a potential genius, but it is forced to accept and internalize the alien ideas. The parents suppress specially the sexual desires of a child. Thus begins the neurotic conflict in him. But this is felt and perceived only by very few sensitive children. Others function well despite the suppression. According to him such children are spiritually dead. The spiritually alive become sick trying to hold on to their own. Only a social revolution can save the child. For Schwabing Bohemians Gross was the prophet of a new era. He is unmistakably present in the works of his contemporaries like Franz Werfel, Johannes R. Becher and Franz Jung. He had a very bitter end to his life sometime in 1920.

1.6.2 The Life Reformers Radical change in rutty daily habits and return to a life in harmony with Nature ... some less bohemian but also less bourgeois contemporaries of the bohemians around the turn of the 19''' century wanted to reform themselves through such change. They did not have a shocking lifestyle of the Bohemians. Only a small portion of their lifestyle was in contrast with the usual bourgeois or petty-bourgeois ways. They were more obsessed with reforming the body.

They did not consume meat, did not use chemicals for curing diseases, believed in only the sunshine and wind-bath on naked body as the healing power and water for cretins cures. But soon a section of them took the ideal of Nature so very seriously thai this section became Aiisslcii^cr. i.e. disembarker. They rallied at Ascona. a small spa on Monte Verita in Tessin in Switzerland run by Henry Oedenkoven and Ida Hofmann. The guests included personalities like Kropotkin, Oskar Maria Graf, Erich

78 Miihsam, Oto Gross, Hugo Ball and Franziska zu Reventlow. Anarchists, theosophists, Buddhists, vegetarians, occultists, passion dancers, intellectual tramps and the bohemians, in short, all the freaks of the German Reich came together at Ascona.

Around the mid of the 19' century there was a growing concern over the monopolistic claims of the modern medicine taught in the institutions of higher education. Because traditional medicine had been useful for a long time they did not want to lose it. Some Life Reformers opened health spas working on the basis of theories of folkmedicine, nutrition, fasting, coldwater cures, mud packs, herbal packs, sweat baths and light bath. They considered also the mind and soul to make it a holistic approach.

Logical extension of the idea then had to culminate in community living in the countryside away from urban centers. "Agriculture is the most natural occupation for man." "Larger the metropolises, more destructive are the effects on health." There is nothing new in these slogans of the Life Reformers. These thoughts have gone alongside the historical development of capitalism. But Life Reformers were the only ones to act accordingly. They established cooperatives and communes. Kropotkin, Oskar Maria Graf, Erich Miihsam, Otto Gross, Hugo Ball, Franziska zu Reventlow were among the people who either settled in Ascona or used to spend long periods in Ascona. The idea of socialistic society was a much discussed theme. Sometimes the ideal could not be practiced as the founders tried to keep control in their hands contrary to the theory of egalitarian society in the communes. The vegetarian fruit-growing colony called Eden near Oranienburg in Berlin was one of the the important centres of the movement. Certain statutes of community living evolved and the commune lasted for 20 years.

But Ascona was undoubtedly the focal point.. It was perhaps no accident that Ascona lay outside of Germany. The Alternatives are by nature cosmopolitan. Germany of those days (Wilhelminian era) was for them too disciplined, too closed and too phiijstine.

79 1.6.3 Wandervogel "Off into the Nature with guitar and rucksack!" When the first pupils from Berlin burst forth into Nature in Mark Brandenburg around 1900 under Hermann Hoffmann in this manner there were no super highways or high-tension wires above them (Conti. 1984: 88). But the living space at home and outside was congested with factories, trams and small tenement buildings. As they read from their schoolbook poems by Eichendorf and Morike, about journeymen and solitude of woods a long lost time was conjured up creating in them a yearning for Nature.

