from the editors Exploding Boundaries of the Possible

1968ational liberation movements. over rebellion. Anti-war actions. Student pro- This is our experience of the Ntest. Labour unrest. Black Power, world. Parents of the boom times in Red Power. Women’s liberation, gay the 1960s used to tell their children, liberation, lesbian liberation. Soul “The world is your oyster.” The Bea- music, folk music, psychedelic rock. tles, Timothy Leary, Jack Kerouac Forty years ago, amidst bloody war were voices of rebellion against the and brutal police repression, masses conformism required by the labour of people around the world exploded market. Now, a full time 9-to-5 the boundaries of what was possible. job with benefits is a rare privilege. They were excessive in everything Tens of thousands of people are they did. They debated, pounded Clockwise being knocked out of their jobs in tables, swore, wrote poetic political from top the space of a month (55,200 in tracts and political poems, designed left: May 68: Canada in July, 2008). As jobs be- labyrinthine posters, drove across the start of a come deskilled and lower-wage, continent, marched, waved placards, long struggle; people are more and more forced fought police. The new left woke up no to to take on multiple jobs to survive. and tried to devise a new politics to deportations; Faced with major tuition increases, change the world. The movements down with students work their way through imperialism. provoked each other, inspired each school and keep working when they All from other, intertwined, shed light on graduate to service an life of endless France, May- each other’s limits and weaknesses. June 1968. debt that only begins with school, This was a revolutionary time, a time then expands to encompass every to imagine another world, a just other aspect of life. world. There is no time for politics. Time has sped up, we’re all That was 40 years ago, 1968. Now, in 2008, it seems un- crushed by the burden of our busyness, our multiple jobs, imaginable that such an explosion of radical political power our long commutes, our caregiving responsibilities at home and creativity is possible. Theories of human nature and hu- (who can afford to pay for childcare, eldercare, care for the man society proliferate, thoroughly explaining in no uncer- wounded and infirm?). We have no time to think, let alone tain terms why radical change will never happen. protest. We have all been turned into exhausted, dehuman- And for most of us, this is our experience of the world. ized zombies, stumbling through a nightmarish reality show As mobilizations of the mid-60s to mid-70s were defeat- where we could be voted out of the plot at any moment. ed, cultural expressions became commodities to be sold as Or is this reality? In our bleary-eyed exhaustion, it’s easy yuppie chic, radical leaders were co-opted, the horizon of to miss the countless impossible ways in which people find what was possible progressively narrowed. It began to seem themselves compelled to fight back, to create, to imagine inevitable that all attempts to change the world in radical other worlds. The echoes of the 60s are subtler, more frag- ways were doomed to replicate the very power structures mentary and uneven, but they’re everywhere. It is one of the and oppressions that they opposed. Many ex-radicals in the tasks of the next new left to amplify these echoes, to fan the academy took up a postmodernist stance, fixating on “dif- flames of resistance, to bring the memory of past explosions ference” instead of searching for the basis for solidarity. The to bear on the sparks of the present. This is a difficult task, no disillusioned turned away from political practice to a depo- doubt about it. But it’s the only kind of task that can allow us liticized practice of culture, lifestyle. The individual gained to take hold of our humanity and recover that sense of power H ascendency over the collective. Subversion was ­favoured and possibility that turned anger into action in the 60s.

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 Box 167, 253 College St. Toronto, ON M5T 1R5 [email protected] www.newsocialist.org Issue #64 2008-2

NEW SOCIALIST offers radical analysis of SPECIAL ISSUE ON REMEMBERING AND LESSONS OF 1968 politics, social movements and culture in the Canadian state and internationally. Our H Dynamics of global revolt ...... David McNally 4 magazine is a forum for people who want H to strengthen today’s activism and for those A world in motion ...... 8 who wish to replace global capitalism with a H 1968 and the rise of the New Left ...... Alan Sears 9 genuinely democratic socialism. We believe that the liberation of the working class and H Students in the lead ...... Chris Webb 15 oppressed peoples can be won only through their own struggles. For more information H Antiwar struggles from Vietnam to Iraq...... Charlie Post 18 about the publisher of this magazine, the H Antiwar organizing in Canada ...... Gary Cristall 20 New Socialist Group, please see the inside back cover. H Gay liberation ...... Alan Sears 22 EDITORS H Women’s liberation...... Susan Ferguson 23 Sebastian Lamb Harold Lavender H Quebec on fire ...... Antoine Casgrain 27 Sandra Sarner Alan Sears H Workers and wildcats ...... Bryan D. Palmer 29 Deborah Simmons H Red Power in the 1960s...... From the writings of Howard Adams 34 EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES H Richard Banner The dawn of Black Power ...... Interview with Manning Marable 37 Adam Barker H Palestine at the crossroads...... Interview with Issam al-Yamani 41 Susan Ferguson Todd Gordon H Pan-Africanism and national liberation ...... Pablo Idahosa 45 Alex Levant Morgan MacLeod H Book review: The Darker Nations...... Salim Vally & Cynthia Wright 47

H Threads of a musical counterculture ...... Jonathan Bakan 51 DESIGN Cover: Christopher Webb H Black Power and soul music ...... Daniel Serge 56 Inside: Sandra Sarner H Folk music and politics in 1960s English Canada...... Gary Cristall 59 Signed articles do no necessarily represent the views of the editors or members of the H Dropping out to change the world...... Peter Graham 61 New Socialist Group. H time to organize...... 63 New Socialist is a member of the CMPA. Printed at JT Printing, a union shop.

New Socialist magazine welcomes debate. Letters will be printed on our website. We encourage readers to submit articles engaging with the ideas put forth in our pages for publication either in print or on our website. Please send to the address or e-mail address above. the Dynamics of Global Revolt On the past and future of 1968 by David McNally

et us start with one event from 1968 that should help to dispel some misconceptions. The epi- sodeL in question is the overthrow of a US-backed dictator as the result of a heroic uprising of students and workers in Pakistan. It all begins during the first week of November with a police attack on a small group of students returning from a shopping trip. As so often happens when a society is seeth- ing with resentment against authoritarianism, one seemingly innocuous event becomes a symbol of all the rot, corruption and oppression of everyday life. The next day 3,000 angry students rally in a General As- sembly. They denounce Field Marshall Ayub Khan, the head of the country’s military dictatorship, and take to the streets. There they are met by police armed with tear gas, guns and batons. In the ensuing confrontation one student from a poor family, Abdul Hamid, is shot and killed. As news of the killing spreads, anger erupts, particularly in the poorest quarters of Rawalpindi, the country’s military capital. The next day, tens of thousands of students swell the streets, chanting “Death to Ayub Khan!” As news of the pro- test travels, they are joined by thousands from the poorest quarters of the city. The student protest has awakened oppo- sition across broad layers of society. Soon virtually the entire working class and sections of the middle class, particularly lawyers, doctors and architects, have joined the movement. I begin with this event because of its power to debunk the The students having lit the spark, the workers take over, rais- liberal version of 1968 as a Western youth revolt for more ing high the torch of rebellion. lifestyle choices within capitalism. In the liberal account, The scope of the working-class revolt is described by 1968 was simply one year in a decade devoted to loosening Tariq Ali and Susan Watkins: “The railway workers stop up the repressive attitudes towards culture, sexuality and the the trains. Factory workers cripple industry. Bus drivers and family that had predominated throughout the 1950s. Con- rickshaw-scooter drivers paralyse city transport. Prostitutes veniently, militant opposition to capitalism and imperialism refuse to service police officers and army officers, and lawyers disappear in this account. in their black robes march in dignified processions to en- To be sure, radical cultural politics were a significant part dorse the student demands for democracy. The people have of the multi-faceted global revolt of 1968. But they were lost their fear.” interconnected with mass struggles against racism and war, And with that, a point of no return is reached. Although with workers’ revolts against alienated labour in capitalist the struggle will ebb and flow for many months, the days society, and with revolutionary movements to change the of the hated regime are numbered. In March, Ayub Khan’s world. That’s why the most important movements around dictatorship is toppled. gender and sexual oppression defined themselves as libera- tion movements (women’s liberation, gay liberation, and so David McNally is the author of Another World is Possible: on). Their members fought not simply for increased rights Globalization and Anti-Capitalism, and a frequent contributor to New within capitalist societies; instead they sought to liberate the Socialist. downtrodden from all forms of capitalist oppression.

4 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 And that is the secret to understanding 1968. Like a Contrary to another myth, 1968 did not originate handful of other years in modern history – 1848, 1919 and among youth and students in the Global North. 1936 are prime examples – 1968 was a year of global revolt in which the hope for a radically new form of society, a liber- The roots of 1968 lay in the South, most notably ated society, moved masses of people into action. in the courageous struggle of the Vietnamese people

“One, Two, Many Vietnams” against US war and occupation. Contrary to another myth, 1968 did not originate among youth and students in the Global North. The roots the banner of opposition to colonialism, occupation and war. of 1968 lay in the South, most notably in the courageous They declared their solidarity with the Algerian people and struggle of the Vietnamese people against US war and oc- developed a scathing critique of the racism and colonialism cupation. that permeated French society. In many respects, 1968 began with the extraordinary Tet These sentiments carried over into the movement against (or New Year’s) Offensive of Vietnam’s National Libera- the Vietnam War. But more than this, they prompted thou- tion Front (NLF) in late January. Along a 600 mile front, sands of younger leftists to question the inherently racist and the NLF swept into the US-controlled southern part of the colonialist nature of capitalist society. By the mid-1960s, country, capturing air fields, army bases, prisons, radio sta- growing numbers of young people in France were explor- tions and government offices. Whole towns fell to the NLF ing radical and socialist critiques of capitalism. As a general and – the ultimate finger in the eye of empire – its guerrillas rule, they were not attracted to the Communist Party which seized the US Embassy in Saigon. For an hour the Stars and was bureaucratic, loyal to the rulers of the USSR and, among Stripes were replaced by the colours of the NLF. other things, refused to support the struggle for Algerian in- The Tet Offensive electrified millions. For the first time dependence. Instead, a variety of more militant and innova- in post-war memory, the American war machine no longer tive socialist currents became points of reference for many looked invincible. Slowly but surely, a Third World peasant French youth. army was inflicting a humiliating defeat on half a million Radical ideas of direct democracy and workers’ self-man- US troops using high-tech weaponry in a campaign of unre- agement flourished among these leftist currents. And such lenting destruction. After Tet no intelligent person believed ideas played a central role when student protests against the the US could win the war. For opponents of the American Vietnam War and police repression triggered a mass workers’ empire, the late Che Guevara’s exhortation that revolution- revolt in May. aries the world over should endeavour to create “One, two, The French Explosion many Vietnams” sounded a note of inspiration. Millions of people imagined that imperialism might truly be defeated As in Pakistan, the upheaval in France begins with world-wide. university students. In response to protests throughout March and April, many of them against the war in Vietnam, From Anti-Colonialism to Anti-Capitalism the administration at Nanterre University, in the northern Opposition to the war in Vietnam was the great outskirts of Paris, shuts down the campus. Undaunted, the unifying cause of all the radical movements of the 1960s. students reply by occupying a lecture theatre. For those in the “advanced” capitalist countries, it provoked On Friday, May 3, the Nanterre students appeal for sup- enormous soul-searching about the very nature of these so- port from their compatriots at the Sorbonne, the historic cieties and the racism, war and colonialism that they breed. university in central Paris. When students begin to rally at Such issues formed the backdrop to the greatest workers’ re- the Sorbonne, they are greeted by baton-wielding riot police volt of 1968: the millions-strong general strike and wave of who proceed to inflict beatings and arrests. But the authori- factory occupations that swept France in May of that year. ties have misjudged the mood. Students throw up barricades Few commentators have appreciated how much the spirit and begin fighting back. Now the authorities close the Sor- of 1968 in France was nurtured in struggles against French bonne and flood the area with police. But the battle is merely colonialism in Algeria. As Kristin Ross documents in her on pause. Throughout the weekend, students plan new ac- marvellous study, “May 68 and its Afterlives,” the radical left tions. of the 1960s was formed in street demonstrations against Three days later, 30,000 demonstrators converge in cen- ultra-rightist groups defending France’s war against the Al- tral Paris. They demand a withdrawal of police from the gerian national liberation movement. In the face of brutal Sorbonne and the release of all arrested students. The gov- police repression and rightist violence, small leftist groups ernment refuses to budge. More demonstrators take to the (but not the large Communist and Socialist parties) held up streets the next day, and even more the day after that. ­Students

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 5 then ­begin to issue radio broadcasts from the streets and the News arrives that the police have vacated the Sorbonne. “Ev- movement swells ever larger, with considerable numbers of erybody to the Sorbonne,” the crowd cries. young workers joining the protests. Tens of thousands occupy every conceivable building at Then, on Friday, May 10 – “the night of the barricades” the university. For the next five weeks, the university is the – the whole balance of forces shifts. The government an- centre of revolutionary activity. Lectures, debates, organizing nounces that it is prepared to withdraw the police and re- meetings go on around the clock. Every night a general as- open the Sorbonne. But this is not enough for the increas- sembly, open to all, is convened in the Grand Amphitheatre ingly mobilized and emboldened students; they want their and a new occupation committee of 15 is elected. The pro- arrested comrades released as well. Protesters now decide to testers are engaged in direct democracy and no bureaucracy occupy the Latin Quarter, a historic section of central Paris. will be tolerated. Cobblestone, wood, cars, scrap metal are all gathered in order The next day young workers, who had marched with the to erect barricades. The demonstrators hold the Latin Quar- students the day before, occupy the Sud-Aviation aircraft ter past midnight. Stones are stockpiled in case the police at- factory. Workers across the country follow their example. In tack. And attack they do in the early hours of the morning. many cities and towns the worker uprising is even more mili- The brutality of the police assault will shock millions. Us- tant than in Paris. ing tear gas and batons, the cops repeatedly attack, cracking The struggle against authoritarianism in the streets has skulls as they go about their dirty business. Some barricades now been joined by an upheaval against authoritarian rule fall, but at many the police are repulsed. The confidence and in the workplace. Hundreds of factories are occupied – more determination of the young demonstrators grow. They be- than one million workers now preside over their places of come more daring and defiant. work. Ali and Watkins describe the situation: “Ten million One participant recounts: “The general feeling is of a workers are on strike: factories, shipyards, oil refineries, rail- trance. We feel liberated. Suddenly, we have turned into hu- ways, offices, banks, department stores, post offices, admin- man beings and we are shouting: istrative buildings, schools and colleges have all ground to a “WE EXIST, WE ARE HERE. halt. … The airports are shut and there are no trains, buses or “One boy, in an incredibly heroic gesture, grabs a red flag Metro. No rubbish is being collected.” and leads us towards the cops, through the gas and grenades. Painters, actors, architects and doctors join the uprising. To our utter surprise we outnumber the enemy and they re- The Cannes Film Festival is cancelled when technicians join treat. Crowds behind us cheer wildly.” the general strike. The spirit of the Paris Commune of 1871, By the early hours of the morning, the police have re- when workers ruled the city for three months, is now regu- conquered the Latin Quarter. But in truth, they have lost. larly invoked. Talk of revolution is everywhere. As hospitals overflow with the wounded and jails with the May 1968 has debunked the idea that revolutionary work- arrested, millions of people are outraged by the images of ing-class upheavals are impossible in conditions of advanced police brutality. And the students, despite beatings and ar- capitalism. But the movement cannot escape the suffocating rests, are fired with energy and enthusiasm. Having held off weight of the parties of labour reform, particularly the Com- the police for hours, they believe in their own power. munists, who want to end the movement before it escapes The next day, a Saturday, the unions, under immense pres- their control. Through deceit and small retreats followed by sure to do something in response, agree to call a general strike bigger ones, the Communists demobilize the movement. and mass demonstration for Monday, May 13. To everyone’s Workers win some improvements in wages and working astonishment, a million people turn up and reclaim the city. conditions, but the opportunity has been squandered.

Voices of 68 We footballers belonging to various clubs in the Paris region have today decided to occupy the ­headquarters of the French Football Federation. Just like the workers are occupying their factories, and the students occupying their faculties. Why? In order to give back to the 600,000 French footballers and to their thousands of friends what belongs to them: football. Which the pontiffs of the federation have expropriated from them in order to serve their egotistical interests as sports profiteers. From the Footballers’ Action Committee statement “Football to the Footballers!” (1968)

6 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 France 1968: workers demonstrate during the massive uprising that saw 10 million workers on strike at its peak.

conditions of everyday life, such tectonic shifts in political life are possible. And a key task of the radical left is to nurture those possibilities, to keep alive the spirit of hope, by assisting resistance struggles and developing socialist resources that fit the times.

New Socialisms It is significant in this regard that 1968 was the harbinger of new social- isms. At their best – and they were too Still, May 68 shatters one myth after another about the re- often far from their best – this involved socialist perspectives alities of late capitalism. Forty years later, its images continue that made anti-racism and anti-imperialism integral to their to inspire hope and resistance. And both of those sentiments theory and practice, while also advancing anti-bureaucratic are captured in the slogan chanted by tens of thousands as visions of socialist democracy and worker-controlled pro- they marched on June 1, when it was clear that the move- duction. As women’s and lesbian and gay liberation move- ment was receding: “Ce n’est qu’un debut . . . Continuons… le ments emerged, some left organizations also tried authenti- combat” (“It’s only the beginning. Continue the struggle.”). cally to make the emancipatory visions and aspirations of these movements central to new socialisms. How History Moves For a variety of complex reasons, many of the freshest de- The events of 1968 are a crucial reminder of how velopments of the New Left were not long-lasting. As the years of patient slogging by radicals can lay the ground for ruling class regrouped, old orthodoxies re-emerged, often much bigger upheavals. In France, it was solidarity with the aided by frustrated responses to more difficult conditions. Algerian struggle that provided the focus for a new left to But for a decade or so – roughly 1964 to 1974 – new left- emerge. But no one knew it at the time. Activists simply wing movements that would play truly significant roles in stood up for what they felt was right – opposition to racism 1968 did develop important resources of theory and practice. and colonialism – often against considerable odds. Having These pointed towards a left that could speak to the future, identified a key issue that encapsulated so much of what was not just repeat slogans from the past. Learning from that wrong with French society, they created the space for new experience 40 years later is a key challenge for the radical radical critiques of Western capitalism. left today. To be sure, all previous years of global revolt de- In a similar vein, the US activists who mobilized in the serve study – 1848, 1919, 1936. But 1968 remains the year of early 1960s to fight for civil rights for African Americans global revolt closest to our own times. could not have known that they were the pioneers of the And as parts of the global South today – like Iraq, Af- most important left-wing upsurge in America since the ghanistan and Palestine – experience war and occupation, 1930s. But in attacking racism in the US, in using direct ac- while others – like Bolivia and Venezuela – nurture new tion tactics, and in questioning the facade of US democracy, mass movements of resistance, we need to recall how similar they laid the groundwork for the free speech and anti-war moments have led to great fissures in capitalist society. movements that would come a few years later, and for the Today, we need to continue to find ways of thinking and New Left movement that would bring socialist ideas to the acting that highlight all that is wrong with world capital- biggest audience in a generation. ism while underlining the need for real, radical alternatives. Of course, not all patient slogging by leftists leads to a Seeking to learn from 1968, when resistance in the South mass radicalization in a matter of a few years. But in times sparked rebellion in the North, is one important part of that H of war, occupation, and simmering discontent about the project.