The wandering soon turned into a cult. Many groups from many other cities undertook wandering. In 1901 the club "Wanclervoger was founded (Conti 1984: 88). An adult, not older than 25 years of age and himself having been a wanderer, would be there to look after the general organization. Otherwise the children were absolutely free without any intervention from elders. The friendship and warmth experienced on such wanderings fostered emotional life. Nature and the homeland were the only two objects of love. Education and culture were not on the agenda. The movement soon spread over to universities. More mature youth driven by thought started replacing the naive pupils and the movement started getting politicized. In 1913 the Reich wanted to celebrate centenary of the battle of Leipzig. Plenty of beer was to flow for the patriotic fest. The academic youth decided to counter the pathos and the booze with something creative. About 2000 students gathered to proclaim the new forms of love through cooperation of all the wandering groups. Scientists, educationists, writers, artists wished them success for this green pursuit.

The Bavarian government imputed to the movement insurgency against all institutions of authority like family, school, religion and state. The students decided to answer the charges. Ofcour.se there were offshoots that declined this political programme. However the First World War broke and orthodox as well as politicized groups had to participate in it. They came into contact with yet another group of youth, namely, of sons of working classes. They had not experienced the luxury of wanderings in (he nature. This interfuce created leftist tendencies among the bourgeois students. The movement attained remarkable height in postwar years. 80 Approximately 150 000 young people were organized in different groups at this time. They had established experimental schools, Volksschuleii (i.e. institutions of higher learning through public funding), amateur clubs of music, dance and sports, youth hostels and theatre groups. During 1918-1919 revolutions they fought on both sides of barricades, but they were soon disillusioned with politics and decided to bring about social change through 'culture'. Henceforth they were engaged in educational projects. This period is full of radical experimentation with schools and land- communes.

The character of the Youth Movement changed a lot after 1922 due to failure of their high hopes. The institutions of Volksschule, dance, music and sports clubs, youth hostels etc. have continued to exist, but they have almost nothing of the spirit of the earlier movement. In the Nazi period some groups did absorb the Nazi principles of anti-Semitism and racist nationalism, some were forcibly integrated into the organization Hitler-Youth, a few went underground and started opposition groups in cities like Tubingen, Diisseldorf, Breslau and Ruhr zone. But the movement as a whole did not fight against the Nazis.

The Youth Movement is Alternative only in a limited sense. It did not aim at thorough structural change. It created a space for the free interaction of the members and tried to breathe new spirit into their life that was under strictures of the old institutions of family and profession. It was not a departure from the bourgeois society.

The forerunners show some common traits with the present day Alternatives. Each movement had its different highlights. The Bohemians may be noted for their irrationality and rapturous life. Their escape from the bourgeois was total. Their new sexual moral was for them the most liberating. Life Reformers upheld agriculture as the most comely occupation for man, which is the basis of everything else (Conti 1984: 74). It is difficult to find one coherent ideology in the Youth Movement, but 'experiencing' in communes was their leitmotiv. What they all have in common, is, foremost the rejection of bourgeois moral; also respect for Nature and everything natural and a strong subjectivity paradoxically sheltered in community.

81 The German cultural history of the 20''^ century shows a marked discontinuity in almost every field in the period comprising pre-Nazi, Nazi and Nazi aftermath, approximately between 1920s and 1960s. Hence this historical overview also cannot show an unruptured tradition upto 1970s.

1.7 Green-Alternative Aesthetic Jost Hermand / H. Miiller have stated their understanding of the Green aesthetic in the foreword to their jointly edited volume "Oko-kunst" (1989) as follows:

The Green aesthetic will have to address the dilemma of aspiring for a certain material wellbeing and even leisure without destroying the Nature and the biological habitat. The different established modern and even postmodern streams today enjoy extremely subjective freedom like a bird as regards ideological position {die Vogelfreiheit). They have a very private, teleologically void and formalistic approach to art. These streams are the "high culture" for which incessantly recurring 'novelty' has been the guiding principle. The Green aesthetic cannot and will not strive after novelty for its own sake.