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 7 university students in a march through A World in Motion the streets to demand equity for Acadian francophones including full access to French language services and education. 1968 saw the start to a truly protesting the arrest of opposition leaders Student activism was important, but was incredible decade. turned into a riot. only one of many mobilizations. The first women’s liberation groups and the Early that year, The Tet Offensive Hundreds of Mexican students signalled new possibilities, as the were killed when troops fired on a Front de Libération des Femmes in Quebec were in formation and National Liberation Front of demonstration of 5,000 in the lead-up to the women’s movement was about to Vietnam dealt the forces of the US the Olympics in Mexico City. This sparked take off. The empire a serious blow. a prolonged strike by over 170,000 University of Toronto high school and university students that Homophile Association was formed In April, African-American shut down many institutions. At those the next year, launching the lesbian/gay communities exploded in rage Olympics, African-American athletes liberation movement in Canada. The after was Martin Luther King Jr. Tommy Smith and John Carlos made a indigenous Red Power movement assassinated in Memphis, where he was dramatic statement by raising their fists was beginning to take shape. supporting a strike by sanitation workers. in a Black Power salute on the medals Anti-poverty activists mobilized Student militancy in the US reached podium. against the inadequacy of social assistance, new heights, with extended occupations the lack of affordable housing, the limited at Columbia and a number of other Canada and Quebec were not educational opportunities for poor universities. untouched. Quebec saw the highest level of mobilization as the struggle for children and the bullying bureaucracy of In May, fought back French students national liberation galvanized a wide range the welfare state. against police and sparked a general of movements. Perhaps the highpoint of In urban centres, people organized to strike that ground the country to a pan-Canadian labour activism in 1968 challenge the unfettered control of halt. A student strike in Senegal that was the three week strike by postal property developers over the shape of same month was supported by a one-day workers. In October 1968 Quebec’s cities, the construction of expressways, general strike backed by the unions. In CSN union federation adopted the the mindless demolition of older working- Spain, students and workers organized “Second Front” document that called for class neighbourhoods in the name of in new ways, offering the fascist Franco a wide-ranging struggle that combined the “slum clearance,” and the destruction of dictatorship its most serious opposition mobilization of organized workers with heritage sites. A since the defeat of the Spanish Republic new environmental that of the poor, the unorganized, the was beginning to take shape in 1939. movement unemployed, tenants and consumers. as people asked radical questions about The bureaucratic regimes in Eastern Student power was a theme in protests the exploitation of nature. H that called themselves “socialist” Europe at universities and high schools. The also faced . mass mobilizations struggle for student power in 1968 Students protested in Poland and included occupations at the University fought back against police in Yugoslavia. of Ottawa and McGill to demand The greatest of these protests was in student representation in decision-making , after an invasion Czechoslovakia bodies, and mass mobilizations that led to by Soviet bloc troops overthrew a the resignation of the president of Simon liberalizing regime. Fraser. Students occupied the Ontario Brazilian students were arrested after College of Art for eight days to win the smashing in the US embassy to protest reinstatement of two fired instructors. against the war in Vietnam. British In November and December, students protesters broke through police lines from Waterloo and Toronto conducted outside the US embassy in London’s militant solidarity pickets in support of Grosvenor Square. In Tokyo over 1,300 striking Peterborough newspaper students charged into a US military workers, leading to a number of arrests. hospital compound. Radical students Several thousand students shut down occupied San Luis Gonzaga University in Newfoundland Catholic schools for and burned admission exam Lima, Peru three days to protest overcrowding. High records. A march of 2000 in Panama school students joined striking Moncton

8 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 The Earth Moved 1968 and the rise of a New Left by Alan Sears

n 1968, the earth moved. For a moment, revolution The Struggles of 1968 seemed possible. Millions marched, occupied, fought The mobilizations of 1968 tended to ­focus around back,I went on strike. People experimented with new ways of certain key themes. Opposition to US imperialism in Viet- living and sought out new ways of knowing the world. The nam was crucial, inspiring solidarity and many other national excluded, those who had been most exploited and oppressed, liberation struggles, such as those against Portuguese colo- mobilized in new ways. nialism, apartheid in South Africa, and the subordination In normal times, it is extremely difficult to imagine any of aboriginal people in Canada, the US, New Zealand and really bold departures from the way things currently work. Australia. Women, people of colour, lesbians and gays and The world we know acts like a set of blinkers, framing our others excluded from full citizenship fought for it, demand- field of vision and dramati- cally narrowing our sense of what is possible. This does not necessarily mean people are fooled, that they fail to see injustice or that they like the way things are. But they lead their lives as if things will not change very much. At times of global revolt, when the earth moves, radi- cal change in all areas of life suddenly seems possible. The www blinkers fall off and the ho- rizons of possibility expand . illuminati - news . com dramatically. You see differ- ently and you feel it in your guts, as if you were thrown into the trunk of a car and driven to a mountain lookout and then suddenly released to see, smell, hear, taste and feel At its peak, the anti-war movement mobilized hundreds of thousands to take action to the incredible and terrifying protest American actions and shut down the war effort. beauty. In 1968, millions shared in that sensation of release as a ing a range of democratic rights, protection from legal dis- result of militant mass struggles that forced the world open. crimination and certain social rights including anti-poverty These struggles often combined mass mobilization with mil- measures. itant tactics designed to force changes, such as strikes, sit- People struggled against bureaucracy and authoritari- ins, occupations and confrontations with police who tried to anism and demanded real, participatory democracy as op- keep protesters from their targets. As people mobilized, they posed to the limited representation offered by parliamentary also developed a new and more vibrant sense of democracy systems. Finally, people fought for control over their bod- that challenged the narrow constraints of the parliamentary ies, their minds and their lives, challenging mind-numbing system and the capitalist state. ­bureaucratic educational systems, sexual repression, the lack of reproductive freedom and (over time) male dominance Alan Sears is an editor of New Socialist. and heterosexism.

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 9 Finally, 1968 was distinguished by a specific kind of mili- There is a temptation to nostalgia in telling the story of tancy. Mobilizations sought to effect change rather than 1968, drawing a warm, rose-coloured portrait of hope and send a moral signal to those in power. Students and work- militancy. It is important not to idealize this moment, or to ers occupied factories, schools and universities. Crowds imagine that in some sense we can return to it. The next radi- confronted police and sought to engage with their targets, cal upturn will not repeat the experiences of 1968, nor will for example attempting to shut down the operations of US the next new left retrace the steps of the last one. imperialism in embassies, consulates and military facilities. At the same time, wiping out the memory of 1968 in an Italian workers and students invented the active strike with act of radical amnesia will not serve the next new left. There mobilizations that began inside workplaces or schools, then are many radicals today who see the challenge of launch- marched through the facility and shut it down section by ing the next new left as one of starting over essentially from section. Of course, one cannot simply conjure up this kind scratch, setting aside the experiences of previous radicaliza- of militancy by orienting towards greater confrontation – it tions and the revolutionary theories derived from those ex- is produced by the interaction between spreading radicalism periences. and increased experimentation with forms of direct action. In the 40 years since 1968, the raw experience of the peri- The level of struggle in 1968 was high enough that the dai- od has been made safe by being processed into various pack- ly newspapers were filled with coverage of protest.­Toronto’s ages, both by the left and by the right. Of course, we neces- middle-of-the-road newspeper, The Globe and Mail, com- sarily interpret the past in light of our present circumstances mented in an editorial on June 4: “It does not really matter and projects. But when examining the story of this moment, where the unrest started, only where it will end. That, it now it is important not to push it so hard into a particular ana- appears, may be anywhere or everywhere. For the uneasiness lytical framework that we lose the raw power of a time when is European, maybe world wide. And in that fact, no one revolution was in the air, when the blinkers came off and the can take much hope unless he hopes to channel unrest from horizons of human possibility seemed vast. It is important to anarchy to deep reform.” expect to be surprised in some way from the experience of global revolt. 1968: The View From Here Of course, the great issue that hangs over us in 2008 as There are two main reasons why 1968 is worthy of we look back on this period of insurgency is how might it our attention 40 years later. happen again, and how can we contribute to putting mass First, it reminds us of what a moment of global revolt radicalism back on the agenda. The story of 1968 is not very actually feels like, how the experience penetrates everyday relevant if it is simply about a glorious moment in the past. life and alters the sense of expectations. It is actually very dif- It offers inspiration and resources for the next new left, pro- ficult to imagine such a moment of radicalism at the present vided that we are open-ended enough to learn from it and time when movements are at a fairly low ebb. that we make good use of the theoretical tools that marxism Secondly, 1968 was a key moment in the rise of a new offers us to understand processes of radicalization. left, offering us models, both positive and negative, of how The Left: Old and New radicalism can be transformed to offer new tools in changed circumstances. In 2008, we face a huge challenge of renewing The mass radicalization that took place in 1968 con- and transforming a marginalized left. There is much we can tributed to the development of a new left, one that sought learn from the incomplete project of launching a new left in new approaches to address a changing world. I am using the the period around 1968. term “new left” broadly here, to cover a wide range of politi- cal practices sharing a common assumption that the world had changed in important ways since the last wave of radi- calization, that the tools of the old left were no longer suffi- Voices of 68 cient, and that it was necessary to develop a new left to move Internationalist and egalitarian, spontaneous and from protest to changing the world. The development of a new left included theoretical work libertarian, the May Movement suddenly recalled to address emerging issues, innovations in the expression of what socialism once stood for and showed what it radicalism through language, culture and political imagery, could mean again in our times. new forms of mobilization and organization, and a renewal Daniel Singer on the events of internationalism and solidarity. The project of forming a new left was left incomplete during this wave of radicaliza- of May 68 in France (1970) tion, for reasons I will explore below. A new left was necessary because the world had changed

10 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 substantially since the formation of the old left, which emerged out of the revolutionary wave of 1917-27 which included the influential Russian Revolution. By the 1960s, the old left was oriented primarily around Communist Parties (defined politically by their support for the USSR) and social democratic parties like the NDP in Canada (fo- cused on reform through parliamentary means). The old left had consolidated through the mass radicalization of the 1930s and 1940 that began during the hardships of the Depression and ultimately won basic collective bargaining and welfare rights for important sections of the working class in the most industrialized countries. The important victories won in the 1940s began to change the world in significant ways. The working class became less political after winning full citizenship for key sections of workers, including important social and hu- man rights and legal collective bargaining. In winning full citizenship, workers fought their way into the market, winning increases in job security and living standards that began to transform the way of life for many, for example, providing new access to suburban home ownership, cars, and televisions. The new buying power of portions of the working class also fuelled the growth of service industries (such as retail and hospitality), contributing to a shift in employment patterns. Employers and the state responded to the radicaliza- tion of the 1930s and 1940s through both granting con- cessions and launching a counter-offensive. McCarthyism, the name given to organized anti-communism in the US, was used to shut down dissent within the political sys- Pamphlet from student occupation at Columbia University, tem, the unions and the educational system. Corporations NYC. began to restructure in order to weaken workers’ power on the shop floor, introducing new labour processes and ucation and employment (including legal discrimination in the shifting production from traditional working-class com- form of differential pay), lacked access to reproductive freedom munities to new locations (for example, the move of Ford and child care, and received a lower level of support through from Windsor to Oakville, Ontario in 1954). the welfare state system. People of colour faced overt legal dis- The old left did not have the resources to make sense of crimination, including a colour bar in Canadian immigration these important changes in the organization of work and law, as well as a host of barriers grounded in everyday racism. in working-class ways of life, rooted as it was in particu- The Quebecois had no right to national self-determination. lar sections of the working class who had made important Francophone Quebecois along with francophones outside gains in this period. Further, the old left accommodated Quebec faced discrimination in employment and lacked access itself to the cold war world, basically choosing to ally with to full language and educational rights. First Nations people one superpower or the other (the Communist Parties faced a colonial administration that deprived them of aborigi- tending to opt for the USSR and the social democrats for nal rights, offering instead ongoing brutalization through the the US). education, legal and social service systems. Young people were completely subordinated to their par- The New Left: Rise of the Excluded ents or to institutions such as schools and universities that Those who did not win full citizenship in the rad­ took on full parental powers. Public sector workers did not win icalization of the 1930s and 1940s, and those who had no full union rights in the 1940s and played a key role in activist place in the two-superpower world, were to play a key role mobilizations around 1968. Young workers unwilling to ac- in the political surge around 1968. cept the authoritarian workplace and the everyday threats to Women faced barriers to participation in public life, ed- body and mind in labour processes played an important role in

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 11 ­galvanizing worker activism in locations where union rights The new left, in its various forms, was committed to un- had already been secured. Lesbians and gays faced invisibil- derstanding what was new in 1968 and also what was not. ity, discrimination and abuse (In 1968 Canada was just mov- It unlocked a voracious hunger for history and theory, as ing to decriminalize gay sex.). activists sought resources to make sense of a world in mo- Finally, on a global scale the Third World emerged as a tion. Mass activism is exhilarating but it is also daunting. challenge to the cold war dominance of two superpowers. The stakes are high and people become engaged in new ways The rise of the Third World framed the struggles of 1968. The in the activity of making sense of the world and building an battle for national liberation in Algeria in the face of bitter infrastructure of dissent that will support and sustain mobi- French repression, the Cuban revolution and the Vietnamese lization. struggle provided key reference points, demonstrating both In reality, there was not a single new left around 1968, the obscenity of imperialism and the possibility of defeating but a variety of organizations with a wide range of political it. The rise of the Third World challenged the global racism orientations. The story of the new left, which I cannot pres- of an imperialist system grounded in whiteness and euro- ent here in any depth, is neither simple nor pretty. Interest- centrism. Activists understood the integral links between ing experiments developed, many of which were consumed the African-American freedom struggle and the liberation by the flames of dogmatism and sectarianism. The Students struggles of the Third World. By 1968, it was also clear that for a Democratic Society in the US is perhaps the largest decolonization was necessary but not sufficient for liberation single example of an attempt to develop an open-ended and that global capitalism needed to be defeated for genuine militant space that touched the lives of tens of thousands freedom in the Third World and globally. before collapsing into ugly and narrowly dogmatic sectarian The old left lacked the resources to fully make sense of squabbles. these emerging struggles of the excluded. It was trying to nav- Further, the new left fell far short of its own promise in igate the changing world using charts drawn up in 1917. This the areas of inclusiveness and solidarity. Black Power, femi- is not to say that it had absolutely nothing to offer. There has nism, Red Power and other militant movements tended to certainly been some deliberate forgetting of the important if develop as breaks with the new left as well as the old. It was partial contributions of the old left around building cultures specifically, for example, women’s experiences of marginal- of solidarity with elements of anti-imperialism, anti-racism ization within the new left that led to the early forms of and gender equity. Key activists in struggles against imperi- second wave feminism. alism, racism and male dominance had often been drawn to In the end, the new left also failed to produce a sufficiently the promise of universal emancipation that the old left of- unorthodox marxism. There were promising beginnings but fered, but they often turned away from that old left when it these tended to lead to either a renewed dogmatism (usually failed to keep its own promises in these struggles. within either a Trotskyist or a Maoist framework) or a rejec- tion of marxism with the loss of its vital resources for making New Politics: Achievements and Limitations sense of the changing world. The new left of 1968 arose in response to the ex- A genuinely unorthodox marxism would critically use haustion of the old left and to the need for a conscious left to powerful tools of historical materialism while at the same help move from resistance to transformation. Many activists time engaging with the theories of liberation emerging out drew the conclusion from their own experience that it was of various movements. It would be grounded in an expansive not enough to mobilize. There was also a need for spaces to analysis of class in which social class is always seen as gen- discuss, plan and analyze. It was not enough to challenge the dered, sexualized and racialized. Finally, it would be genuinely system. The system itself needed to be named and examined open to new issues and new forms of expression, for example, if it was going to be overthrown and replaced by something embracing environmentalist and ecological concerns about better. the health of the planet and becoming self-critical about the ways that socialist traditions have tended to absorb a capital- oices of ist worship of ever-increasing production. V 68 An unorthodox marxism might have contributed to the Bloor-Bathurst, young Maoist couple needs radical development of a more nuanced and complex understanding couple to share house; must be political; approx. of revolution. While millions of people in 1968 accepted the idea that change was not possible within the existing system, $125 mo., walking distance to most demonstrations. there was not a lot of clarity about what a revolution might Classified ad from AMEX – entail. On the one hand, many orthodox marxists understood American Exile in Canada Vol. I (12) revolution in terms of models generated in Russia in 1917, China in 1949 or Cuba in 1959, without devoting a great

12 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 Memories of 1968 are now used to sell products. Fashion brand McQ uses pictures of streetfighting from Paris in May 1968 by Bruno Barbey as an advertisement. deal of thought to what model might suit, say, Canada in tems, cultural expressions and interpersonal relations. 1968. Meanwhile, the non-marxist left was often extremely These investigations went along with new political prac- vague or very conspiratorial about the actual character of tices and forms of expression, challenging an old left ico- a revolutionary process. Many marxists and non-marxists nography that often seemed attached to a different time and shared the shattering experience of having revolutionary place. That did not mean tossing out everything or dropping hopes dashed when confronted with the robustness of the principles, but always being open to assessing the fit between system without generalizing back to a renewed sense of what what was known and what was still to be discovered. revolution might mean. Second, for the best of new left practice this open-ended- ness did not mean casually dismissing the past. Instead, the Resources from the Last New Left past of the women’s movement, anti-racist and anti-imperi- The 1968 new left does not then, in any simple sense, alist struggles, labour activism, sexuality and socialist move- provide an answer to the challenge we currently face in de- ments was mined for resources, often brought back to life veloping the next new left. It does, however, provide some by challenging prevailing orthodoxies attached to texts and important resources to address problems of method, the way events. of going about building a new left. Let’s look at five issues. Third, the new left engaged in the construction of a new First, the last new left had important elements of open- infrastructure of dissent, to sustain activism by developing endedness in its politics. The old left acted as if it had accu- the collective capacities for analysis, expression and action. mulated a storehouse of theory and practice that would allow The old left had thrived in the context of a particular po- it to navigate any circumstances within capitalist social rela- litical habitat, including particular working-class ways of life, tions. The new left expected to be surprised some of the time forms of work, community organizations, and formal or in- and sought to understand how changes in the world and in formal networks. Many of these no longer existed by 1968 radical movement shifted the political ground. This contrib- or were hanging on by a thread dangling back to the 1940s: uted to important developments in thinking about changes the tavern at the factory gates, the working-class community in work organization, the nature of community, political sys- right beside the mine or factory, the radical press and pub-

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 13 lishing houses, bookstores, left-wing cultural organizations cally.” Radicals of the new left found ways to discuss and de- associated with particular immigrant communities (in Cana- bate, to relate the utopian to the transformative, and to relate da, they included Finnish, Ukrainian, Hungarian and Jewish reforms in the present to revolutionary transformation. organizations, among others), and the left oppositions within Fifth and finally, it is important to understand that the new unions. Some of these were revived as part of the 1968 new left of 1968 did not emerge spontaneously from nowhere. left, while others were replaced by new infrastructure. Small groups of radicals, thinking against the dominant cur- The older forms of dissent that had developed in the early rents of the old left, began in the 1950s to anticipate this new 20th century grew in a context in which many working-class left, developing new practices of open-ended investigation people had very limited access to formal education. Thus as they participated in the building of small movements. In working-class self-education was a major element of the in- Italy, for example, a current loosely grouped together as the frastructure of dissent, often weaving political education to- “workerists” began to look in great detail at how work was gether with basic literacy, language, music or art education. changing, at patterns of migration and cultural shift, pro- By 1968, a much higher proportion of working-class cesses of mobilization and the role of the dominant old left ­people had access to high school education and more were organization, the Communist Party. They learned from the going on to universities and colleges. Therefore, a wide range new forms of workplace militancy that began to emerge in of educational experiments took place within and around the 1960s. They were thus well situated in 1968 to provide these institutions. Teach-ins and free universities were or- resources to help large numbers of people make sense of the ganised, often during occupations and student strikes. A new new mobilization, and to link together student and worker radical press grew rapidly around 1968, ranging from the activism in important ways. Similar small radical groups did party press of specific organizations to non-aligned political innovative work in Britain, France and the United States. publications and a wide range of underground media. Many The Next New Left of these had a very different graphic and linguistic style than the media associated with the old left. John Lennon’s song “#9 dream” begins “It was so long Commercialized popular culture played a larger part in ago/was it in a dream/was it just a dream.” Writing about the infrastructure of dissent in the 1960s than it had previ- 1968 feels a bit like inviting people to share in a dream, from ously. Certainly, there had been music, visual art, writing and a period when dreams were concretely connected to hopes performance associated with the old left. But the later ex- and to actions. Capitalism works to reorient our dreams to- tension of record-buying, television, mass market paperbacks wards commodities, things we purchase on the market that and other forms made popular culture a more important ele- seem to have mystical powers in conditions where our hu- ment of the new left. manity and our labour are degraded. In conditions of mass The music of the period was certainly heavily influenced radicalization, we learn to dream freely again, detaching our by the new left. Big rock concerts were political events and a dreams from market goods and using them to allow us to see lot of music had radical content. Psychedelic Jefferson Air- a better world. plane sang “Look what’s happening out in the streets/Got But it is mere idle dreaming if we are left with nostalgic a revolution/Got to revolution.” The Rolling Stones rocked thoughts of the good old days, without any sense of what out “Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, we might do now. I stress again, we are unlikely to see 1968 boy/ cause summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in tomorrow. And the next radicalization will not reproduce the street, boy.” The soon to be insipid Chicago had bold po- 1968. Our job now is to build towards the next new left, not litical lyrics: “They’re ruining this world for you and me/The yet knowing what form it will finally take or precisely what big heads of state won’t let us be free.” Marvin Gaye sang, will trigger the next wave of radicalization. “Picket lines and picket signs/Don’t punish me with brutal- The 1968 new left offers us inspiration, a taste of what it ity.” In this period of mobilizations, these musical events ac- actually feels like when the earth moves. It also provides im- tually helped sustain political community, energizing people portant resources. Specifically, it is important to learn from and bringing them together in new ways. the small groups of activists who began to anticipate the Fourth, the emerging new left provided ways of connect- new left, seeking to understand the changing world around ing political analysis, experiments in new ways of living and them and learning through building the movements, moving dreams for a better world. Bold and radical visions of revolu- against the current in the period before the wave of radical- tion nurtured and were nurtured by millions of small-scale ization hits. This requires that we balance open-endedness, attempts to reconfigure personal, social and economic life. preparation to be surprised by what is new, with a commit- British socialist-feminist Sheila Rowbotham wrote in her ment to learning from the past. We can prepare ourselves for memoirs of the period, “There are no easy answers to the that moment when the earth moves for us, even if we cannot H question of how you live in a world you want to change radi- be sure when that might be.