Green or Alternative aesthetic means upholding certain principles, fending for an ideological position, and organizing and reorganizing the society for it. The Green art will have to be therefore a critique and Utopia at the same time. The Green art must reveal its potential and concern to shape the future. Only thus can it count as equal to other dominant and progressive streams. And the concern for "future" need not contain only warnings; it can contain beautiful visions. It should evoke a proactive ethos which will shake the lethargic recipient thoroughly so that he sheds his passivity and turns into an independent critic and producer of the art. This idea has been already propounded by Karl Marx in his "Paris Manuscripts". The Green aesthetic should see a potential artist in every individual. The individual today needs to be freed from his role of a socialized and hence alienated (from himself) being.

The Alternative Movement did produce object-artists {Ohjektkiinstlcr) like Joseph Beuys who believed tha! every individual can produce art and an artist is not necessarily born with unique talent for art. (Please refer to 2.5.5 for more on postmodern art and Josef Beuys.)

Hermand and Muller proceed further to state that the Green aesthetic will have to redeem the utility goods which are presently being thrown on us by the industrialized mode of production only to be thrown away the next moment after a single, one-time consumption. They should be a source of long, long-term joy and satisfaction, which would teach us fine sensitivity, human dignity and the respect for the "matter" that has gone into producing it. The arrogant narcissism, the inner restlessness and the eternal search for surrogates: these are the banes of the modern art. The Green aesthetic must help us to overcome and surmount these maladies. It must develop a sense for value, conservation of value, for longevity and for pure and native {Gediegenes). In order to cope with the task it needs to develop a modesty which will not be excited by shopping, compulsive consumption and driving fury but will discover the joy of human interaction that does not burn any fuel, does not need costly energy and therefore is the most harmless joy.

They have mentioned at the end the "great global decisions" and the ethos of humbleness and humility of the individual as the two factors on which the Green- Alternative aesthetic depends.

In this context it will be interesting to see how Leslie Fiedler and many of his contemporary American critics proclaimed in 1968 a similar stance (Bertens 1995: 30). It does not pronouncedly prescribe Green sensibility but a new sensibility that will close the gap between elite and mass culture. It will turn to vaudeville and burlesque. What he was eager to see is an art that had given up on representations with essentialist pretensions and instead upheld the local, the contingent and the self- sufficient. He stated that the humanity had begun to live in a very different time - apocalyptic, antirational, openly romantic and sentimental, it is now a period of happy misology (a hatred for argument, reasoning and enlightenment) and prophetic freedom from responsibility. Suspicious of irony (a modernist feature) as self-defense and great self awareness the recipients of art/literature wanted the pleasure of senses. If the (literary) criticism has to survive, i.e. if it has to remain useful and relevant, it must change radically, however not in the direction suggested by the Marxist 83 criticism. The Marxists are for Fiedler the despaired and desperate defenders of rationality and of primacy of political factors. By virtue of their very essence they are the enemies of a period of myths, passion, sentimentality and fantasy, the aesthetic Fiedler wanted to retrieve.

1.8 Summing Up To conclude the discussion of the Alternative Movement the characteristic aspects of the movement can be recapitulated with a working definition of Alterity. Based on the entire exposition of the Alternative Movement in Germany we enlist here the fundamental traits of this movement in order to distill a working definition of Alterity that would help ascertain such traits in the other cultures, in our specific context in the Marathi culture.

• Rejection of capitalistic mode of production that is motivated foremost by profit maximization • Economic activity should be at the minimum possible level. • It should be based on appropriate technology which will save physical toiling and nervousness arising out of complexity of the technology. • Economic activity should give satisfaction, form personality and construct community. • It should not involve any exploitation, either of humans or of the Nature. • Economic activity should not create exaggerated 'surplus' as the 'surplus' needs management that may lead to complex system of monetarization and bureaucratization. • It follows from these precepts that a level of the economic activity may be accepted as optimum which would leave time for culture.

Thus, Alterity arises from any activity and endeavour of an individual or a group, breaking off from capitalistic, modern production ethic of profit maximization at any cost even harming the Nature or the humans and trying to construct community in unison with Nature, establishing a new morality of a free, unexpioilativc and democratic society not squeezed into a system, nor curbed by the state can be understood as Alternative. 84 Chapter 1 Bibliography

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