14 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 Students in the Lead The story of struggles on Canadian campuses yesterday and today

by Chris Webb

“The student is already a very bad joke.” From the Situationist pamphlet On the Poverty of Student Life (1966)

oday, perhaps more than ever, stu- Tdents have become mere factors of production in the academic factories we call universities. Business schools are dominated by corporate branded degrees; the sciences are tied to the funding and research of giant chemical and agri-busi- ness firms; students cannot even go to the washroom without a Canadian sol- dier beckoning them to enlist in the fight against terror. The university has become an essential productive tool in the pocket of modern capitalism, directly controlling the minds and futures of students, telling them their education is valued only in relation to its market value and their success, measured in terms of their eventual commodifica- tion and consumer power. But the lack of democracy in the uni- versity is not a recent occurrence. Indeed, many of the struggles against privatiza- tion and authoritarian administrations began in the heady days of student revolt in 1968. In an article titled “Canadian Students: Revolt and Apathy” in a 1968 1968 poster from Student Association Revolt at Home and Abroad to End the War in Vietnam issue of Canadian Dimension, Danny The year before the outpourings of Drache says “the university is used as one student revolt in Paris, Warsaw, London of the crucial instruments of social con- social and political importance for the and Mexico City, McGill University in trol, organized and especially equipped to student movement of today. But like the Montreal was the scene of large-scale get inside and shape the collective mind student militants of 1968, students today confrontations between students and of the student body.” must learn all they can from past strug- the administration. Civil disobedience, Student anger at undemocratic and gles while not using them as a blueprint protests of thousands, sit-ins and police hierarchical university administrations for the current student crisis. The spirit brutality shaped the McGill students be- and the authority of so-called “objective” of 1968 was one of urgency, one that de- fore French students shouted, “Arise ye academic knowledge exploded in 1968 manded fresh strategy and analysis in- wretched of the university!” – a moment that holds immense cultural, stead of rigid political formulas. The confrontation was sparked by the Chris Webb is an activist and journalist living in Winnipeg. He is a member of the New Socialist Group administration trying to expel three edi- and publishing assistant at Canadian Dimension. tors from the student paper, the McGill

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 15 Daily, for publishing a satirical article were gunned down and the country’s The essential questions portraying then-US president Lyndon largest university was occupied by the remain the same as they Johnson performing necrophilia on as- military. Students marched through the sassinated previous president John F. streets shouting “We don’t want Olympic did in 1968. Kennedy. The hysterics generated by the Games! We want revolution!” They de- article resulted in three editors being manded an end to the brutal and corrupt charged before the Senate’s discipline police force, the freeing of political pris- of education, a series of wars involving committee with “obscene libel.” oners and freedom of assembly laws. For imperialist powers and an environment But under the leadership of Students this, many paid the ultimate price. This hostile to student dissent and radical mo- for a Democratic University (SDU) was also the summer of the infamous bilization. – who led a campaign to have the charges Black Power salute by two US athletes But we can also draw strength from the against the three dropped, accusing the who were expressing their solidarity with enormous gains made by the movement university of illegitimately interfering in the civil rights movement. They were cut during the era of 1968. Many civil rights, and censoring student affairs – thousands from the olympic team for their actions. feminist and national liberation move- of students expressed their anger at the No single factor caused this global out- ment as well as many workers’ struggles administration through direct action. pouring of student dissent, but there were received tremendous support on univer- “Students have the right to: publish some crucial events and movements that sity campuses. Many of the gains made political satire, four letter words, define encapsulated the student zeitgeist. The then are still felt today – freedom of as- ‘good taste’ for themselves,” the SDU war in Vietnam forced people to pick a sembly, freedom of speech and new space wrote in their newsletter. The SDU suc- side: either the courageous Vietnamese for student activism. These freedoms be- cessfully mobilized 1,000 students on the or an imperialist superpower. This gener- came essential to an environment of criti- day the discipline committee met and ated mass protest movements that called cal analysis on campus. disrupted the meeting with a sit-in of 22 into question fundamental institutions of But many of these hard-fought-for students. When the committee refused US rule, including the press, the courts campus reforms have been eroded over to drop charges, the enraged students and the university. The civil rights move- time. With administrators shutting down stormed the administration building and ment, the Cuban Revolution, the war in rallies at York University and arresting occupied all six floors. In the days follow- Algeria and national liberation struggles students protesting tuition hikes at the ing the occupation, radical student senti- across the South galvanized many stu- University of Toronto, it is apparent that ment at McGill was expressed in numer- dents into a bloc that firmly identified many of the freedoms won in the 60s are ous demonstrations, free universities and with revolutionary elements. However, under direct assault once again. With the discussion of free speech on campus. there was no love for the USSR which neo-liberal restructuring of campuses, Internationally, 1968 was a monumen- invaded Czechoslovakia that spring, or universities often come under the thumb tal year for the student movement, with other Communist parties that many saw of corporate investors who want good students occupying the Sorbonne in Par- as counterrevolutionary. workers before radical activists. is and declaring it a people’s university. While this model brings enormous 1968/2008 These same students would later march funding to universities whose budgets with 10 million striking French work- Despite the essential historical differ- have been cut by government, it also ers who were demanding more than the ences between this epoch and our own, brings the subservience demanded by the measly reforms offered to them by their students in Canada continue to face market. This trend can only lead to in- union leaders. many of the same challenges. There is creased authoritarianism on campus and In Mexico City, 300 protesting students increasing emphasis on the market value an administration that demands student discipline – in and out of the classroom.

Voices of 68 2008: The State of the Unions As long as students are prepared to fight the administration and not Despite these factors, many student unions are hesitant to challenge univer- sit down and take it, they can have what they want, when they want sity administrations, let alone engage in it and how they want it. global solidarity with striking workers or bombed civilians. Horace Campbell, York University student activist at a rally In English Canada, the Canadian Fed- celebrating the successful conclusion of a student occupation eration of Students (CFS) and the Ca- at the Ontario College of Art. nadian Alliance of Student Associations Reported in The Globe and Mail, March 2 1968 (CASA) are the largest student bodies at the federal and provincial levels. The

16 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 CFS does run some important cam- Rochdale College opened in downtown Toronto in 1968 as a paigns against rising tuition fees and the radical alternative campus. Now growing for-profit education industry. it’s senior citizen housing with a It promotes grants over loans. However big video game ad on its side. important these may be, the organization draws the line at calling for lower fees. In this way it doesn’t treat education as a so- cial right that all are entitled to without within student organizations. charge. But the potential for renewed student In Manitoba, although CFS has been militancy remains because of the very able to impose freezes on tuition fee in- policies that the university continues to creases, the direct mobilization of stu- implement – rising costs of tuition, re- dents around this issue was nonexistent pression of dissent and increasing reliance last academic year, despite record turn- on the private sector. Despite the remain- outs at the previous year’s demonstra- ing militant elements at many university tions. The organization’s primary goal is campuses across Canada, it will not be to represent students to government. This the anti-imperialist or anarchist students allows for little student participation. who bring about fundamental change. CFS has also refused to investigate the Rather, as we saw in Quebec, change will possibility of a boycott of Israel after Ry- come when the mass of students move erson University student leaders attempt- into action. ed to engage the organization in dialogue In the meantime, it is essential that about the human rights of Palestinians. student unions and leaders provide a Unlike CFS, CASA does not hide be- students donned red fabric squares to structural analysis of the university’s role hind a phony image of student power. The represent their support for the striking in bolstering capitalism. Their solutions undemocratic nature of this organization students and their cause. Their example need to move beyond just demanding is astounding. And much like CFS, their demonstrates the potential of student lower tuition fees. The essential questions primary concern is lobbying the federal power in bringing about social change. remain the same as they were in 1968: government for more grants, decreased Lobbyist student unions were swept aside what role does the university play in soci- student debt and accessibility. A CASA by the urgency and anger of the students ety and how can its function be changed representative said that CASA’s interests they claimed to represent. from academic production line to one that do not extend beyond the scope of the is critically engaged and democratic? Future for the Student Movement? students it represents, particularly on con- In answering these questions, a new troversial issues like war in Afghanistan. Students today are shackled with the wave of student leaders must look to 1968 The inspirational and vibrant Quebec chains of neoliberalism in and out of and realize that changing the university is student movement stands in contrast to the classroom. Many hold parttime or not enough. Only through alliances with the conservatism of the student organi- fulltime jobs while juggling demanding workers, many of whom face the same zations in English Canada. In 2005 the course loads and families on the side. Add economic pressures as students, can the Association pour une solidarité syndicale to this the mounting levels of student revolutionary transformation of the uni- étudiante (ASSÉ) was successful in mo- debt and decreasing public funding for versity and society be accomplished. bilizing nearly 200,000 students against post-secondary education, and little time In France, student grievances with the the provincial Liberal plan to convert or energy is left for student politics. This rigid university administration found 103 million dollars of student grants into leads to general apathy among students sympathetic ears in the factories around loans. The huge pressure exercised by the and a serious misunderstanding of the Paris and sit-ins became strikes and strike was able to win back at least a part role of student unions in creating lasting workers’ action committees. At the 1968 of the amount cut from the loans and change outside the rigid parameters de- Canadian Union of Students congress, grants system. fined by the university administration. president Peter Warrian told students But the striking students did not stop While 1968 was a time when some that “the central thrust of student power there. The ASSÉ called for an end to re- students militantly opposed these hier- must be aimed at the internal and ex- forming the grants and loan programs, an archical and undemocratic administra- ternal democratization of education. … end to the privatization of the CÉGEP tions, there were still those who passively we do this knowing that democracy and (college) network, elimination of student accepted its authority. Unfortunately, the liberation will not come through the ma- debt and free access to education for all. latter group is growing today not only nipulation of a few, but only through the H Hundreds of thousands of workers and among the general student populace, but struggle of all.”

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 17 Vietnam then, Iraq now Why so much difference in levels of antiwar mobilizing? by Charlie Post

hose of us who have organized against the US war and occupa- the majority of Americans against the Ttion of Iraq are faced with a major paradox. On the one hand, the war is war. The high likelihood of death and extremely unpopular – most people in the US want their government to with- injury in a hopeless and pointless war draw troops from Iraq sooner than later. On the other hand, the level of antiwar sparked opposition among active duty GIs and veterans. After 1969, disgust organization and mobilization is extremely low. with the war in the military made the US While some of the largest antiwar high points. Despite these similarities, it army in Vietnam an unreliable fighting demonstrations in history marked the is clear that the level of organization and force. run-up to the war in the winter-spring of mobilization against the US war in Viet- Today, the US military in Iraq has de- 2003, mobilizations since then have been nam – even at its lowest ebbs – was sig- ployed, at most, 150,000 volunteer sol- progressively smaller. In September 2007, nificantly higher than against the US war diers. Clearly, the growing number of only 10,000-15,000 people turned out at and occupation of Iraq. injuries – tens of thousands of soldiers a national demonstration in Washington, have returned from Iraq missing limbs Differences in the US Military DC, while regional demonstrations that and suffering from post-traumatic stress October were significantly smaller than Two key factors explain the differences disorder – has fueled significant opposi- most organizers expected – with fewer in antiwar organization and struggle tion to the war. The emergence of Mili- than 5,000 turning out in New York City, against the Vietnam and Iraq wars. The tary Families Speak Out (MFSO), Iraq a centre of antiwar sentiment in the US. first is the level of US military presence Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and How do we explain this paradox, espe- and the status of the US armed forces. antiwar organization among active duty cially when we compare the movement During Vietnam, the US fought with a military personnel early in the Iraq war against the war/occupation of Iraq with conscript army. There were up to 500,000 and occupation is unprecedented. How- the anti-Vietnam war movement of 40 GIs on the ground in Vietnam. Over ever, the size of the military force “on the years ago? Clearly, there are important 50,000 young men, disproportionately ground” and the relatively low level of similarities between 2008 and 1968. working class and people of color, lost casualties is not sustaining the level of re- While both wars were very unpopular, a their lives in Vietnam. The draft and US vulsion and resistance that existed during majority of US citizens did not come to casualties fueled antiwar sentiment and Vietnam. While the US military relies on support the immediate and unconditional activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s. an “economic draft,” poverty and unem- withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam While the draft targeted young people ployment pushing young men and wom- until after 1970, just as most Americans from the working class and communi- en into the armed forces, the absence of a do not support “US out of Iraq now” to- ties of color, the threat of being forced draft leaves large sectors of working and day. The movements against both wars to fight in a losing war most viewed as middle class youth exempt from the pos- were divided between different national immoral and unjust produced sustained sibilities of being sent to Iraq. coalitions, which differed in their rela- student activism against the war. Climate for Activism tionship to liberal “antiwar” Democrats. The high level of casualties – nearly Both movements experienced sharp ups every working class and Black or Latino As the low level of casualties and the and downs in the level of mobilizations, neighborhood in the US experienced absence of a draft undercut mass organi- with presidential election years being low young men coming back in body bags zation and mobilization against the US points and periods of US escalation being nearly every month after 1967 – turned war and occupation of Iraq, three decades of retreat and defeats in US labour and Charlie Post is active in the faculty and staff union at the City University of New York, has helped social movements undermines the emer- organize anti-war activities in his union and neighbourhood, and is a member of Solidarity, a US gence of a large “militant minority” that socialist organization. could sustain the antiwar movement in

18 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 its low ebbs. The movement against the cupation of Iraq in the midst of over 30 election year is always difficult. The “pres- US war in Vietnam came in the wake years of defeats. There are no existing so- idential” (versus parliamentary) system in of the victory of the African-American cial movements that can inspire a signifi- the US increases the pressure that exists civil rights movement, which smashed cant minority to believe in the power of in all capitalist democracies to “vote real- the Jim Crow system of legal segregation mass organization and struggle from be- istically” for one or another “lesser evil.” and disenfranchisement in the US south. low. The absence of effective mass move- The main beneficiary of these pressures The black liberation movement contin- ments has resulted in the withering of the has been the pro-corporate, pro-imperi- ued, as urban insurrections, black work- far left in the US (and internationally), alist Democratic Party. ers’ struggles and community organiza- deepening discouragement among many Rebuilding Movements tions targeted institutionalized racism. activists – and making the futile attempt The African-American struggle provided to use the Democratic party to end the The pressure on social movement ac- a powerful lived experience of how ordi- war more and more attractive. tivists to pour all their energy into elect- nary people, in the face of tremendous The character of the popular opposition ing a Democrat is even greater this year odds, could organize, fight and win, in- to US occupation inside Iraq – a reflection with the nomination of Barak Obama. spiring student and antiwar activism in of the evolution of the global relationship Most opponents of the war are attracted the 1960s. of forces over the past three decades – also to Obama’s antiwar rhetoric. They recog- The ascending social movement pro- undermines the coherence of a “hard-core” nize that a major party’s nomination of moted the development of a broad far of antiwar activists. In Vietnam, a popu- an African-American for president, and left that maintained some independence lar-nationalist movement against imperi- the realistic possibility of his election, from the Democratic Party and could be alism inspired a generation of anti-impe- is a tribute to the enduring impact of a counter-weight to demoralization and rialist student and youth radicals despite the civil rights and Black Power move- disorientation of the anti-Vietnam war its Stalinist-bureaucratic leadership, and ments of the 50s and 60s. While a small movement during its low points. These successfully stalemated US military forces minority of radicals and revolutionaries forces made the antiwar movement a liv- on the ground after 1968. The divided, re- have pointed to Obama’s pro-imperialist, ing reality during Vietnam between the ligious-sectarian resistance in Iraq, which pro-neoliberal politics, most activists are semi-annual national and regional mobi- targets both US forces and their Iraqi holding off on mobilizing against the war lizations – fighting the draft, organizing opponents, is incapable of inspiring an in order to elect Obama, and may be will- among GIs, veterans, and among people “anti-imperialist” minority or of militarily ing to “give him a chance to end the war” of colour. defeating the US occupation. if he is elected. Today, we are attempting to build a Building – or rebuilding – any social Despite these obstacles, there remains movement against the US war and oc- movement in the US during a presidential a hard core of antiwar activists in the US. While most will hold their nose and vote for Obama, they have few illusions that a Democratic victory will end the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, or prevent an attack on Iran. They remain committed to fighting for the immedi- ate and unconditional withdrawal of US forces from the Middle East, no matter who occupies the White House or holds the majority in Congress. These activ- ists are maintaining antiwar committees in their neighborhoods and union locals, continuing counter-recruitment activity and building MFSO, IVAW and the new antiwar GI coffeehouses. The success of . com / the IVAW’s Winter Soldier hearings this past spring (an event organized to pub- licize US atrocities and war crimes) was the most visible and important antiwar culturocity activity this year. The continued organiza- American troops joined demonstrations against the war and used direct action tion and activity of these militants will be methods within the armed forces, ranging from refusing certain duties to attacking central to the revival of the antiwar move- officers. ment after the next presidential election. H NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 19 Vietnam then, afghanistan now Antiwar organizing in Canada by Gary Cristall While only a small percentage of this demographic bulge became politically ac- he antiwar movement in the 60s in tive, they represented a significant num- TCanada can be said to have begun ber of new actors on the political scene on Christmas Day of 1959 with a dem- – perhaps a few thousand at any one time. onstration by the Combined Universities The CUCND, the New Democratic Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Youth (NDY), Liberal Religious Youth (CUCND) in Ottawa. It was inspired, on and, most of all, Student Union for Peace the one hand, by the Campaign for Nu- Action (SUPA) came to define the first years of the New Left. clear Disarmament in the UK and, on the other, by the federal government’s quiet Student Union for Peace Action decision to import nuclear weapons from SUPA was probably the most far the US to be fitted onto Bomarc missiles reaching and radical of these organiza- based in Canada. tions. Founded in the fall of 1964 in Re- CUCND can be called the first mani- gina, it defined itself as the successor to festation of the “new left” in Canada – an CUCND. While its name implied it was amorphous term that was twice inaccu- a “peace” organization, in the summer of rate. Many of the activists in CUCND 1965 it took on a multiplicity of projects and other organizations that would adopt across Canada, from organizing among the moniker were not “new” in the sense the black community in Nova Scotia of being new to political activity. Many to working with indigenous peoples in others could only with reservations be various areas to building links with BC’s considered on the “left” if it is defined as Doukhobors. a consciously socialist movement. Mainly composed of university stu- However, for a decade and more, the dents, with some high school participa- term was used to describe activists who tion, SUPA turned campuses upside down had broken with the “old left” in the sense and brought many students from middle of the Stalinist Communist Party of Can- class and well-off working class families ada, Trotskyist and Maoist organizations. into contact with the lowest rungs of Many of the activists who entered the Canadian society – the “wretched of the political arena in opposition to nuclear earth” to use the term from the social- weapons were new in every sense. They ist song “The Internationale.” In many belonged to a new generation that would ways SUPA was a Canadian replication come to be called “boomers” – the prod- of Students for a Democratic Society in uct of the baby boom that followed the the US, combining new theories of com- end of the second world war. They were munity organizing with a revived radical more affluent than any generation before socialist politics. them, the result of the post-war econom- The contradictions between and with- ic boom. They were entering universities Socialists raised radical slogans in the various regional wings led to the in unprecedented numbers. Their music, within the broad anti-Vietnam war demise of the group within a few years. sexual behaviour and lifestyles are still movement they worked to build. Perhaps its greatest triumph was the with us as the “greying of the baby boom” Picture is from a 1960s publication of mobilization at Montreal’s Expo 67 on fills the feature pages of newspapers. the antiwar movement in Canada. Hiroshima Day. SUPA celebrated this as Gary Cristall is a Vancouver cultural worker. He attended CUCND rallies in the early sixties and joined Youth Day, denouncing everything from the SUPA sit-in in front of the US consulate in Toronto in solidarity with the Selma, Alabama civil rights the war in Vietnam to the oppression of march in 1965. He has been a political activist ever since. He is a member of the New Socialist Group. Canada’s First Nations.

20 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 Then: Vietnam also recruiting more radical activists to Inspired by the Cuban Revolution, their group. The fact that many of the key the victory of the Algerian revolution in organizers had a broader agenda, and a 1962 and the general growth of what was more radical one, was sometimes hidden, called the “colonial revolution,” including sometimes not. African-American resistance, hundreds Che’s call for “Two, Three, Many Viet- of people, mainly students, became en- nams” as the strategy for world revolution gaged in a frankly anti-imperialist cam- inspired some, while the vicious brutal- paign in support of the Vietnamese. A ity of the war led others to get involved. coherent pan-Canadian movement took There was a clear enemy and the Viet- shape that called for the withdrawal of namese were worthy of support simply US troops from Vietnam and an end to because they were fighting back against Canadian complicity in the war. enormous odds and winning at that. The The latter was particularly aimed at the pervasive anti-Americanism that was in- presence in Canada of Dow Chemicals, bred in the Canadian Left – and not only purveyors of napalm – perhaps the most the Left – coupled with the David-ver- obscene weapon used in Vietnam – and sus-Goliath nature of the war made any- Hawker Siddeley, manufacturer of mis- one with the least sense of fair play and sile guidance systems. The arrival of large decency sympathetic to the Vietnamese. numbers of draft dodgers and deserters What the antiwar movement actually accomplished is hard to evaluate. More than pressure from the antiwar move- In the end it was the Vietnamese ment, it was Trudeau’s crafty policy of who won the war, but many opening the door to model, middle class, Canadian activists felt at least a educated, white, English-speaking im- Challenging imperialism at home: migrants that motivated the welcome ex- Canadian troops occupied Quebec small part of their victory as their in 1970 in response to the growing tended to draft resisters. Dow and other Quebec independence movement. own. The movement served as a firms were never closed down. In the training ground for many who led end it was the Vietnamese who won the later social and union struggles. war, but many Canadian activists felt at ple is there to be made and is not a stretch least a small part of their victory as their by any means. We need a movement that own. The movement served as a training explains that it is up to the Afghanis to from the US was one factor that helped ground for many who led later social and solve their own problems and that, how- build the antiwar movement. So too did union struggles. ever repugnant some of the folks on “the the new medium of TV, which brought other side” are, they are no worse than Now: Afghanistan images of the war to living rooms. “our own” warlords, misogynists, drug Much of the organization of the Viet- How far we are from that as Canada impresarios and such. nam movement was handled by the embarks upon its own imperialist adven- The fact that many solidarity groups League for Socialist Action/Ligue So- ture in Afghanistan. How far we are from have embraced a pan-Middle East ap- cialiste Ouvrière, and its youth wing, the a cohesive antiwar movement that active- proach, linking Iraq, Afghanistan and Young Socialists/Jeunes Socialistes. The ly opposes Canadian involvement in new Palestine and working on all three fronts, LSA was the Trotskyist organization that wars – not just complicity but real “boots is valid from a political perspective, but had successfully built itself from a few on the ground” involvement. is not the basis for a campaign that can scattered branches into something fairly Every generation and situation is dif- mobilize tens of thousands around get- substantial through recruitment in the ferent. We can only draw so many lessons ting Canadian troops out of Afghanistan. NDP and solid work in the Fair Play for from the Vietnam antiwar experience. While an organization like the New So- Cuba Committees. Certainly a vital and effective antiwar cialists can work to build solidarity with Perhaps the greatest strength of the movement would benefit from a unitary anti-imperialist struggles in all countries Vietnam antiwar movement was its sin- coalition of groups around a single slo- in the Middle East and beyond, building gle issue focus. Anyone who supported gan (“Support Our Troops – Bring Them a broad movement that can be effective its goals of US withdrawal and an end Home!” is the best I’ve seen). The link requires a narrower but sharper focus. to Canadian complicity was welcome to between military spending and cuts to This might be the most important lesson we can learn from the antiwar movement join. LSA activists wanted to build as social services, education, health care and H broad a movement as they could, while everything else that matters to most peo- of the 60s.

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 21 Gay Liberation Coming Out of 1968 by Alan Sears The mobilizations of 1968 created a widespread sense of ­uprising that spilled over into the years that followed. In June 1969, cops conducting yet another routine raid on the Stonewall Inn gay bar in New York were confronted by an angry crowd that fought back and started a riot. The ­commitment to street activism, freedom, self-expression and real participatory democracy that grew out of 1968 set the context for the launch of lesbian feminism and gay liberation.

The tone of early lesbian and gay that made you reject straight society In 1969, a routine raid on the Stonewall liberation writing was bold and rebellious. when you were a kid ... and realize that Inn gay bar led to a riot that launched While lesbians and gays have gained a you were right. Straight roles stink.” Gay Liberation. great deal since then, it is important to be Gay liberation began to take its place reminded of the time when gay liberation in the movement, the broad network of The lesbian workshop focused a great was seen as a challenge to the sex/gender activists building links across struggles. This deal on child care and feminist demands. structure, the compulsory family and the included a presence at the Revolutionary These included: system as a whole. This is not to say that People’s Constitutional Convention these pioneers got everything right, or on September 5-7, 1970. The “Male 3. Communal care of children: Children that we can, should or even could go back Homosexual Workshop” released a should be allowed to grow, in a society to those politics. It is simply to show how manifesto that included the slogan, “No of their peers, cared for by adults broad the vision of sexual liberation was revolution without us! An army of lovers whose aim is not to perpetrate any in the context of widespread militancy. cannot lose!” male-female role programming. ... Harbinger, a Toronto underground The manifesto listed a series of 4b. Because women have been newspaper, included an article on gay demands, notably: systematically denied information liberation in its 33rd issue. The article 1. The right to be gay, any time, any place. and knowledge and the opportunity begins, “Look out straights! Here comes for acquiring these we demand open 2. The right to free physiological changes the Gay Liberation Front, springing up enrollment of all schools to all women, and modification of sex upon demand. like warts all over the bland face of financial support to any woman who 5. Every child’s right to develop in a non- Amerika, causing shudders of indigestions needs it, on-the-job training with pay sexist, non-possessive atmosphere, in the delicately balanced bowels of the for all women attending technical which is the responsibility of all people Movement.” schools and under apprenticeship. to create. This in-your-face tone continued 4d. The power and technology of defense through the article. Lesbians and gays 6. That a free education system present are invested in men. Since these were presented as rebels against the the entire range of human sexuality, powers are used to intimidate women, sex/gender system. “We are men and without advocating any one form we demand training in self-defense women who, from the time of our earliest or style; that sex roles and sex- and the use of defense machinery. A memories, have been in revolt against determined skills not be fostered by Women’s Militia would be organized .... the sex role structure and the nuclear the schools. Much of this bold revolutionary vision has family structure.” This is a rebellion that 12. The abolition of the nuclear family been lost. A return to some of the early started in childhood. “We were rebels because it perpetuates the false documents of gay liberation is a useful from our earliest days – somewhere, categories of homosexuality and reminder of key elements in a project of maybe just about the time we started to heterosexuality. sexual emancipation. H go to school, we rejected straight society. The document concluded with the words: Unconsciously.” Gay liberation was about making Gay power to gay people! Sources: Harbinger 33 (1971), and The that rebellion conscious and carrying it All power to the people! Gay Militants: How Gay Liberation Began in forward. “Get in touch with the reasons Seize the time! America, 1969-71 by Don Teal (1995).

22 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 Raising theby Susan F ergusonVelvet Fist

We consider the government of Canada is in a state of war with the women of Canada. If steps are not taken to implement our demands by Monday, May 11, 1970, at 3:00 P.M. we will be forced to respond by declaring war on the Canadian government. Abortion Caravan, 1970

eady words for heady Post-war Feminism times. This ultimatum issued To begin this story in the Hby the organizers of the Abortion 1960s is to risk downplaying the Caravan – a thousands-strong significance of earlier struggles. cross-country march to call for the The image of the 1950s as a pe- repeal of a one-year-old abortion riod of stability and affluence, a law – says something about the period when the nuclear fam- spirit and politics of the women’s ily flourished and women hap- liberation movement in Canada in pily assumed their roles as wives the late 1960s and early 1970s. and mothers, is just that, an im- Such militancy sounds almost age. Women in that era, though quaint today, so removed are we legally equal to men insofar as from the historical and ideological they had the right to vote, could moment that inspired it. But the own property, go to universities, notion that women were at war hold jobs and file for divorce, still with the state, however exaggerat- weren’t satisfied. ed, was rooted in the growing an- Across the country they ger, politicization and confidence pushed for equal pay, daycare, se- of many thousands of women. niority rights at work, and better That mood was fuelled – and fur- healthcare, and mobilized against ther stoked – by the era’s general- discrimination in the workplace. ized civil unrest encompassing the Thousands of women attending nationalist struggle in Quebec, the militant fight for native Union catholique des fermières meetings in Quebec (despite rights, Third World resistance movements, and antiwar and its name, it was predominantly an urban association), dis- civil rights protest inspired by events south of the border. cussed everything from contraception to work and education While what’s called the “second wave” of the women’s for girls, and circulated copies of Simone de Beauvoir’s Le movement was a diverse, politically-divided social force with Deuxième Sexe (published in 1949, and available in English plenty of weaknesses, its politics stand out and deserve to be as The Second Sex by 1953). celebrated for one overriding reason. It put women’s libera- A self-conscious feminism developed within unions, pro- tion – not just equality but freedom – on the feminist map. fessional associations, community organizations and political As with all past struggles, the story of the radicalization of parties. By 1960, the peace group Voice of Women (VOW), the women’s liberation movement and its aftermath may not became the first women’s group with a feminist vision to provide a blueprint for social change, but it clearly has some- make a mark on the Canadian political landscape. It was also thing to say about the possibilities and limits of challenging one of the few ever to successfully unite Quebec and Eng- power today. lish-Canadian feminists. Inspired by Ottawa’s negotiations with Washington about placing nuclear missiles in North Susan Ferguson is an editorial associate of New Socialist magazine. Bay, Ontario and La Macaza, Quebec, VOW chapters took The Velvet Fist, after which this article is titled, was a Toronto feminist newspaper published from 1970 to 1972. up other issues as well, including the campaign to legalize birth control, and support for Indochinese and black Nova

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 23 . htm

VOW contingent at a 1960s peace

/ history home . ca . inter net /~ vow march.

Scotian women. eugenicist politics of earlier maternal membership were not always so clearly VOW’s politics fell squarely within feminists, it was explicitly anti-Ameri- demarcated on the ground. And “insti- what is called the “maternal feminism” can and operated from a white, middle tutionalized feminism,” as Adamson, camp – the ideology that dominated ear- class women’s perspective. They and their Briskin and McPhail call it, had a clear ly 20th-century first-wave feminism, in liberal feminist counterparts tended to social impact. VOW’s 1962 Peace Train which women fought for and won many look to parliament and professional bod- – in which 500 women descended on political and economic rights granting ies to support their demands. The inher- Parliament Hill – directly inspired the them formal equality with men. Maternal ent conservatism of maternal feminism, 1970 Abortion Caravan mentioned at the feminism stresses that the values inherent along with an orientation toward equality beginning of this article. As well, “VOW in women’s roles as caretakers and nur- rights and “respectable” political meth- was a crucial link between generations of turers at home should be applied to the ods, won them considerable, if not always feminists” through which women learned public realm, and that women, as bear- uncontested, support. “to become agents of change on their own ers of those values, have a special place in Their biggest victory came in 1967 with behalf as women and not just on behalf of seeing that process through. the establishment of the Royal Commis- others” in the words of feminist political Despite its implicit and powerful cri- sion on the Status of Women, and its scientist Jill Vickers. tique of political priorities (highlighting, report three years later outlining 167 rec- Not Just on Behalf of Others: among other things, the inhumanity of ommendations concerning, among other Demanding a Better World much of what goes on in the name of issues, daycare, maternity leave, family politics), maternal feminism is “reform- law and the Indian Act. Shortly thereaf- If organizing for peace was a crucial ist” in that it fails to challenge structural ter a national women’s group eventually link between old and new feminists, the roots of oppression – and “essentialist” in called the National Action Committee social, economic and political cauldron that it dangerously reinforces assump- on the Status of Women (NAC) was of the 1960s provided ideal conditions tions about women’s “nature” that are, in established, and has served ever since as for brewing up new, more daring, femi- fact, central to our experiences of oppres- an umbrella group to which feminists of nist ideas and actions. Women entered sion. Maternal feminism has also often various political leanings belong. the workforce in ever-greater numbers, been articulated historically in nationalist However distinct NAC’s and VOW’s and more and more families, many with and racist terms. politics were from the left feminists of young children, relied on two incomes. Although VOW never espoused the the second wave, ideas, influence and Higher education expanded, and the

24 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 number of young women at university Feminists organized around treal, Toronto, Saskatoon, Vancouver and quadrupled, with many attracted by the elsewhere, feminists fought to repeal the notion of an alternative to marriage and various local issues, but Therapeutic Abortion Committee law motherhood. (The birth control pill was – passed in 1969, it legalized abortions introduced in 1966.) demands for daycare, access to only for women whose cases had been Meanwhile, other political activists abortion and support work for approved by a committee of healthcare were proposing their own alternatives: professionals. In April 1970, the Van- Quebec nationalists and indigenous mil- striking women workers were couver Women’s Caucus launched the itants challenged the presumptions and common priorities across the Abortion Caravan, complete with a cof- discriminations of the established order fin draped in hangers to symbolize deaths with visions of free and independent na- country. from backstreet abortions. On arriving in tions. Workers too were on the offensive, Ottawa, 30 women chained themselves with legal strikes and illegal wildcats tak- to the parliamentary gallery, and shut ing place across the country. down Parliament – a first in the country’s The sense that another world was pos- debate and support each other in the at- history. sible permeated the student left at the tempt to deepen their understanding of Socialist Feminism’s Contribution time. Local chapters of Student Union their experiences of oppression. The be- for Peace Action and the Students for a lief that the “personal is political” – an This form of activism was both the Democratic Union provided support for empowering idea that spoke to the depo- result of, and inspiration to, attempts to US draft resisters and held sit-ins and liticization of private, domestic life under theorize women’s oppression. Left femi- militant protests on campuses against capitalism – became the basis for ques- nists debated and discussed theories of nuclear arms and the war in Vietnam. tioning all aspects of life, from living and women’s oppression and political pri- While women worked alongside men loving arrangements to the healthcare orities in political meetings, C-R groups, in student groups and such left groups and education systems to work and poli- national conventions (the first one was as the Waffle (a radical wing of the New tics. C-R groups were important venues in Saskatoon in 1970), and in the pages Democratic Party [NDP]), the Young for both validating women’s experiences, of their publications (The Velvet Fist, The Socialists and the Revolutionary Marx- and planting seeds of change. Through Pedestal and Women Unite! are three ex- ist Group, they also started to organize these groups, a minority of feminists amples). specifically around feminist issues within developed alternatives to accepted social They were quick to criticize the lim- those organizations and beyond. By 1968, structures, setting up communal homes, ited goals and scope of liberal feminism, sizeable and active women’s groups had kitchens and daycares. having moved from reading de Beau- emerged out of the student left at Simon Feminists organized around various lo- voir’s The Second Sex and Betty Friedan’s Fraser University, University of Alberta, cal issues, but demands for daycare, access The Feminine Mystique (1963) to Juliet University of Regina, and University of to abortion and support work for striking Mitchell’s early articulation of socialist- Toronto, many of which quickly moved women workers were common priorities feminist politics in the New Left Review off campus, launching community-based across the country. In 1969, a sit-in at article “Women: The Longest Revolution” women’s centres and services in an effort the Board of Governors at Simon Fraser (1966). They had also moved from the to connect with working class women. University and a University of Toronto idea that sexism was a result of bad poli- Women also gathered in conscious- housing occupation resulted in campus- cy, ignorance and unequal opportunity, to ness-raising (C-R) groups to talk, read, based daycares. In Fredericton, Mon- the idea that it was historically rooted in

Voices of 68 We are told that our sense of oppression is not legitimate. We are told women’s liberation is a secondary issue, to be dealt with after the war is won. But the basis of women’s oppression is economic in a sense that far predates capitalism and the market economy and that is woven through the whole fabric of socialization. Our claims are the most radical, for they entail restructuring even the nuclear family. Nowhere on earth are women free now, although in some places things are marginally better. What we want we will have to invent ourselves. From Marge Piercy, The Grand Coolie Damn (1969)

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 25 the very institutions of bourgeois society The socialist-feminist divisions were often unbridgeable – the – and in the family in particular. Toronto International Women’s Day The socialist-feminist analysis insisted analysis insisted that women’s Committee came close to imploding on that women’s oppression was integral to a number of occasions – the political the class character of capitalist society. oppression was integral to the character of the period had changed. Op- And while many disagreed about the class character of capitalist portunities for linking feminist causes to precise nature of the relationship be- a broader political critique and mobiliza- tween class and gender, that conviction society. tion were fewer and further between. prompted left feminists to make links Still, some momentum was evident with working class women in their activ- in larger centres. Indigenous feminists ism. One vibrant area of work was the of lesbians, native, black and immigrant fought against the Indian Act and for wages-for-housework campaign. Argu- women. Increasingly such debates led to better housing and social services by or- ing that women’s domestic labour was segregated events, associations and orga- ganizing yet another trek – this one from essential to the profit-making machine nizing, and fuelled an identity-based or Oka (near Montreal) to Ottawa. Another – without it, men and children would not “difference” politics and, among some, a important example is the Ontario Co- be fed, clothed and rested or reared to hostility to theorizing. alition for Abortion Clinics in Toronto, go to work and labour directly for capi- According to some accounts of the which maintained a steadfastly social- tal – wages-for-housework committees period, this process of clarifying and ist-feminist perspective, making access in the Canadian Labour Congress and theorizing precipitated the movement’s to abortion, not just the legal right for elsewhere organized rallies and called for decline. Certainly, divisions and organi- a woman to obtain one, a key plank of state-funded compensation. The NDP zational splits developed in and through abortion politics in the 1980s. briefly took up the cause as well. such debates. But this misses the signifi- But in the context of retreating social Feminists also fought in unions for cance of the changing political and social movements and a shrinking left, the mo- paid maternity leave (won first by Cana- context in which women were organizing. ment had passed in Toronto and else- dian Union of Postal Workers in 1981), The wave of social radicalism was reced- where for a sustained, broad fight-back. equal pay and against discriminatory hir- ing. The ruling class was on the offensive, Such a moment is bound to recur – we ing and workplace practices. Feminist- introducing anti-union laws and cutting saw flickers of it with the anti-global- organized mass pickets shut down the funds to social programs. The idea that an ization activism in the early 1990s. Even auto-parts manufacturer Fleck in a 1978 alternative to patriarchal capitalism was though the feminism it encompasses will strike. Radio Shack, Fotomat and Irwin possible became increasingly difficult to undoubtedly look and feel very different Toys were also targets of feminist strike sustain (see Alan Sears’ article in New So- from that of the 1960s and 1970s, the support in the late 1970s and early 1980s. cialist 61). stories of this earlier period will provide Strike support work by the wives of Pushed onto the defensive, left femi- a rich archive of experience to be ignored H INCO miners transformed many women nists retreated from popular mobiliza- at our peril. personally as they led increasingly mili- tions. Instead, they focused on areas in tant pickets and spoke out publicly about which they were already having an im- Recommended Reading their struggle – a struggle they ultimately pact, namely providing local social ser- won. It also transformed the feminist vice alternatives such as shelters, health The feminism of the 1960s has been documented in a variety of excellent movement, as Sudbury miners’ wives led services, bookstores and women’s credit books. I’ve drawn heavily on Feminists Toronto’s first International Women’s unions. They also continued their work Organizing for Change by Nancy Day March in 1978. within unions, as the fight for equal pay Adamson, Linda Briskin and Margaret This activism came amid a vigorous for equal work took hold. And they con- McPhail. While I reference the Quebec tinued to think through some of the dif- and often acrimonious debate among left women’s movement, my experience ficult issues that the 1960s and 1970s had feminists revolving around such issues and reading deals predominantly with and questions as the relationship of femi- presented, a task that was viable for femi- English Canada. Micheline Dumont’s nists to left groups: Is gender work a dis- nists within the academy. chapter in Challenging Times edited traction from class struggle? Can women It is also in the 1970s and 1980s that by Constance Backhouse and David be united across classes? Should women immigrant, indigenous and lesbian wom- Flaherty is a good place to start for work on single-issue campaigns that are en developed their own organizations, anyone interested in following up on potentially more inclusive, or push for services and publications. Although Quebec feminism. To learn more about nothing short of total liberation? Perhaps not necessarily socialist-feminist, many the left feminist critique of the family, most explosive was the debate about the retained a radical critique, often fore- see Sandra Sarner and Gabrielle Gérin’s degree to which the left feminist focus grounding issues of poverty, class and article in New Socialist 63. on the family spoke to the experiences social justice. And while the growing

26 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 QUEBEC on fire Struggles for independence & social change by Antoine Casgrain The women’s movement came into the spotlight in October 1969 in response to uebec in the late 1960s was marked the banning of demonstrations by Mon- Qby a strong upswing in the struggle treal Mayor Jean Drapeau. This period for Quebec independence and the rise also saw many demonstrations organized of several social movements. October 68 in the city by Quebec nationalists, citizen saw the first major general strike by the committees and trade unionists. Women Quebec student movement. Students at were the first to challenge the decree 23 CÉGEPs (general and vocational ed- outlawing demonstrations. Two hundred ucation colleges) went out on strike. The women defied the ban by chaining them- colleges were occupied day and night. The selves together in a public square. In the strikers were protesting an elitist educa- wake of this action the Front de libéra- tional system ill-adapted to their needs, tion des femmes du Québec was formed which was a legacy of the old collèges clas- with the slogan “No Quebec liberation siques. They did not want to be merely without women’s liberation.” cogs in a consumer, hierarchical society. Independence In March 1969, a few months after their strike, a 15,000-strong demon- Four mobilization fronts converged in stration called for McGill University, a “Student Power.” Scene from the struggle for Quebec independence symbol of British colonialism, to become university occupation in Quebec. – the movements of students, workers, French-language and for an end to the women and citizens’ committees. At the inequality under which young franco- of confrontations between English- time, this struggle was set in a specific phones did not have the same access to speaking bosses and French-speaking international context – the independence social advancement as young anglophone workers. This situation was a stimulus to struggle among colonized countries graduates from this elite English-lan- the desire for national independence. against the metropolis or so-called First guage university. This led to the call for a The late 1960s also saw the emergence World. It was also a context marked by French-language, public, free and acces- of new trade union militancy due to the national struggles in Latin America sible university, and in turn to the birth massive, swift organization of the public against US imperialist domination. of the Université du Québec. and para-public sectors. This would lat- What did Quebec independence mean er give rise to the huge 1972 Common back then? It was a matter of liberating Four Fronts of Struggle Front. The labour movement also formed French Canadians from the English-Ca- There were many long, militant strikes an alliance with the popular movement nadian yoke, which kept them second- in Quebec, marked by confrontations by developing the Second Front strategy. class citizens and denied their right to with the police. For example, Montreal This entailed extending the workplace self-determination. Independence also 7-Up plant workers had been on strike negotiations to neighbourhood struggles meant opposing the dual economic dom- since summer 1967. In 1968, pro-inde- for better housing, and better public ination Quebec experienced – Canadian pendence groups organized a march in transport and living conditions. domination and US economic domina- solidarity with workers involved in job At the time, Montreal was experienc- tion. This national struggle was seen as a actions. The march culminated in violent ing a major movement towards mod- driving force that would stoke discontent confrontations. The Domtar plant work- ernization. Road and highway building with the unequal capitalist system. ers occupied their workplace to block its shamelessly evicted the most disadvan- The national struggle would see the closing while taking the means needed taged people. Popular movements of re- emergence of different political par- for their self-defence. In industry at the sistance to the displacement took shape ties, including Rassemblement pour time, national oppression took the form in the form of citizen committees. l’indépendance nationale (RIN). In June 1968, RIN called a demonstra- Antoine Casgrain is a member of Gauche Socialiste (GS). This text was a contribution on behalf of tion against the presence of then-Prime GS during French Marxist Daniel Bensaïd’s Quebec tour about the impact of May 68, 40 years later. ­Minister Pierre Trudeau, who was among Translation by Maria Gatti. the guests of honour at the St-Jean-Bap-

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 27 “The people, only the people women’s mobilizations against poverty. are the moving force, the The 2005 student movement is another creator of universal history.” new social movement. And finally, the Poster from Quebec 1970 ecological movement has become more and more prominent, signalling the need PQ after Quebec became independent. for this ecological dimension in the anti- A second option would take the stand capitalist struggle. that independence and socialism had to A new party can become an instru- be linked. The independence struggle had ment in an active break with the PQ. The to be led by and on behalf of social move- PQ has organized defeats and inflicted a ments and in particular by the workers’ neoliberal agenda on the Quebec people. movement. The primary objective was to Now we have a political alternative in support social movements, but the move- Québec solidaire. It is small, but it ex- ments were set in the context of Quebec’s ists. For the first time in decades, there specific national situation, the reason in- is a significant political alternative to the dependence was a social project. This op- left of the PQ. Québec solidaire won’t be tion was put forth by a galaxy of small built in a vacuum, but as a broad project groups – Front de libération du Québec, that we can develop among well-mean- Front de libération populaire, Comités ing citizens. It will be grounded in the . uqam ca indépendance et socialisme… social struggles of the workers’ and popu- crip This current was hit head-on during lar movements, and those of women and tiste parade celebrating Quebec’s nation- the October Crisis when the Canadian youth. al holiday. Demonstrators were met with army intervened in Quebec to support We have to rebuild our international ferocious police repression and many police repression of social and nationalist alliances with the black movement in the were arrested. movements. The socialism and indepen- US and here with the aboriginal peoples Pierre Vallières’ book White Niggers of dence option was marginalized by repres- who are also struggling for their self-de- America was a strong expression of pro- sion and by the choice many activists of termination. We must also build alliances independence feelings at the time. Val- the era made to reconsider RIN’s choice with progressives in English Canada who lières compares the Québécois situation to join the PQ. A good many disappoint- are fighting the same free trade agree- and struggle with that of black people in ed socialists turned towards the Marxist- ments and globalization. Finally, we have the US. Leninist (ML) movements, which swept to show that the logic of profit is destroy- But this rising independence move- away the national question. ing our planet. This proves that the need ment had to choose between two orien- Lessons for Today? to link socialism and ecology has become tations. The first option would be tactical more and more pressing and urgent. Fi- support to the Parti Québécois (PQ). This What lessons can we draw from 1968 nally, we have to renew our commitment party was launched on April 21, 1968 and in Quebec to better understand the po- for another future. already had two members of the National litical issues in today’s Quebec? Were the In conclusion, this poem by Gaston Assembly at the time of its launch – René 1968 movements utopian? It would be Miron, radical poet of Quebec liberation: Lévesque and François Aquin. The PQ better to say that these social movements we will make you, Land of Quebec was initially a split from the Quebec Lib- were the bearers of a possible project that a bed of resurrections eral Party (the Mouvement souveraineté- did not come to fruition. and a thousand lightning metamorphoses association). It would join forces with a Today, new social movements are tak- of our leavens from which the future shall small, rightist pro-independence party, ing up these social transformation proj- rise Ralliement national, to found the PQ. ects anew. These include the global justice and of our wills which will concede nothing The Lévesque leadership refused a movement, which reached a high point at men shall hear your pulse beating through merger with RIN, which it viewed as too the Summit of the Americas in Quebec history militant and too closely linked to social City in 2001. The antiwar movement, this is us winding through the October movements. RIN decided to dissolve it- like the movement against the Vietnam autumn self just the same and called upon its ac- war in the late 1960s, regained a great the russet sound of roe-deer in the sunlight tivists to join the PQ on an individual ba- deal of vigour in Quebec in particular this is our future, clear sis and to stand up for more progressive due to the Canadian army intervention and committed positions within that party. Their logic in ­Afghanistan but also the Bush gov- was that it would be easier to achieve the ernment intervention in Iraq. Another Excerpted from “L’octobre” (1970) H social movements’ demands through the important movement has been the major Translated by Benoît Rheault (1987)

28 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 WorkersThe 60s and “illegal” strikeWildcats wave by Bryan D. Palmer

Quebec union leader Michel Chartrand “spoke the language of the New Left”

he mid-to-late 1960s are politically associated espoused antagonism to the marches and protests of the de- with the rise of the New Left. To be sure, this New cade. A number of Canadian and US labour organizations TLeft, critical of Stalinism as well as mainstream bourgeois nevertheless championed the extension of civil rights that politics, took its stands of resistance against war and arbi- was central to social change in the 60s. trary authority, against racism and the exploitation of the Young radicals in the universities supported striking working class. workers, many of whom were adopting increasingly militant But the 60s are also most often associated with youthful tactics. Union leaders such as fiery Michel Chartrand of the rebellion against alienation. Its home base, in the minds of Montreal Central Council of the Confederation of National many, was the university campus. New Left leading figures Trade Unions (CNTU) spoke the language of the New Left. were usually understood to be as likely to come from the af- Chartrand lived the understanding that a different world was fluent suburbs as the proletarian neighbourhood. possible and, on occasion, landed in jail for his outspoken- Yet there were connections between the New Left and ness and willingness to defy constituted authority. labour. Not all trade unionists in the 1960s were reaction- It was at the level of the mid-1960s upheaval in Canada’s ary “hard hats,” a US image that grew out of the undeniable trade unions, however, that the youthful rebelliousness of the reality that some workers defended the war in Vietnam and decade actually entered into the country’s labour organiza-

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 29 tions. No one considered this to be a New placed on paid staff and the negotiation, rected against capital, but wildcats were Left phenomenon. But the wave of “ille- interpretation and enforcement of com- also different than legally-sanctioned gal” wildcat strikes that rocked class rela- plicated collective agreements. In the strikes. They were often posed against the tions in 1965-1966 were a reflection, in- 1940s such agreements between unions union bureaucracies that now seemed far side the workers’ movement, of the same and employers might run to a dozen removed from the working-class ranks processes that were galvanizing universi- pages. By the mid-1960s they could be they supposedly served. In their funda- ties and would receive so much journal- book-length compendia of clauses and mental wildness they were explosive in istic coverage in 1968. As veteran trade sub-clauses. their antagonism to the state and its re- unionist and labour journalist Ed Finn An axiom of pre-1945 class relations gime of law, order, and respectable class noted in 1965, “The wildcat strike might had been “strike now, grieve later.” Work- relations. be regarded as the trade union equivalent ers were willing to walk off the job in As such they were capable of violence of the students’ sit-in.” The sit-in itself protest in order to secure justice. With and irreverence that struck a dagger in was a well-known labour tactic that both the achievement of the post-war settle- the bosom of bourgeois authority. If civil rights campaigners and student radi- ment, however, this maxim was reversed. the wildcat was indeed the trade union cals appropriated for their own purposes. The labour movement often seemed to be equivalent of the student sit-in, it brought operating under the assumption that all to the table of protest an arresting arse- The Meaning of Wildcatting of the formal procedures for dispute reso- nal – sabotage, Molotov cocktails, small In the mid-1960s the legal regime of lution had to be explored to the full be- arms and brazen refusal to go quietly into collective bargaining was not quite two fore strikes could be mounted. And those anyone’s good legalistic night. The wild- decades old. A post-World War 2 settle- strikes had to be undertaken with all due cat was the ominous hour of workers’ de- ment linked capital, the state and trade consideration to the rights of all parties, fiant refusal to be made compliant parts unions in a legally-sanctioned system capital and the state included. Most cru- of the machine of class collaboration. It that recognized and regulated collective complicates our understanding of the bargaining for the first time in Canadian labour movement’s long march of “prog- history. Most trade union leaders regarded Wildcat strikes were ress” and the outcomes that this produced the compromises of “industrial legality” relatively spontaneous for workers. as great victories for workers. They knew The Demography of Dissent well the hostility of powerful employers expressions of discontent to workers’ collective rights, and they had with the job and the failure New Left uprisings and campus rebel- fought for decades to win the securities of collective bargaining to lion in the 1960s were often attributed and protections of legal bargaining. Many to the post-World War 2 baby boom. had experienced first-hand the violence address specific concerns. Youth culture stamped the decade with of scabs, hired thugs and police, and felt much that was new and transformative. the sting of a justice system that valued The teenager was recognized as a potent property over people. cially, the bedrock of the post-war settle- cultural force, a new market for capital- As the post-war settlement aged, it ment was that no strike could take place ism’s acquisitive individualism to tap and thus separated a growingly restive and in- during the life of a collective agreement. even – with escalating fears of ostensibly creasingly youthful rank-and-file from a If workers violated this “first rule” of legal rampant juvenile delinquency – as a chal- leadership layer of trade unionists whose collective bargaining, their unions were lenge to society itself. Rebellious youth, loyalties to the new legal regime were so- subject to potentially bankrupting finan- for some commentators, managed to re- lidified in the material trappings of an age cial penalties and workers’ leaders could place cold war communists as the major of affluence – bigger paycheques, expan- be jailed. threat to the “free world.” sive consumerism and seemingly settled To wildcat, in the mid-1960s, was to In the unions too, youth figured force- class relations. It was perhaps not acciden- strike a blow against the post-war settle- fully. The Canadian labour force grew tal that this history unfolded as commu- ment from inside the house of labour. younger over the course of the 1960s. nists were driven from the trade unions in Wildcat strikes were relatively spontane- Wage earners in the 14 to 24 age brackets a labour equivalent of the cold war. ous expressions of discontent with the job increased dramatically as a percentage of These developments were paralleled, and the failure of collective bargaining to the workforce. Male youth, in particular, moreover, by the bureaucratization of address specific concerns. Like all strikes were especially likely to be dependent on unions. More and more reliance was they were, to be sure, fundamentally di- wage work. The expansion of the univer- sities by 1965 had not yet really drawn Bryan Palmer is the author of a number of books on labour and the left, the most recent being James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928. He is in the Canadian the sons and daughters of the working Studies program at Trent University, and his next book is entitled Canada’s 1960s: The Ironies of class into the classrooms of higher edu- Identity in a Rebellious Era. cation. Men, as opposed to women, were

30 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 ficial statistics exactly how many of these strikes were wildcats, precisely because many such illegal work stoppages were never formally recorded. But at the least the number of wildcats approached 500 and comprised anywhere from 20 to 50 Women postal percent of all work stoppages. Official workers made gains statistics gathered from Ontario in 1966 after the landmark concede that 27 percent of the strikes in postal wildcat strike the province were illegal, having been launched during the life of a collective

. ca of 1965. agreement. cupw Striking Against the Union

not expected to spend their lives caring all now, but we are starting something. What shocked the partners in the post- for family members. They were bread- It’s the young guys that are responsible war settlement – labour leaders, employ- winners in the making. for this. They started it. … It’s a new gen- ers and state functionaries, be they politi- To be young and working-class in the eration.” cians, judges or police – was the extent to mid-1960s, however, was at best an un- Labour journalists looked at the rank- which many of these strikes were waged settling experience. Young workers faced and-file upheavals of the mid-1960s and in clear opposition to established trade unemployment rates that came close to had no trouble attributing the “new fer- union bureaucracies. doubling those of their older counter- ment” in the unions “to the arrival, for the “Listen to the voice of reason,” one parts. Like all youth of the 1960s, male first time in any numbers, of the young, Steelworker official pleaded, begging workers chaffed under the patriarchal, swinging, questing generation.” A Que- wildcat workers to end their protest and family-based constraints that saw them bec labour activist noted that, “It used allow the union to “get back to the bar- subordinated to fathers. They likened the to be that we waited for orders from the gaining table.” Sarnia and Windsor gas job to the home: someone was always union representative, but that is not the workers undertook an illegal walkout late telling them what to do. One 1968 study way with the young people.” A Steel- in the autumn of 1965, and it stretched of Canadian industrial relations noted worker official confirmed the diagnosis: into the New Year. As it ran its course, “an undeniable tendency in this genera- “It’s completely impossible to give these the union’s entire slate of shop stewards tion to question and challenge authority young people the old hogwash. … You resigned in protest against their labour itself and those in a position to exercise can’t fool them by holding up the bogey officialdom. Canadian Brotherhood of it.” Young workers, like young students, of depression, the old you-ought-to-be- Railway Trainmen leader, J.A. Pelletier, listened to rock bands such as The Who. grateful-to have a job at all… These kids was “booed out of the Point St. Charles In Peter Townshend’s patented stutter won’t take it. They expect to be treated yard when he turned up to urge” 1,900 they discerned the anthem of an era: like human beings.” Montreal rail workers to return to their jobs. He left in a huff. Workers in another “A Plague of Strikes” People try to put us d-down, talking ‘bout wildcat offered an elaboration on their my generation The mid-1960s saw worry in the upper antagonisms: “This is a non-confidence Just because we get around, talking ‘bout echelons of the state that the lid of con- vote (in the union executive), we are tak- my generation tainment was blowing off class relations. ing things into our own hands.” Things they do look awful c-cold, talking In the House of Commons, the minister When Steelworkers Local 1005 Presi- ‘bout my generation of labour deplored the “near epidemic of dent John Morgan and union area super- Hope I die before I get old, talking ‘bout my labour disputes and the hair trigger at- visor Stew Cooke implored wildcat pick- generation. mosphere that attends so many negotia- ets at Hamilton’s massive Stelco works to tions.” The Globe and Mail editorialized in open the gates and return to work, they What this meant in Canada’s unions May 1966 that Canada faced a danger- were shocked by the vehemence with was that young workers were a pow- ous breakpoint, besieged as it was by “a which they were denounced. “We’re fed derkeg ready to explode. When a veteran plague of strikes.” up with you, we don’t want you,” one Manitoba union militant in the railway Officially, the 1965-1966 years count striker jeered in derision at his union yards looked back on the mid-1960s in some 1,150 recognized strikes. Estimated president. Morgan retreated in tears. “It the early 1970s he concluded, “We’ve got working time that evaporated in the heat was an ugly scene,” one official union three enemies, the company, the govern- of class struggle tripled in these years. supporter reported. “They were shouting ment, and the union. We can’t beat them It is difficult to calculate from such of- at us like some of them had gone mad.

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 31 We were lucky to get out of there alive.” union members against their leaders.” As saw the Molotov cocktails, the guns and An invitation by Steelworkers officials to wildcat fever spread, with 12,000 postal the dynamite. The union lost control of picket captains to meet with them and workers walking off the job in one of the the situation. Eventually we took truck- the negotiating committee at the union largest illegal national walkouts, newspa- loads of arms of one kind or another away hall fared no better. Between 200 and per editorials bemoaned “the loss of con- from the picket lines.” 300 angry wildcatters rushed the gather- trol by union leaders.” The list of violent wildcat acts in 1965- ing. Panicked by what they interpreted 1966 was endless. Quebec stevedores The Wildness of the Wildcat as a growing “mob psychology,” union blockaded provincial ports in early June officials called in the police. The strikers Youthful wildcatters were clearly not 1966, stealing cars, driving them to the were incensed. “Get the fuzz out of here. following scripted routines of respectable docks, and then torching and dynamit- This is our hall. They have no right here!” strike behaviour. The battles they waged ing them. A month previously, Mon- screamed one militant. were often wildly out of step with con- treal’s longshore workers, given to acts Deploring the “leaderless, directionless, ventional practices. of vandalism and reputedly stockpiling and futile” battle, the Steelworker bureau- The catalysts for wildcat strikes could dynamite on company property, elicited cracy publicly denounced the “irrespon- be arrestingly mundane. Young auto sible” elements behind the wildcat, with- workers at Chrysler, Ford, and de Havil- drew all official union supports, took to land routinely rebelled against the com- Youthful wildcatters were the radio airwaves to suppress the strike, pany imposing compulsory overtime. and asked the local law and order brigade But when they wildcatted and won the clearly not following to close down all taverns in the vicinity of right to be let off work early to attend a Stelco, thereby depriving the strikers of St. Thomas, Ontario, hockey tournament scripted routines of both venues to meet and places to bolster in which their buddies were playing, it respectable strike behaviour. their bodies with food and drink. was a sign that the times were definitely Unprecedented in the history of Cana- changing. The battles they waged dian class relations, the wildcat wave of So too were young workers increasing- were often wildly out of step 1965-1966 marked a major shift in the ly pugnacious in the face of the law. Faced nature of working-class dissent. An illegal with injunctions prohibiting their illegal with conventional practices. railway striker in Montreal put it clearly: acts, they simply turned their backsides youthful militants were “fed up with ex- to the police and courts. A steelworker cuses from… union leaders.” In British jailed for supporting women strikers at Columbia, electrical workers defied their the Peterborough Tilco works spoke for union’s orders, battled the RCMP as they many when he declared before the 1966 a 500-strong police patrol to restore or- wildcatted, and changed the locks on the Royal Commission to inquire into the der. Teamster wildcats in Ontario were union hall so no international union of- use of labour injunctions and the ten- marred by gunshot, sabotaged trucks and ficials or their own local president could sion-ridden state of Ontario’s class rela- flares thrown into scab rigs. Even small gain access to the building. A 1968 Task tions, “We no longer respect the law.” In strikes, like that of Board of Education Force on Canadian Industrial Relations an act of elevated irony, 100 workers at caretakers in Chelmsford, Ontario, cul- pointed out that worker dissatisfaction in Toronto’s Hiram Walker distillery wild- minated in the blowing up of two cars. the mid-1960s was sometimes running catted when their bosses refused three of In Quebec, this labour violence often “as deeply against the union and collec- their number an opportunity to attend blurred into the indépendentiste cause tive bargaining as against management,” the commission’s hearings. of the Front de Libération du Québec producing a worrisome “rebellion of What was most wild about the wildcat (FLQ) and the Rassemblement pour wave however was the violence that so l’Indépendence Nationale (RIN). The often animated it. Inco workers in Sud- FLQ regularly supported striking work- bury, for instance, armed themselves with ers by detonating bombs and the RIN Voices of 68 lengths of pipe, baseball bats, steel bars was actively involved in the violent 1966 and ominous clubs. Roads were blockad- Dominion Ayers strike at Lachute. A Humanity will only be happy ed, hydro and telephone lines sabotaged, huge solidarity rally was broken up by the day the last bureaucrat is and a supply truck was stopped, over- company guards on “Tear Gas Sunday,” with the crowd tossing Molotov cocktails hanged with the guts of the turned and rolled down an embankment. TheToronto Telegram reported that Inco’s at their adversaries. Even the plywood last capitalist. wildcat strikers carried shotguns and were company’s president had his home at- Wall slogan, Paris 1968 prepared to “take on all comers.” At the tacked as rampaging strikers stoned the end of the strike one official confessed: “I domicile and set its grounds ablaze.

32 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 Politics and Wildcats sociation of Industrial, Mechanical and 1965-1966, had imbibed the lessons of Quebec’s mid-to-late 1960s labour re- Allied Workers (CAIMAW) critiqued Dylan’s lyrics: the unions it grew out of and rallied wor- volt, in which ideas of anti-imperialism Ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm kers to small, but increasingly vocal, al- and Québec nationalism braced old class no more. ternative labour centres. grievances with fresh New Left vocabu- Well, I try my best Young workers thus voiced their re- lary of revolutionary possibility, culmi- To be just like I am, jection of the old union order with the nated in a 1971-1972 Common Front of But everybody wants you embrace of new organizations and visions the increasingly radical CNTU, teachers To be just like them of new political horizons for the workers’ and the Quebec Federation of Labour. A They sing while you slave and I just movement. “They’re backward, conserva- general strike by public sector workers get bored. tive, old, wealthy people living in luxury unfolded. After labour leaders were sen- I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm who have less in common with the avera- tenced to jail terms, many private sector no more. workers joined the struggle. ge guy in the plant than the bosses,” said The politicization of the turmoil in one disgruntled CAIMAW supporter The 1970s would build on develop- class relations was most evident in Que- in Winnipeg of his international union ments like these. Momentous class bec. Some of its hallmarks were the La leadership. A former president of the struggles unfolded, and reached into Presse journalists’ strike of 1964-1965; the Trail Steelworkers proclaimed in 1969, the 1980s. By that date, however, 1960s late 1960s Mouvement de Libération du anti-imperialist antagonism to the war in youthful workers were aging, and new Taxi that battled the Murray Hill Lim- Vietnam much on his mind: “The youn- winds of challenge and change blew ousine Company; and les gars de Lapalme, ger workers, because of the environment against the labour movement and its al- mail truck drivers who took on the federal they’ve been brought up in and seeing lies. Neoliberalism fuelled an assault on government and their own union bureau- the fallacies of their society, these have a the trade unions; the text of possibility cracy. All of this intersected with protests stronger feeling of anti-Americanism. It’s for the workers’ movement was rewritten. at Sir George Williams (now Concordia) there, let’s not kid ourselves, not only in The 1960s promise of a New Left and a against racism led by Caribbean students Canada but all over the world.” new labour movement often seemed sub- and McGill, the target of a movement As the 1960s ended, a new Canadian merged in the stormy seas of the changed to make the university francophone and labour movement had not yet been born material context of a world restructured pro-worker, McGill Français. There were but, to paraphrase poet laureate of the by capitalist retrenchment and the ideol- also massive protests over language issues decade Bob Dylan, the old labour move- ogies of the New Right. But like Marx’s in Montreal’s CÉGEPs. Black writers ment was indeed busy dying. One signifi- “Old Mole,” the passions and politics congresses, anti-Vietnam war demonstra- cant part of this process was that young of the 1960s New Left were never truly workers, tens of thousands of whom cut gone, but merely waiting for the right tions and support for Third World libera- H tion movements and the Black Panthers their class teeth on the wildcat wave of moment to resurface. coincided with labour’s radicalization. In English Canada, the politicization of class struggle in these years often grew out of the youthful wildcat wave. Many young militants found the old internatio- nal unions, headquartered in the United States, unduly staid. They embraced radi- ideas for radical change cal nationalist critiques of the class col- Subscribe today laboration of the bureaucratized labour Canada US leadership and aligned with a dissident 4 issues $20 $25 “breakaway” movement that promised to 8 issues $35 (save $5) $45 (save $5) create more democratic, Canadian-based 12 issues $50 (save $10) $65 (save $10) trade unions. In Hamilton, the Stelco Supporting Add $20 wildcat of 1966 was led by an autonomy group of “young, inexperienced activists” Institutional & overseas international $40/year who parlayed a fusion of popular natio- ALL PRICES IN CANADIAN DOLLARS nalism, militancy, and anti-establishment SEND CHEQUES TO: New socialist bravado into loud attacks on “sell-out” Box 167, 253 College Street contracts and complicity of local and Toronto, Ontario M5T 1R5 international leaders with management. www.newsocialist.org Nationalist bodies like the Canadian As-

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 33 Addressing the Imbalance Anti-colonial & anti-racist struggles of the 60s

The histories of 1968 too often focus on the struggles of white folks in the global north – reducing the struggles of indigenous peoples, African Americans and Third World nations to background or catalysts. To address this imbalance, we present a series of articles reflecting on the crucial role of anti-colonial and anti- racist movements as forces in the social upheaval of the 1960s. We’re unable to fully represent the spectrum of movements, but we are highlighting five of these that follow: the Red Power movement in Canada, the emergence of the Black Power movements in the United States, the struggle for liberation in Palestine, anti-colonial movements in Africa, and the Third World project of, in Vijay Prashad’s words, “disarmament, national sovereignty, economic integrity, and cultural diversity” proposed by many ex-colonies. The civil rights movement and its struggle against the legal and extra-legal racial segregation of African- Americans influenced the early New Left in the Howard Adams, 1967 US. Later the terrain shifted and the Black Power movement proposed a more radical critique of Inspired by Third World anti-colonial movements and the Black Power structural racism. This influenced indigenous radicals movement in the US, Métis activist Howard Adams became a leader in the Canadian state who began to organize around of the Red Power movement in Canada in the 1960s. In 1999-2000, New notions of Red Power. Socialist worked with Adams to reprint several abridged extracts from his Especially in the US, the New Left was born in the book A Tortured People: The Politics of Colonization (1995, with a re- struggle against the Vietnam war and the racism by vised edition published in 1997). Since that time Adams has passed away, which the war was justified. The New Left not only but his radical spirit is kept alive by a new generation of young indigenous developed in reaction against racism and imperialist activists and non-indigenous allies. Here we present again Adams’ reflec- war but stood in solidarity with the revolt of colonized tions on the Red Power movement, along with a selection of responses by people in what was increasingly referred to as the his successors. “Third World.” This period also saw the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the emergence of a revolutionary Palestinian struggle that continues 40 years later. Red Power in the 1960s by Howard Adams The upsurge of the 60s lasted a relatively short period – about 10 years. Many factors led to its decline, both ll Native peoples across Canada, from Vancouver to New external and internal. The anti-war, anti-imperialist and Brunswick, were restless. They were fed up with oppression, anti-racist struggles declined. The Third World project racismA and injustice. They were fed up with being pushed around and lost momentum when the basic tasks of national they were ready to start pushing back. All across the land Indians independence were won. and Métis were talking back to agents of Indian Affairs and Métis Council Administration. “Some Indians and Métis,” wrote Stewart Imperialism has been on the offensive over the last two of the Star Weekly, “the timid, the elderly, the responsible, call this decades. There has certainly been resistance, especially new aggressiveness self-determination; others, bolder, younger and in Latin America. In a very different context than 1968, more determined, call it Red Power.” the next New Left will have to make new connections In the 1960s there was a parallel between Red Power in Canada between imperialism, racism and the multiple injustices and Black Power in the US. When a racial minority people are op- of the capitalist system. H pressed for a lengthy period, despised on racial grounds, they will

34 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 inevitably decide to fight back. Self-righ- Indian leaders were unsure what it would teous Canadians were looking across the involve, what direction it would take, or border and saying to themselves that it how it would eventually end. The only can’t happen here. But what was hap- thing we knew with any certainty was pening in the US was also happening in that our people were no longer willing Canada. Indians and Métis were turning to tolerate exploitation and oppression militant and radical, and proclaiming that in the colonies, ghettos, and reserves. We they had nothing to lose. were demanding political rights and bet- In spite of the widespread protests and ter living conditions. confrontational demonstrators, the his- We needed sufficient food, or as we tory of Indian, Métis and Inuit liberation put it, we wanted to put “bannock and movements during the 1960s and 70s re- lard” on our tables. Our cold, leaking mains hidden from the public. Although shacks needed to be fixed. We demand- there has been an explosion of publica- ed welfare cheques that didn’t leave us tions, written by both aboriginals and begging at the end of each month. But, whites, on the Métis and Indians in the more than that, we needed to be free last 20 years, none includes a discussion from the colonizer’s imprisoning welfare of the Native peoples’ struggles during system. As indigenous peoples of Cana- that important period. The ruling estab- da, we were determined to rid ourselves lishment has hidden this history in order of colonial oppression in every possible Lee Maracle, of Salish and Cree to silence our people and deny us a sense manner. ancestry, became politicized in the 1960s. Her book Bobbi Lee: Indian of power and heritage. Since I was intimately involved with Rebel (1975) is a testimony about When our battle for justice and libera- aboriginal organizations and liberation that experience. tion began in the early 1960s, Métis and struggles in Saskatchewan, I have greater

From A Tortured People by Howard Adams encouraging them to attack us while Protest at the Baldwin Hotel we were demonstrating peacefully. In the 1960s, our people arose manager and the police. They were They came out and taunted us, hurled with confidence and a counter treating us like trash. The tension was profanities, and called the Native consciousness – ideas against the rising and many people in our group women “squaws” and “whores.” The ruling class – and we were prepared were on the verge of smashing the police were also there, waiting with their for aggressive confrontation. Our goal bar in anger and frustration. We left paddy wagons, but not to protect us. was to expose and then discredit racist at that point because the incident, no We concluded the demonstration policies, such as those practiced by the matter how damaging to our pride, did without incident. Afterward, a Baldwin Hotel in Saskatoon. not warrant a major confrontation. complaint was laid under the Fair In August 1972, forty Indians and The Baldwin’s policy to deny Indians Accommodation Practices Act against Métis were refused service one and Métis beer would never be Mr. Beavis, the hotel manager, but as evening at the hotel. As the local condemned by the majority of whites. expected, the white supremacy rulers paper reported, “The situation began We returned to the Friendship and their institutions stuck together. when waiters of the beverage room Centre two blocks away, where we Roy Romanow, then Attorney General, refused to serve anyone of Indian formed a committee to organize a the judge and city police would not origin.” Although we were ignored, demonstration to be held in front of prosecute Mr. Beavis. we did not cause a disturbance. We the hotel the next day. A large group, Nevertheless, the incident was a eventually decided to move to the including white supporters, turned out valuable lesson to the civil rights service bar as a group to demand for the demonstration. Once we began fighters. The action was part of an explanation, but by that time the picketing outside, the hotel stopped learning to manage confrontations. It manager had called the police. serving the white drunks they had highlighted the interlinking network already been pampering most of the The bar was immediately surrounded of the dominant colonizer class and the day. by several policemen. But we were judiciary. It fuelled our determination not intimidated. A few of us made The customers were told that it was to expose Canada’s racist and oppressive H passionate speeches condemning the the Indians’ and Métis’ fault, thereby society.

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 35 knowledge about them than those of RESPONSES TO HOWARD ADAMS other provinces. Consequently, I will fo- cus on Saskatchewan organizations and Legacies of Red Power political confrontations. However, Indian What brought me to thinking and reflecting about the Red Power of Howard and Métis organizations throughout the Adams was his ability to motivate, inspire and lead …. It’s those traditions of nation were quite identical to those of caring for the future, having pride in our respective tribal identities and right Saskatchewan. The one exception in Sas- to the land that will carry us on. katchewan is that the aboriginal libera- Darlene Rose Okemaysim, nehiyaw of Beardy’s and Okemasis First Nation tion struggle was originally more militant Adams’ carefully constructed ideas have been fuel for myself and many others and politically radical than those in other in terms of challenging our thinking and the strategies which we employ to provinces, with the exception of the Mo- change the lives of our people on this land. hawks. Chiinuuks (Ruth Ogilvie), Tla-o-qui-aht and Checlesaht The Federation of Saskatchewan In- of the Nuu-chah-nulth Nation dians represented status Indians, while When I read Howard Adams’ descriptions of the racist, oppressive society the Métis Society, led by Joe Amyote, a of the 1960s, I am struck by how many of those problems persist, despite mainstream Métis, served the province’s generation after generation of indigenous resistance. I don’t know when we southern regions. Amyote sunk the orga- will learn; I don’t know IF we will learn. But this is true: another four decades nization into the mainstream psyche; he is too long to wait and see. Adam Barker supported integration and government domination. In the north, Malcolm Nor- ris and Jim Brady, devout socialists, led alternative ideologies, such as collectivism that we were part of a global revolution the Métis Association. These men had or socialism. The state smothered aborig- against oppression. steered the organization for years, nour- inal peoples’ culture and traditional ways If the ruling power gave us freedom, ishing and politicizing aboriginal issues. of thinking, and then forced us to adopt they could take it back whenever they Rod Bishop, a Métis from Green Lake, a false consciousness. Because colonized wanted. To truly obtain freedom one has and I shared their views and joined them people have been socialized into a state of to own it, and our people could only own to turn Native dissension into a national dependency, they tend to leave important their freedom if they fought and seized democratic movement emphasizing the matters to their leaders. it. Local people must be involved if they politics of self-determination. Although Métis and Indians had oc- wanted local changes; they must become As activists and radical leaders, we op- casionally resorted to local demonstra- part of the solution. Local people should posed traditional tribal chiefs and Mé- tions and confrontations in the past, participate at all levels from strategy tis collaborators who had betrayed the they lacked systematic organization, planning to mass demonstrations. Also, movement. Likewise, we opposed the and strong collaborator-free leadership. it is important to begin the battle where growing class of Native elites allying with To combat this phenomenon, we held there is considerable home support. our enemies – government bureaucrats, study sessions and organized community By concentrating on local issues, we white politicians, and other members of gatherings to discuss critical issues about engaged in confrontations we felt we the corporate elite. Radical Native leaders decolonization in simple terms. We had were sure to win. Neighbourhood activ- advocated socialism. After all, capitalism to tap into our people’s most intense and ists acted as leaders and got a taste of vic- was the system on which we were robbed personal emotions if we were going to tory. Regardless of the prize’s small size, of our lands, resources, and rights. encourage them to actively fight in de- success buoyed and motivated our people Activists like Brady and Norris edu- colonization struggles. Leaders spoke of to continue. We embraced the concepts cated our people about how the state pre- our struggle in the context of imperial- of aboriginal nationalism and the neces- H vented Natives from adopting or forming ism in the Third World. It helped to feel sity for confrontation. Voices of 68 I’m Indian all the way, and always will be. I’m not going to stop fighting until I die, and I hope I’m a good example of a human being and of my tribe. Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, Mi’kmaq activist from Nova Scotia, murdered in 1976 on the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota.

36 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 Interview the Dawn of Black Power Manning Marable is an historian and political scientist at Columbia University who became politically involved in 1968. He went on to help organize the Black Convention Movement during the 1970s and became one of the central figures in the Democratic Socialists of America in the 1980s. Elizabeth Hinton spoke to Marable about the meaning and legacy of 1968 for black American politics.

Civil Rights legislation in the mid-1960s dismantled legal segregation in the US but lent direct action, but one had to admire left many other aspects of racism untouched. In the aftermath, the thrust of African- the courage that it took to live that kind American activism was invested in Black Power. Though there were differences over of committed life, and to be prepared to what Black Power meant, by 1968 many black activists had shifted away from a focus die to realize your objectives. It’s the same on integration and non-violence and agitated instead for self-determination “by any kind of courage that Medgar Evers had, means necessary,” in the words of Malcolm X. that Ella Baker had, Fannie Lou Ham- er had. They may express their politics How does your own political experience on my life. I already had a deep passion through different ideological hues and contribute to the larger political currents for history, but I also made a real com- approaches to the construction of tactics of 1968, but also what you refer to as the mitment to the politics of social change. and strategies to affect change. Neverthe- “Black Freedom Struggle” in your work? Because Martin died standing up for op- less, despite those differences, the com- pressed people and fighting for freedom. mon glue that binds them together is a love and a commitment to freedom for 1968 was a pivotal year in African- You didn’t have to agree with Martin in oppressed people. American social and political history. his strategy or his philosophy of nonvio- Most obviously, it was the moment when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassi- nated. King’s ideological trajectory in the last two years of his life moved him to the forefront of the antiwar movement. Throughout most of his career, Martin pursued a strategy of what I call in my writing “liberal integrationism” – that is, campaigning for the abolition of legal Jim Crow and the expansion of demo- cratic rights to include African-Ameri- cans. But by early 1966, King recognized the limitations of his strategy and began to talk about the necessity for fundamen- tal change in the American economic system. Martin’s death was important in my own life because I was 17 years old at the time, I was a high school senior, and I had a newspaper column that I wrote called “Youth Speaks Out” that appeared in the weekly newspaper in Dayton, Ohio. My mother suggested that it would be a good idea for me to fly to Atlanta to cover The Poor People’s March was organized by the Southern Christian Leadership the funeral. The experience of attending Conference. The march arrived in Washington DC in May 1968. King’s funeral had a profound impact

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 37 You have called black Americans the “or- Some Black Power groups or sexuality, it doesn’t say anything about phans of American democracy.” Your work their politics. It just says they share that has explored issues that arise around what were explicitly Marxist aspect of identity with you. And so iden- it means to live as an “orphan” in the United and socialist, others were tity politics forty years ago was, I suppose, States. I’m wondering how 1968 and Mar- an advance over what had occurred be- tin Luther King’s assassination represents not. But what they had in fore, which was white men in charge. But we didn’t realize the limitations of race a turning point between black Americans common was a rejection of and the larger polity? identity politics at that time would lead structural racism root and us to Clarence Thomas, or Condoleezza To grapple with this we have to go back Rice – the face of imperialism. to the summer of 66, when Stokely Car- branch, and they demanded 1968 was a pivotal moment because michael began to call for Black Power all of these ideological debates occurred during the James Meredith March in black representation that and new formations emerged. In Octo- Mississippi. There was a debate in the would be roughly equal ber 66 the Black Panther Party formed in movement over whether or not whites an anti-poverty office in Oakland, Cali- should withdraw from the movement to the size of the black fornia. In 68 you get the emergence of and go back to the white community and population in the country what I feel is far more important than the pursue antiracist strategies with whites. Black Panther Party, which is the whole Should African-Americans develop all- within existing institutions. phenomenon of revolutionaries and black black institutions and essentially carry Marxists and black radicals in Detroit’s out a nationalist-oriented approach to- auto industry forming DRUM (the ward capacity building within the black National Urban League, and even young- Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement), community; that is, all-black institutions, er groups like the Southern Christian FRUM (the Ford Revolutionary Union black leadership, community-controlled Leadership Conference. These older civil Movement), the Eldon Avenue Revolu- schools, etcetera? What should the atti- rights formations were concerned with tionary Union Movement, which came social reform within the existing frame- together in 1969 to form the League of tude of the Black Freedom Struggle be work of the American political economy Revolutionary Black Workers. By the end toward the Vietnam War? Was there a of capitalism. The new formations that of 1969, the League became a coalition link between international issues and do- erupted after the dawn of Black Power of about 23 revolutionary black workers mestic issues, as Malcolm X had said and were talking about basic change, insti- collectives around the country. Which is [African-American sociologist W.E.B.] tutionally, across the board within the an extraordinary event, and really an un- Du Bois (1868-1963) had argued? United States. derstudied event, primarily because of its All of these debates crystallized around Some Black Power groups were ex- radical character. There were other for- the development of new plicitly Marxist and socialist, others were mations that ideologically I don’t agree formations that had a not. But what they had in common was with, but nevertheless need to be noted. radically different a rejection of structural racism root and Probably the most prominent was in the orientation­ from older branch, and they demanded black rep- US. Maulana Karenga, who had at one organizations like resentation that would be roughly equal point been Ron Everett, formed an orga- the NAACP, the to the size of the black population in the nization on the West Coast in Los An- country within existing institutions. In geles based around his Kawaida theory other words, the way we put it as high of social change, which was grounded in school kids: “we wanted a black face in a cultural nationalism. high place.” We wanted somebody who There are these new cultural and ideo- looked like us in positions of authority. logical and political forms that are all over And we protested to achieve black faces in 1968. There’s a presidential election in high places. What I today in my writ- that’s occurring, and there is an African- ing call “symbolic representation.” American candidate in the race: Charlie Unfortunately, symbolic representation Mitchell, the first black presidential can- became a terrible trap. Not just for blacks, didate of the CPUSA [Communist Party but for feminists, for lesbians and gays, for of the USA] fielded. But other than mi- Latinos, for Native Americans. Because, nor party candidates, African-Americans Many African-American women were if you simply demand that the system ac- did follow the presidential election. It active in radical Black Power politics commodate you by having people who was significant to us because it was the during the late 1960s and early 1970s. are your gender, or your race, or ethnicity, first time in US history where the major-

38 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 Right: Martin Luther King Jr. (far right) on his last march, during the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, March 1968. Below: Ella Baker, a leading civil rights and human rights activist, first began organizing in the 1930s.

ity of black adults nationwide voted in a presidential election. And that’s because we weren’t allowed to before that time. As a person who was 18 years old, in- volved in antiwar activity, and also a jour- issues and interests, independent of the nalism student, it was quite a remarkable tion. But what are we voting for? We have three major candidates. Hubert Hum- Democrats and the Republicans. Those moment. It forced everyday folk to see of us who thought about it more deeply politics differently, because the extremes phrey, representing the Democrats, who doesn’t win any primaries but is hoisted as said we need a pre-party formation. We’re were not abstract. They were real, in front not prepared to launch a party. We don’t the national nominee from party leaders of them. There were, you know, hun- have the infrastructure, the resources. But in smoke-filled rooms. You have Nixon, dreds of people dying in Vietnam every- a pre-party formation. Let’s build it upon representing the Republicans, who is the day. There was popular resistance on the the historic black convention movement only Presidential candidate who endorses ground, by everyday folk, about “What that began at Bethel AME church of Black Power – but he redefines it as black are the politics of imperialism?” “What Richard Allen in Philadelphia in Sep- are the politics of organizing?” capitalism. And there is a right wing in tember 1830, when blacks in the north the black movement that embraces and discussed strategies for liberating sisters Your undergraduate and graduate years endorses Nixon. Then there’s a third and brothers who were enslaved in the occurred during 1968-1976, the precise movement of American reaction, almost south and talked about practical ways to years you have called the “high point of na- fascism, that is expressed by George Wal- enhance and improve the quality of life tionalism and radical consciousness.” I’m lace. It was a very narrow victory for Nix- for free blacks in northern cities. wondering how 1968 goes on to shape the on. And so, we were faced with a right A group of us black activists said, “Let’s politics of the 70s, and I’m interested in the wing regime that had absolutely no com- revive the convention movement. And links that you see between being a student mitment of leaving Vietnam despite his let’s have a convention in Gary, Indiana in those formative years, the black conven- promises to the contrary. calling for the creation of a pre-party tion movement and the politics of 68. For African Americans to bear witness formation.” The masses of people would to the 68 election, to vote in that election, come out, and we would discuss popular In 68, you have this fundamental contra- we realized we had nothing to vote for. It issues that impact people, and we would diction for black Americans. It’s the first was unbelievably bittersweet. So many of try through workshops to frame a peo- time in US history that the majority of us us said: what we need is a black political ple’s agenda. Then we would interrogate actually can vote in a Presidential elec- party that represents African-American candidates for public office on their sup-

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 39 That’s a legacy of 68. people who had been in the CPUSA. cans to understand their own class inter- For all of its contradictions, people in the ests. That has been central to the failure Because 68 generated Party had enormous strengths and could of radical social change in this country a generation of black have provided real support and helpful for nearly 400 years. African-Americans insights that we could have used to our have consistently fought for the idea of radicals who were benefit. But we did not. In part because America free from structural racism, and convinced that black we were cut away from any kind of per- a politics that speaks to the material con- sonal and ideological kinship. Thanks to ditions that people live in daily life, re- politics should be anti- McCarthyism in the 1950s, that became gardless of the color of their skin. obliterated for our generation. That is a politics I have also pursued. capitalist and anti-racist. The possibility of moving beyond where One of the biggest debates on the legacy of we are electorally, toward a politics in port for the people’s agenda, and throw Black Power revolves around when the which corporate capitalism is seriously these politicians in front of the masses in Movement ended. Despite the fact that the examined. Where questions of what a school gymnasium, and vote them up currents of 1968 and Black Power endure people should have a right to expect, or vote them down. And our task as or- in lives such as yours, in various intellectual both as citizens and human beings in this ganizers was to go with the person the and political work of activists and schol- polity, where those kinds of questions masses wanted. ars, how can we think about Black Power’s can be discussed. Where Robin Kelley’s It was kind of rudimentary, straight-up decline, and where might we see its legacy Freedom Dreams could be placed on the grassroots, populist politics. Deeply egal- today? national table. All of that seems possible. itarian, but crude. But its heart was in the But it will only happen if we open the door a bit to the possibility of a different right place. So in 72, about 8,500 people When [former U.S. President Ronald] kind of political discussion. showed up at Gary. They embraced what Reagan won the presidential election in I believe it’s going to happen. And that in my mind is one of the most visionary November 1980, he ushered in a thor- will allow us to raise questions that social- and radical documents that black people oughly reactionary regime. There was a ists and Marxists have raised for a long have ever produced: the Gary Agenda. response by the black middle class that time about the ways in which people who The preamble says that America is built I did not fully anticipate: a series of radi- on the twin evils of white racism and do the work and create value in society can cal reforms, challenges to Reaganism capitalism and that the task of the Black benefit from that value. That health care that assumed mostly electoral forms. Freedom Struggle is to destroy both. So should be a fundamental human right. The three most important protests were it commits to a black politics that is ex- That black men die seven years earlier linked to Harold Washington’s victory plicitly anti-racist and anti-capitalist. We than white males in this country. That in in Chicago as mayor; the [ Jesse] Jackson have retreated a long way from that. But Harlem, life expectancy is 49, lower than that’s what thousands of black people Campaign [for president] in 84, which in Bangladesh. Those kinds of questions embraced in 1972. was much more progressive then the one can be pursued under Obama. It won’t be That’s a legacy of 68. Because 68 gener- of 88; and in late 84 the anti-apartheid the revolution but it will be an environ- ated a generation of black radicals who movement, which was civil disobedience. ment where politically engaged people were convinced that black politics should Over 100,000 people went to jail across will be able to function without the heavy be anti-capitalist and anti-racist. We were the country. Thousands of businesses hand of state repression on them. And were picketed and hundreds of schools it will be an opportunity to do more to using electoral forms for the purposes of H empowering black folk against a racist, were shut down, calling for divestment achieve the values that we hold. capitalist state. So we were involved in re- from apartheid South Africa. Ultimately formist politics but for revolutionary pur- that led to the international sanctions, Recommended Reading poses, or so we thought. All of us were in and US sanctions, and an end to Reagan’s Manning Marable, Race, Reform, and our 20s, or early 30s, which became one of so-called “constructive engagement” Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and the problems in the movement. Because policy with South Africa. So there was Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006. of McCarthyism, we had been discon- a period that flowed out of the politics of nected from a generation of people who 1980 that actually revived a kind of polit- Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The were much wiser than we were, who had ical engagement against the Right in the Black Radical Imagination. had a wealth of experience in doing polit- mid-eighties. But that did not last. ical organizing who came out of the labor In the United States, racism and race Peniel Joseph, Waiting ‘Til the Midnight movement in the 30s and the 40s. There have been so central to blocking the Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power was also a disconnect between us and the awareness of millions of white Ameri- in America.

40 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 Interview Palestine Struggle at the Crossroads he Palestinian national liberation struggle is at a crossroads – the Oslo PLO and given observes status at the Tprocess, clearly designed to cement the Israeli Apartheid system – has yielded Arab League. devastating results. The leading Palestinian nationalist party, Fatah, is implicated in the failing negotiations, while Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Party, managed to win the elections on a rejection vote of Fatah and the failings of Oslo. In this situation, After the initial formation, the PLO un- the role of the Palestinian left has been confused. As the Islamist movement gains derwent a major transition to become more strength, the Left is losing more ground and entrenching itself further in the NGO independent of the Arab League – how did (non-governmental organizations) sector. this take place? In addition to the PLO, Palestin- Below Rafeef Ziadah interviews Issam Al-Yamani who provides an historical appraisal of one of Palestine’s leading left groups, the Popular Front for the ians had since 1948 began to form un- Liberation of Palestine (PLFP), and describes the dramatic changes that took place in derground groups and guerrilla branches. the Middle East during the 1960s and 70s. The Arab Nationalist Movement came with the suggestion to Shukairi that the PLO finance guerrilla operations taking place under the banner of “Heroes of Re- How did the early formation of the Pales- turn.” Shukairi essentially said he would tine Liberation Organization (PLO) take finance the operations, but they would place? stay under the control of the ANM. The In 1964 the Arab League met in PLO would endorse the operations and Cairo and discussed the formation of a this line of work if it goes well, but would Palestinian organization to represent the condemn it if it failed. interests of the Palestinian people. At the The PLO generally allied itself with time they assigned Ahmad Shukairi to the Egyptian leader Nasser but 1967 was come up with a proposal on how to es- The logo of the Popular Front for the a major transition when Egypt was de- tablish such an organization within three Liberation of Palestine symbolizes the feated in the 1967 war. Then the PLO months. Shukairi was well known as a return home of Palestinian refugees. emerged as an alternative to the Arab Palestinian patriot before the Nakba of regimes and armed resistance tactics and 1948 and was former ambassador of Syr- “fedayee (freedom fighter) operations” ia and Saudi Arabia at the UN [United (its Palestinian, Syrian and Iraqi wings), were quickly becoming the norm and Nations]. [Nakba means disaster and is the the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM, rallying the masses. People had lost faith Palestinian term for the expulsion from their the Palestinian section of which later de- in regimes and started to believe more homes of thousands of Palestinians when the veloped to be the Popular Front for the strongly in the Fatah option of relying on Israeli state was established in 1948-ed.] Liberation of Palestine), unions and busi- oneself and using armed struggle as the Questions of control over the PLO nessmen were present. Also, prominent sole means for liberating Palestine. quickly arose between the Nasser front refugees who were well known prior to The shifts in Palestinian politics were – supporters of Egyptian president Ga- the Nakba were chosen to be representa- starting to develop before 1967, but the mal Abdul Nasser who backed a vision of tives at the PNC as well. war really made the differences very stark Arab nationalism – and the Saudi front. At this initial meeting the national for Palestinians. The Arab National- In October 1964 the first Palestinian program was set, the Palestinian Libera- ist Movement (with branches all across National Congress (PNC) was convened tion Army was established and the Pal- the Arab world) developed a Palestinian in Jerusalem – then under Jordanian con- estinian National Fund. The army came wing in 1962, but had allied themselves trol. Representatives from Palestinian under the control of each state it existed with Nasser. So when the defeat of 1967 political parties such as the Baath Party within. Shukiri was elected head of the came, it had ramifications for them, in- ternally causing a crisis and debate about Issam Al-Yamani is a long-time Palestinian activist and former cadre of the PFLP. Rafeef Ziadah is a third generation Palestinian refugee and activist with the Coalition Against Israeli the future direction of Arab nationalism. Apartheid (CAIA). Fatah on the other hand had managed to

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 41 be seen as an independent body that had the only point to its existence. As such it liberation and Marxism. The PFLP was no relation to the defeat. They also had attracted activists from the Baath party, mainly influenced by Maoism because of a political line of not interfering in Arab Nasserites, Muslim Brotherhood, but also the idea of a mass base of peasants (more regimes and keeping the focus on Pales- accommodated a large number of rich similar to Palestinians than the classical tine. The ANM has the fight against re- Palestinians who had extensive influence definition of working class). actionary Arab regimes as one of its basic inside the organization. Fatah, because it But even the newly formed PFLP principles, believing that without Arab was not in the Nasser camp, also had ma- could not shake off the association of the unity the Palestinian people cannot be jor support from the Saudi camp. Arab Nationalist Movement to Nasser liberated and that change was needed in The Arab Nationalist Movement un- and the defeat of 1967. Also, the adop- the entire Arab world for change to occur derwent an intense debate after the de- tion of Marxism made it difficult for in Palestine. feat of Nasser, and its Palestinian wing Palestinian masses to readily join the So for the Palestinian masses, though was embroiled in a debate about Marx- organization because the ideology was the ANM were the first to begin guerrilla ism as well. The debate initially started in complex, whereas Fatah didn’t really ask operations, they were too connected to 1964 and continued on until the forma- anything of its members except to fight the defeat of Nasser and had Arab unity, tion of the Popular Front for the Libera- for Palestine. rather than strictly Palestine, as their basis. tion of Palestine in 1968. The argument Within the PLO, quotas were set up Between 1965 and 1967 Fatah grew inside from the Marxist wing was that the or- for each faction and Fatah tried its best the refugee camps. It led the armed strug- ganization cannot depend solely on na- to secure the most quotas over all other gle and became the largest Palestinian par- tionalism for the liberation of Palestine, factions. For example, Fatah bribed the ty. When the next elections for the PLO but had to work on organizing the work- leadership of the unions which were the took place, Fatah took the largest number ing classes and peasantry across the Arab traditional base of the Arab Nationalist of seats and Arafat was elected head. world. Much of this debate was inspired Movement or otherwise formed their own separate unions. Slowly the two How did the different factions of the Pales- by the international wave of left politics that was sweeping across the Arab world wings – the nationalist Fatah and left tinian National Movement differ ideologi- at the time. Also, Cuba was a major cata- PFLP – became embroiled in rival cam- cally? lyst for the transition of the ANM to the paigns of institution-building. The PFLP Fatah purposely lacked an ideol- PFLP because it showed that there did would quickly lose that battle because ogy, it saw the liberation of Palestine as not have to be a conflict between national it did not have the funding from Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian capitalist class that was emerging in the Gulf. For ex- ample the PFLP struggled against the monarchy in Jordan, took a stand against Saddam’s killing of communists in Iraq – those types of stands cost it funding.

The historical goal of the PLO was for a one state solution and the right of return for Palestinian refugees, but this is a little known fact nowadays and most people think the two-state solution has always been what Palestinians have been seeking. Can you tell us about how this transition Palestine Occupied Palestinian from calling for a one state to two state oc- before 1948 West Bank areas curred? and Gaza 2005 1967 Yes, most people date the accept- ance of a two-state solution to the Oslo peace process, however the PLO leader- ship started making moves in that direc- tion back in 1974. Unfortunately it was a left faction within the PLO – the Demo- cratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine [DFLP] – that opened up the doors for

42 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 a two state solution to be discussed. The DFLP put forward a “transitional pro- gram” that said we need to liberate even a small section of Palestine and then work towards full liberation. Fatah saw this as a major opening and produced the famous Declaration of 10 points that stated that the liberation of a small part of Palestine is acceptable as a transitional demand. The PFLP rejected this plan, considering it capitulation to Zionist and imperial- Palestinian ist demands and an implicit acceptance refugees of resolutions 242 and 338 that divided are one of up Palestine into two states. This caused the largest displaced a major rift in the PLO with the PFLP alestine populations forming the rejectionist front to combat in the world. the trend towards a two state solution. Two out of From that point forward the PLO every five leadership, now fully controlled by Fatah refugees kept making attempts at a short term so- today are lution until reaching Oslo. Palestinian. A merican M uslims F or P

The Palestinian left was not able to mount It was clear the Madrid talks were go- tion was continuing. It was clear Pales- opposition to the signing of the Oslo agree- ing nowhere and there was a change in tinians didn’t have negotiating power and ments, though they rejected it? What were Israel with a new Labour Party govern- were accepting all Israeli dictates. PFLP the causes for rejection? ment headed by Rabin. Secret meetings formed a rejectionist front with other began to happen between the PLO and Palestinian factions to oppose Oslo (fac- After the fall of the Soviet Union Israel. It was those talks that ended up tions included Hamas and Islamic Jihad). (a major backer for the Palestinian left) with Oslo. Israel recognized the PLO The PFLP did not run for elections or and after the Gulf war with the sweeping as the representative of the Palestinian join the Palestinian Authority (this stance US victory, there was a new US plan for people and signed the Oslo principles; was changed later after Oslo became a re- the region that involved “settling the Pal- this included the acceptance of UN reso- ality on the ground). Some PFLP leaders estinian problem.” First the PLO went lutions 242 and 338 and gave five years did return to the West Bank after Oslo, into the Madrid talks with Israel. Those for Israel to leave the occupied territories but were clear that return after Oslo does lasted for one year and were led by Hai- starting with Gaza and Jericho. The Oslo not mean an acceptance of it. dar Abdul Shafi. He then declined and accords called for Palestinian elections On the popular level, after the Gulf said that he cannot proceed while the – the Palestinian Authority [PA] was cre- War and fall of the Soviet Union, the settlements continued to be built – it was ated – and an economic agreement was masses were hopeful that Oslo would mute to negotiate over land while Israel signed in Paris between both sides. yield results. Also, there was some eco- continued to steal more of it for settle- The PFLP responded to this by leav- nomic return from Oslo with Palestinian ment construction. At the time the PLO ing the executive committee of the PLO. capital returning from the Gulf. After was not directly involved, Israel requested It was clear that 78 percent of historic its return, the PLO leadership voted to that there be no PLO leadership direct Palestine was given up and there was no change the Palestinian national declara- involvement and that all negotiators be clear resolutions on issues of water, refu- tion of principles to give up armed strug- from the West Bank. gees, borders; and settlement construc- gle as a means of liberating Palestine. The PFLP voted against this, but lost the vote. This has to be put in context though; It was clear Palestinians didn’t have negotiating power the PLO had been corrupted for decades and were accepting all Israeli dictates. The PFLP formed a before Oslo came. Arafat was signing up “independents” to fill the independent rejectionist front with other Palestinian factions including quotas within the PLO and stacking Hamas and Islamic Jihad to oppose Oslo. meetings with Fatah members. The influ- ence of Gulf money on the PLO was very

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 43 acute. Also, Fatah placed itself in control darity with Palestine in the west – were unfortunately spent a lot of energy com- of PLO finances. For a people in exile severely weakened. So essentially the peting with Fatah over service provision, this was a very corruptive measure. PFLP, one of the only left groups that instead of focusing on their own strategy was clearly rejecting Oslo, came under and building their own base. Many think that the second Palestinian In- siege internationally. The PLO itself was now fully led by a comprador bourgeoi- tifada was the rejection of the Oslo process, How do you see the situation today? sie that had gone down the path of Oslo, what changed in the internal dynamics of but could not finish it and had not built a Nowadays we cannot ignore the the PLO and Palestinian factions with the plan B to combat it. strong neoliberal current pushing its way second Intifada? through the occupied territories led by In 2000 the Intifada started when What are important lessons you think can the Palestinian Authority. The PA is pro- it became clear that Arafat could not sign be learned from the experience of the PFLP posing to cut workers pay, cut subsides the final deal offered by the Israelis and within the PLO? on goods. This coincides with the corrupt the Americans. In the view of the PFLP, PA leadership that has permitted itself An important factor is that ide­ Arafat actually took a stand and made sole distributor status over certain goods. ology; specifically Marxism cannot and sure the negotiations failed. The PFLP For example, Ahmad Qreia (prominent should not be treated like dogma. The began to see Oslo as a reality and, from PLO leader and Oslo supporter) has 246 PFLP adopted Marxism without mak- within its cadre in the West Bank, there products for which he is the sole dis- ing it relevant to the mass of Palestinians was pressure to join the PA institutions tributor. Abu Mazen’s children have the – so initially Fatah was able to capture and run in municipal elections. Activists major advertising company in the West and build its reputation on a simple idea saw that they could have a measure of Bank for most products. The current PA of “fighting for Palestine.” But Marxism influence in changing these institutions is led by technocrats that do not have the is not a ready-made ideology to just be and wanted to fight the corruption and liberation of Palestine as their goal. As a transplanted; it’s a tool to be used in ana- fight for accountability from within. But matter of fact, they are the major benefi- lyzing different situations. The religion this was a fierce debate within the PFLP ciaries of Oslo and thus are refusing to because the traditional cadre saw this as let it go even when it’s clear the nego- a form of acceptance of Oslo since these An important factor is tiations are going nowhere. That is why institutions were set up as Apartheid ap- that ideology, specifically the campaign for boycott, divestment and paratus to control the population. They sanctions (BDS) is a clear way to combat were not set up for democratic control. Marxism, cannot and this trend towards normalization with Unfortunately during Oslo, the Pales- Apartheid Israel. tinian left and PFLP in particular were should not be treated It is not just the national struggle in in crisis and could not respond. There was like dogma. Palestine, but also the class struggle that a money crisis with the fall of the Soviet is heating up. The left unfortunately (like Union and other Arab regimes ending the left internationally) is embroiled in question for example was very important their funding. There was also the phenom- sectarian divides over matters of leader- in the context of the Middle East. It was enon of non-governmental organizations ship. The Palestinian people though are an Islamic society the PFLP was operat- that swallowed up most of the activists of looking for an alternative. Hamas is not the first Intifada. Those NGO’s were not ing in. There had to be respect for cultural offering a long-term plan and the PA is sites of political organizing, rather they traditions. Just a blanket rejection of God offering never-ending negotiations as Is- were channeling the political organizing does not work; the left cannot impose rael continues to confiscate land. So the into service provision and were of course its own rules and laws onto the society time is truly ripe for a left alternative to under funding restrictions by foreign do- without changing the material condi- rise with its basis being anti-normaliza- H nors. These changes during Oslo made it tions that cause people to uphold religion tion and BDS. difficult for the left to respond and made so strongly. [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions – ini- it difficult to revive the mass base that ex- But we also should not underestimate isted during the first Intifada. the material conditions working against tiated in 2005 on the basis of a call-out by After September 11, of course, things the PFLP. We had a revolution led by a over 170 Palestinian grassroots organiza- became even harder for the PFLP when bourgeoisie that relied heavily on Gulf tions - is an international campaign that it was added to the terrorism list in North money and worked to corrupt the revolu- has been gaining momentum in the past few America. Its cadre was targeted and their tion. Not to say that part of this corrup- years. To find out more about the campaign operations – which through the 70s and tion didn’t reach the PFLP as well, but it here in Canada, visit the Coalition Against 80s were the pillars of international soli- was to a much lesser degree. The PFLP Israeli Apartheid at www.caiaweb.org-ed]

44 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 Pan-Africanism and National Liberation At the hub of global solidarity by Pablo Idahosa

orty years on, 1968 would appear to All of these protests were the humiliating “Six-Day War” against Fbe a genuine historical watershed. expressions of deeply linked Israel that highlighted the emerging fail- Numerous world events exploded and ures of President Nasser’s state capitalist fused into what seems to be, in retrospect, global processes of capitalist regime. This was combined with wider a part of something seamlessly global in accumulation and reproduction. political repression that would presage significance. While no doubt 1968 au- similar developments in other parts of gured many things for Africa, it did not Africa and the Middle East. In the case always seem to be the spark for rebellion, In Cape Town and other parts of of Senegal, the students revolted against let alone revolution, that one might have apartheid South Africa, white students naked French neo-colonial economic and wanted it to be. on the left along with others of a more educational policies while feeding off To be sure, there were specific events liberal inclination were influenced by the grievances of both workers and peasants, that took on the inflection of, as some- events in Paris, by the assassination of the latter of whom had seen producer one once put it, the 20th century’s most Martin Luther King (and for other rea- prices fall by 15 percent in the space of political year. Vietnam on the one side sons, Robert Kennedy), and by the mes- a year. The South African Apartheid ex- and the invasion of Czechoslovakia on sage of racial equality, civil rights and civil ample speaks for itself. disobedience. At the same time, Steve the other provided, in so many contradic- Pessimism tory ways, a Third Worldist solidarity, a Biko, who would emerge as a key leader non-aligned way of avoiding what Wash- of the Black Consciousness Movement, All of these protests were expressions of ington or Moscow prescribed. This was was absorbing and synthesizing Pan-Af- deeply linked global processes of capital- true even where African states continued ricanism. Biko, along with his wife and ist accumulation and reproduction. They to enjoy the benefits of partially align- collaborator Ntsiki Mashalaba, devel- were expressed through local responses to ing themselves to one superpower, while oped a message of black power and black specific forms of exploitation and repres- exploiting the tension between both. In consciousness as an indigenous, black sion. They also arose from broader Afri- the context of this Third World solidar- African movement towards liberation in can conditions, speaking to the failure of, ity, students developed a conception of the face of then-S.A. president Vorster’s or at the very least the pessimism about, imperialism that also critiqued their own Apartheid regime. nationalism and development as the ruling classes. Each of the African mobilizations also twin pivots of Africa’s modernity. Hav- had its local inspiration. In Egypt, it was ing recently emerged from colonialism Emerging Activism The events in Paris had intellectual Voices of 68 resonance, and in some instances inspired practical demonstrations of solidarity. In Egypt for example, there were student Always bear in mind that people are demonstrations. Students, especially not fighting for ideas, for the things those who had studied in Paris and had in anyone’s head. They are fighting to read Mao, Althusser and Marcuse, among others, were excited by the possibility of win material benefits, to live better an alliance with workers. In Dakar, there and in peace, to see their lives go were demonstrations against the Senghor forward, to guarantee the future of government by students and in favour of workers and peasants, with some recipro- their children. cal action by workers and trade unionists. Amílcar Cabral., liberation leader in Guinea Bissau and Capo Verde Pablo Idahosa is the Program Coordinator of African Studies at York University in Toronto.

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 45 to national independence, many African across Africa and throughout the world. liberation and Pan-Africanism that had countries were exposed to a combina- Anti-imperialist activists were inspired been lost to the ravages of imperialism tion of failed leadership and imperialist to engage in lively debates and activism and local petty bourgeois class collabora- ambition. These realities thwarted moves in support of the anti-apartheid struggle tion and/or self-interest. Although their towards addressing the needs of ordi- in South Africa, other Southern African views were often hidden from the ho- nary people across so many countries on liberation struggles in Zimbabwe and rizons of mainstream nationalism, they the continent. Increasingly, other forms Namibia, and those across the Portuguese would eventually come to embody the re- of conflict and class self-interest in the colonies in Africa. Dar el Salaam, in Tan- newal of the claims of national liberation name of nationalism became the norm. zania, was one of the local launching pads and the revival of radical politics in vari- In the two years preceding 1968, a for these struggles. ous parts of the continent and beyond. number of military coups had taken place In 1968 Amílcar Cabral in Guinea Bis- This radical revival, along with the new in West Africa, including the imperial- sau and Cape Verde, and Eduardo Mod- reception of the theories of Franz Fanon, ist-sponsored putsch against the radical lane in Mozambique, two of the more in- would galvanize a generation of global nationalist and pan-Africanist Kwame novative nationalists and socialists, each activists, some of whom directly and indi- Nkrumah, just nine years into Ghana’s made important declarations about the rectly participated in these struggles – as independence. 1968 was two years after revolutionary content of their socialism. observers, translators, teachers, and as in- the coup in Nigeria, Africa’s most popu- Both set out key ideas about the role of formational conduits to the wider world, lous country, that augured the bloodiest socialism, its leadership and its popular especially the advanced capitalist coun- civil war in Africa beginning in 1969. legitimacy rooted in the everyday experi- tries. One of the legacies of the 1960s was With over a million people killed, this ences of the people. These were developed an age of international solidarity and the civil war laid open the terrible example through a carefully engaged and empa- critique of narrow nationalism. of the “pitfalls of national consciousness,” thetic scrutiny of people’s own expres- International Solidarity to use the theorist Franz Fanon’s memo- sions of their everyday needs. They also rable phrase. emphasized the need for cultural renewal, In Africa, 1968 was a signal year for a a “return to the source” for Africans that longer period of change that was genu- Liberation in Southern Africa went beyond national integration. These inely global in scope. Today, much of this The same time period, however, also went along with Biko’s later interventions legacy might appear to be lost in the de- saw the pronouncement of the Arusha for an end to “mental slavery” under colo- tritus of being the weak link in the chain Declaration by the social democratically nial domination. of globalizing neo-liberal capitalism. inspired President Nyerere of Tanzania Cabral and Modlane based their ap- Right now, it might seem difficult, even (1967). This was the declaration of a so- proach upon a foundation of struggle impossible, to imagine the African con- called indigenous (and ultimately failed) that was a response to narrow national- tribution to the heritage of the 1960s. form of non-capitalist development. This ism and authoritarian forms of socialism We are living now in an age when non-marxist form of socialism, along that influenced the first wave of indepen- there is so much talk of an exhausted or with the liberation struggles in Southern dence struggle in the late 1950s and early failed nationalism, where much of Africa Africa, inspired a generation of activists 1960s. They revived the spirit of national is part of the new pact with imperialism and securitization in the wake of 9/11, and when there is actually a growth in sectors of the African ruling classes be- cause of the resource rents derived from

www the expansion of China’s rapacious state capitalism. This is an age where to have . aliciapatterson . org /.../W right 02. jpg commitments beyond borders is often equated with humanitarian intervention- The revived ism or the opening up of an NGO. radicalism It is crucial to remember that in the signalled in 1960s Africa was at the hub of interna- tional solidarity. This adds an important 1968 led to dimension to the contested heritage of the defeat of the 1968 and beyond. Most important is Portuguese the need for Africans to rethink, critique colonialism in and reexpropriate the radicalization of H Mozambique. African politics itself.

46 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 Book review Dismantling the Third World

The Darker Nations: A People’s “The time for political action or analyses, History of the Third World it seems, is now past; we can do nothing by Vijay Prashad but aid the victims of human and natural The New Press disaster.” But Prashad also avoids the dangers Reviewed by Salim Vally of revolutionary nostalgia. He is quite and Cynthia Wright clear that the Third World project is at an end and desperately in need of radical n his expansive new book The Darker re-thinking: “…the new nations neither reorganized social relations effectively INations (2007), Vijay Prashad sets out nor disrupted the colonial-type state to produce an accessible and critical- structure bequeathed to it …. Military historical account of the Third World rule or military force became the order “project.” Covering the period roughly of the day, as the Third World regimes from 1928 to the dawn of the new mil- drove their demobilized populations to lennium, the book casts a critical but ap- do what they envisioned.” In many ways, preciative eye on a project initially seen Frantz Fanon’s anti-colonial classic, The as secular and generally progressive, born Wretched of the Earth (1961), functions out of momentous popular mobilizations as the shadow text to The Darker Nations. against colonialism, but gradually unrav- In particular, the book’s remarkably pre- elling and going awry. A US-based aca- scient chapter, “The Pitfalls of National demic and frequent contributor to left- Consciousness,” provides a key frame- wing journals, Prashad has written several UN. As he puts it, “While this book will work for understanding how and why the books: the best known are probably The frequently use the words of leaders and Third World project went wrong. Karma of Brown Folk and Everybody Was institutions, it does not rely on them for Before anatomizing the pitfalls, how- Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections its sense of the imagination and capacity ever, Prashad first elaborates a sense of and the Myth of Cultural Purity. of the Third World.” the formation and key aspirations of The focus of The Darker Nations on the Drawing extensively on the most up- the Third World project. Thus, Part 1 or “giants of the movement” (among them to-date secondary literature, The Darker “Quest,” narrates the origins of the Third Nehru, Nasser and Castro) has conse- Nations impressively combines a sympa- World political project through the his- quences for the history he tells: it tends thetic understanding of the power and tory of iconic conferences including to centre largely on masculine elites, al- audacity of the Third World project and “the 1928 League against Imperialism” though it is certainly not an uncritical its inspirations while also maintaining a in Brussels; Bandung, “the 1955 Afro- hagiography of these leaders. The book clear-eyed perspective on the project’s in- Asian Conference”; the Tricontinental also looks at what Prashad argues was the ternal contradictions, terrible failures and in Havana (1966) – and the far less well- main institutional vehicle through which crushing defeats. The book is a weapon known 1961 Afro-Asian Women’s Con- the Third World leadership attempted to against historical amnesia and the ideo- ference in Cairo. address the world and fight for its de- logical forces that seek to erase the Third Project and Place mands: the United Nations. But, again, World critique and substitute for it “hu- Prashad does not confine his analysis to manitarian” imperialism. As Kristin Ross, The opening words of The Darker Na- that arena and he is well aware of the past author of May ’68 and its Afterlives, sar- tions are “The Third World was not a and present political limitations of the donically comments of these perspectives: place. It was a project.” At the same time, Prashad locates the project within the Salim Vally is a social movement activist in South Africa, and was recently a visiting scholar at York tricontinental context of Asia, Africa University. (including the Middle East) and Latin Cynthia Wright, a Toronto activist, is working on an historical project on Cuba, Canada and the global America/Caribbean. He doesn’t discuss 1960s. She is also co-editing (with Bridget Anderson and Nandita Sharma) a special issue of Refuge on the politics of No Borders. the complex ways in which the Third

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 47 World political project was taken up by North American people of colour (in- cluding by indigenous people who elabo- rated a concept of the “Fourth World”) – or how Third World perspectives shaped Black (African, Asian, Caribbean) poli- tics in the UK and African/Arab resis- tance in the Parisian banlieues. Prashad does acknowledge the role that European cities such as Paris and Brus- sels played as sites in the development of the Third World project, with their rest- less populations of (largely male) Third World migrant workers, political exiles, students and former soldiers. Indeed, as Robert Young argues in Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction, “tricontinental anti-colonialism” was very much “a dia- sporic production” in part because intense nasiriphotos . com levels of colonial repression often meant that the metropolitan cities became sites where anti-colonial intellectuals from all over the globe were able to meet and pro- duce theory and political strategy togeth- er. As the African-American communist Female Fedayin Communist political construction (first as Afro-Asian Paul Robeson said, “I discovered Africa fighters train in the use of armed in London.” unity, then as a tricontinental project in- combat at Tehran University in Iran. The Darker Nations is organized the- cluding Latin America) – but it also had matically with chapter titles of cities fissures from the start. Prashad describes where major events related to each theme the content of the political project in occurred. It is a creative, interesting ap- slightly different but overlapping terms seminated globally through media of proach to the problem of finding a form in various chapters, but basically it con- startling power: films and newsreels (The equal to the argument, breadth and his- sisted of several key elements: “disarma- Battle of Algiers with its famous scene torical sweep of The Darker Nations. At ment, national sovereignty, economic in- of women revolutionaries); manifestos the same time, the cities largely function tegrity, and cultural diversity.” (Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth as background in the narrative. The com- By “cultural diversity” Prashad refers or Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonial- plex histories of many of these cities as to the centrality of cultural production ism); revolutionary radio; or iconic images colonial spaces organized through deep within the anti-colonial project both to of the period (any given photo or poster “racial” divides does not occupy Prashad challenge European racism but also to of Che or the Palestinian revolutionary, here; nor does he look at how many post- create new solidarities, imaginaries and Leila Khaled). colonial elites “aggressively adapted the practices from the submerged history of The Darker Nations does include sev- racial zoning of the colonial period to de- colonized peoples. This highly influential eral expected photographs, including fend their own class privileges and spatial and complex aspect of the Third World images of Nehru, Nasser, Nkrumah, Ben exclusivity,” as Mike Davis puts it in his project receives perhaps the least atten- Bella, Tito, Fidel and Indira Gandhi. Two book, Planet of Slums (2006). tion in the book compared to the po- evocative photographs, though, are not of litical and economic aspects of the core leaders. One is captioned, “The Iranian Cultivating Diversity program. But it is a theme that is treated Revolution – female Fedayin Communist What then was the political project of imaginatively in the chapter “Tehran,” fighters train in the use of armed combat the Third World? What sort of solidari- which considers, among other things, at Teheran University.” The other shows ties did it create? First, and crucially, Pra- how cultural workers negotiated the pro- young women marching in Guinea-Bis- shad does not understand Third World duction of new canons, cultural practices sau in 1974, and is captioned with a line unity as pre-given from the common ex- and cultural institutions. from an essay by Amilcar Cabral, “No perience of racism and colonialism/impe- Prashad spends less time on how the Fist Is Big Enough to Hide the Sky.” rialism. It needed to be a conscious act of Third World project/imaginary was dis- As these images suggest, the Third

48 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 It’s no accident that Third World feminists would emerge in the ing, “When the NAM delegates arrived 1980s as some of the toughest critics of post-colonial states. in Delhi, they saw pictures of the Nellie massacre in every major newspaper and magazine. It haunted the proceedings, and reminded most of the leadership of World project was markedly gendered. C.L.R. James was already undertaking their own Nellies.” While women had participated in many an unsparing critique of the independent Reaction guerrilla wars and street demonstrations states in the Caribbean. While Fanon was on all three continents, they were often brutally critical of corrupt national elites, Prashad suggests that, despite its weak- not represented in the masculine Third James’s revolutionary internationalism nesses, the Third World project might World public sphere or the post-inde- would enable him to go further than nonetheless “have outlived its own pit- pendence patriarchal states. This is not to Fanon to elaborate a powerful analysis falls but for the frontal assault it faced in say that the Third World project did not of the entrapments of colonial modernity the 1970s.” Neoliberalism and financial understand the centrality of the “woman itself, including the nation-state form, a imperialism were central to that assault question,” for it did, as Prashad notes. The theme to which we will return. together with the Saudi-sponsored and difficulty is that, in the end, the mod- “Assassinations” looks at the role of the US-inspired religious counter-offensive ernizing women’s rights agenda and the IMF’s structural adjustment policies, the to Third World nationalism, secularism national liberation framework were not rise of the so-called “Asian Tigers,” and and socialism. In the book’s last chapter, equal to the problem of women’s oppres- the fostering of cultural nationalisms and Prashad points out that this reaction was sion. It’s no accident that Third World religious fundamentalisms which aimed not limited to Muslim-majority countries. feminists would emerge in the 1980s as to destroy the secular left nationalist It also included the reinvention of tribal- some of the toughest critics of post-co- project. ism and the atavistic ideas of the likes of lonial states – even as women’s organiza- Prashad writes the obituary of the Mobutu Sese Seko in the Congo, as well tions underwent bruising transitions un- Third World project through the story as the spread of an evangelical Christian- der neoliberalism. of the 1983 meeting of the Non-Aligned ity sponsored by the religious right in the Movement (NAM) in Delhi. The NAM US and Latin American to counter lib- “Pitfalls” gathering coincided with the massacre of eration theology within Latin America. The major problems with the political five thousand refugees in Nellie, Assam. Prashad is here arguing for a structural and economic frameworks of the Third Prashad quotes Tariq Ali’s lament, “My relationship between “the abandonment World project are treated in Parts 2 and Lai massacre multiplied by ten,” add- of the social transformation agenda” on 3 of the book. “Pitfalls” (echoing Fanon’s the one hand, and the rise of pernicious chapter on “The Pitfalls of National Con- cultural and religious nationalisms on the sciousness”) examines the mostly dismal other. record of Third World national liberation states in power. “Pitfalls” includes places and events that epitomize themes such as “the perils of an authoritarian state” (Algiers) and the tragic 1965 Indonesian blood bath of “one or perhaps two million Communists.” Prashad also examines in this section the deeply regressive consequences of the political demobilization of the popula- tion (and popular organizations) and the stifling of dissent after revolutionary vic- tory. Indeed, while Prashad is careful not to attribute the failures of Third World states to a single cause, he does suggest that popular political demobilization is among the most important reasons for the failure of these regimes. It should be added that Fanon was not Frantz Fanon (above) and the only critic with foresight. By the mid- C.L.R. James (right), early critics 60s, the celebrated Trinidadian Marxist of the Third World project.

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 49 Riven by massive internal problems, tory of the Global South. Perhaps Prashad It will be interesting to see if Prashad’s encircled by debt, the final blow to “the will also tease out the implications of his sequel addresses the prospects for a lib- darker nations” was the collapse of the arguments for what are often politically eratory politics explicitly not anchored in USSR and the emergence of a new impe- articulated as today’s national liberation borders and nationalism and the singular rialism: “The United States as the leader struggles, for example, the Palestinian ethnic identities they produce, as well as of the Atlantic powers began to exercise struggle against Zionism. the everyday violence against migrants its long-held project of primacy over the they endorse and normalize. The terrible Nation/Race planet. The invasion of Panama (1989) toll in human lives and the atrocities in was a dress rehearsal for the new epoch. Indeed, Prashad’s account of the trajec- African countries such as Rwanda, Bu- It was followed by the war on Iraq, the tory of nationalism as a key component of rundi, the Congo, Sierra Leone, Sudan dismemberment of Yugoslavia, and other the Third World project deserves careful and Uganda also cannot be ignored, and displays of aerial bombardment.” The US consideration. He argues that, unlike Eu- the complicity of imperialism and multi- invasion of Grenada can be added to this ropean nationalisms organized through national corporations in benefiting from list. inherently racialized conceptions of “the these conflicts. Prashad makes scattered references people” – with each people entitled to a The Sequel both to the contemporary Latin Ameri- state – the Third World agenda was based can experiments and to social movements on an “internationalist nationalism ... that Prashad’s sequel will also no doubt which have developed precisely to con- looked outward to other anti-colonial na- contend with the fact that, while the test what he calls “neoliberal states with Third World project has disappeared, national liberation values” But those imperialism has not. Iraq – conjoining wanting an in-depth analysis of these “People across the three blood with lucre; military conquest with developments need to look elsewhere. continents continue to dream an undisguised theft of resources; and the Readers wanting to understand the fail- violent production of singular religious ures and complexities of southern Africa, of something better …Their and ethnic identities – is a stark reminder for example, would do well to consult aspirations have a local voice. of US-led dispossession and capital ac- John Saul’s trilogy – The Next Liberation cumulation. So too is the fact that “sixty Struggle; Development after Globalization; Beyond that, their hopes and states paid $550 billion in principle and and Decolonization and Empire – examin- dreams are unintelligible.” interest on loans worth $540 billion. Yet ing what he calls “the Thirty Years’ War they still owe $523 billion. The alchemy for southern African liberation” between Vijay Prashad of international usury [continues to] bind 1960 and 1990 and the process of “recol- the darker nations.” onization” by capital. Prashad, correctly, is skeptical of the While not totally pessimistic, Prashad tions as their fellows.” Leaving aside the reform agenda of some countries of the sees “as yet little evidence of an alterna- problem of whether there isn’t in fact global South, operating as they do within tive institutional agenda to replace the more traffic between European and Third the rules set by IMF-driven globaliza- assassinated Third World project.” But World nationalisms than Prashad allows tion. He cites how South Africa, emerg- Prashad does not lose sight of the fact here, the fact is that Third World states ing from apartheid, pushed the New that most people in the world continue were not immune to the reality of “race” Partnership for Africa’s Development to live in terrible conditions of structur- and ethnic divides despite the heroic ef- (NEPAD) – a neo-liberal program writ al poverty and violence with little hope forts of some liberation movements to large for the continent. Still, the struggle of liberation, and certainly not by their transcend them. Prashad acknowledges as continues. As Prashad concludes, “The states: “People across the three conti- much when he writes, “Fanon overplays limitations of IMF-driven globalization nents continue to dream of something the lack of racism or the mobilization of and revanchist traditionalism provoke better, and many of them are organized biological notions in national liberation mass movements across the planet. … into social movements or political par- movements. National pride or patriotism It is from these many creative initiatives ties. Their aspirations have a local voice. often slid into the ugly language of rac- that a genuine agenda for the future will Beyond that, their hopes and dreams are ism or exclusion.” arise. When it does, the Third World will unintelligible.” States also did not hesitate to defend have found its successor.” Notably, neither the experiments of borders which had been drawn by the co- Prashad’s sequel, then, might capture Chavez, Morales and others in South lonial powers thereby, as Prashad notes, this sentiment as reality and not a for- America, nor the World Social Forums succumbing to massive militarization and lorn hope. But this requires our collec- are mentioned, although he has said he “the values of European ethno-national- tive praxis. In the meantime, read this will include that discussion in his se- ism.” (His chapter on the 1962 Indo-Chi- fine book, in order to prepare for ongoing H quel, The Poorer Nations: A People’s His- nese border war is especially illustrative.) battles.

50 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 acid rock ... psychedelia ... folk ... blues ... radicalization ... art Threads of a Musical Counterculture by Jonathon Bakan

rom the 1960s to ­transcendence. the early 1970s, a The radicalism of Fwhole range of new or this movement had a radically renewed social profound effect on ev- movements emerged in ery aspect of culture. North America and else- In music, as in every where, mobilizing and other area of discourse, involving untold thou- the 1960s was a period sands especially youth. of exploration, experi- Movements against war mentation and fluid- and imperialism, move- ity. Boundaries be- ments against sexual op- tween different popular pression – the gay rights musics, classical music, and feminist movements folk music, etc., be- – militant anti-racist came more porous as organizations and the Women’s liberation was one of the many movements that grew out of musicians attempted beginnings of a radical the radicalization of the 1960s and 1970s. to find ways to express environmentalist move- in sound the ideas that ment all emerged during these years, radically affecting the were embraced by the emerging counterculture. In classical world view of an entire generation. The 1960s were years of music, jazz, rock, rhythm and blues and pop, musicians were deep radicalization, marked by a fluidity of ideas and a wide- making connections between radical politics and art. spread openness to radicalism in all spheres of ideological In the 1960s, rock music – and especially the so-called endeavor. acid rock or psychedelic rock that emerged between 1965 The so-called counterculture was one expression of the and 1967 – became a centrally-defining aspect of the coun- radicalization of the 1960s. The counterculture was a body terculture (although certainly not the only musical expression of alternative and oppositional expressive cultures, first based of this broad movement). Many of the most important acid in the United States, that emerged to international attention rock bands, like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis by 1967. It was to have a profound and lasting impact on all Joplin and her band Big Brother and the Holding Company, aspects of popular culture. among others, emerged from San Francisco’s Haight-Ash- The 60s counterculture was a widespread, youthful bury district, which was the west coast’s pre-eminent coun- ­rejection of mainstream, middle-class values, ethics and tercultural community. The band Jefferson Airplane’s ode ­lifestyles. It also encompassed protest movements against to psychedelia “White Rabbit” captures the essence of the war, racism and repressive governments. Those who­identified Haight-Ashbury music scene during this period. with the counterculture explicitly – and often consciously – This article will discuss some of the multiple historical challenged mainstream assumptions about property, family, threads that contributed to the emergence of San Francisco’s drug use, sexuality and monogamy while protesting Ameri- counterculture and the music that it helped to generate. can neo-colonial power, imperialist war, racism and capital- ist ­society more generally and simultaneously ­imagining a Note: Many videotaped performances of the music and ­utopian ­future of peace, freedom, unfettered love and ­spiritual ­concerts referred to here can be found on the internet. Jonathon Bakan is a musician and ethno/musicologist. Search using Google Videos.

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 51 Political and Economic Situation After WWII, the United States emerged as the capitalist world’s lead- ing power. US domination of the non- Communist world was based on mili- tary strength, political alliances and the Racist whites flooding of world markets with Ameri- pour sugar, can-made goods of every sort. Heavy ketchup and industries like steel, auto, chemical and electronics were the backbone of this mustard over economy, which was supported by both the heads consumer and government military of sit-in spending. The labour movement also se- N ews /F red B lackwell aily demonstrators cured significant gains during this period at a restaurant – by 1960 roughly 30 percent of the non- lunch counter agricultural workforce was unionized, in Jackson, and real wages had doubled since 1941. Mississippi in Post-secondary education also expanded enormously during this period. By 1960 D /J ackson AP photo 1963. there were 3.6 million students enrolled in US colleges – twice as many as in 1940. was over 58,000 American soldiers would in white neighbourhoods. Between 1947 These students would play a key role in die in Vietnam. and 1963, there were over 50 bombings the soon-to-develop radical mass move- Over the course of the 1960s, the in- of black homes, churches and businesses ment. creasing casualties took a growing toll in and around Birmingham. on American social consciousness. Espe- But there was also opposition. Black Cold War cially among young people, the relative civil rights activists were gathering in But all was not well during this pe- affluence of the post-war boom appeared the safest places they could find – local riod. With the dissolution of direct co- increasingly superficial as more and more churches. As a result, Southern black lonial rule in Asia and Africa, there was young men came home dead or mutilated churches often became centres of civil fierce competition between the Soviet from the war in Vietnam. rights activities. In the mid 1950s, much Union (and increasingly, Communist of the civil rights activity in the south was Civil Rights China) and the US for the allegiance focused on equal access to quality educa- of newly independent states. One such Another area of instability in Ameri- tion for black youth, and there were sig- conflict was emerging in Vietnam, a very can society was the continuing oppres- nificant legal victories. Since segregated small nation in southeast Asia. In the sion of African Americans. Even after black schools were poorly equipped and early 1960s, US President John F. Ken- the US victory against fascism in Europe, funded as compared to white schools, this nedy sought to counter the expansion racism and racial segregation – the re- activism was often focused on integrating of Communist influence by increasing gime known as Jim Crow – was still in schools. In 1951, black parents in Topeka, the American military presence in Viet- effect in the US. While there had been Kansas, with the help of the Topeka Na- nam, raising the troop level from about a strong anti-segregationist movement tional Association for the Advancement 800 in 1960 to about 11,000 by January even prior to WW2, especially in the of Colored People (NAACP), asked for 1963. By the end of 1967 there would be urban north, racial segregation was still a court injunction to ban segregation in 485,640 American troops in Vietnam, firmly in place well into the 1960s, even Topeka’s public schools. Finally, in 1954, and 19,562 American deaths. Before it in the north. American blacks suffered the Supreme Court ruled that school seg- all forms of economic discrimination. At regation violated the US constitution. mid-century, black family income was oices of Lunch Counter Sit-Ins V 68 only 55 percent of white family income. I mean it is the only thing in All through the 1950s and early 1960s, But despite legal victories like the To- ­­Toronto worth reading on acid. black unemployment stayed at roughly peka case and others, many forms of seg- twice the level of white unemployment. regation continued. Civil disobedience

Letter to the editor, In southern cities like Birmingham, Ala- – direct action protests – among southern Toronto counterculture publication bama, terrorist attacks by white suprema- blacks continued to grow. In early 1960, Harbinger 2(1) cists like the Ku Klux Klan were com- four black college students sat down at a monly used to prevent blacks from living Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greens-

52 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 boro, North Carolina, only to be refused mainstream, suburbanizing America was element in the music. service because of their race. They waited barren and spiritually deadening. In spite One musical expression of the political for 45 minutes before finally leaving. But of the unprecedented affluence within storm that was brewing was the launch they returned the following day with 23 white America, growing numbers of in- in 1962 of Broadside, an urban folk mu- other black students and this time did tellectuals were decrying the emptiness sic publication. Broadside was founded by not leave all day. On the third day, they and conformity of suburban life. Writer two social activists from the “old left” of occupied every seat at the lunch counter, Lewis Mumford described suburbia as the 1940s, Agnes “Sis” Cunningham and and by week’s end were joined by white “a treeless, communal waste, inhabited Gordon Friesen, with funding by Pete students from a local women’s college. by people … witnessing the same televi- Seeger. Seeger was a prominent folk- Inspired by the sit-in, other lunch coun- sion performances, eating the same taste- singer with strong ties to the old left and ter sit-ins were staged until there were less pre-fabricated foods from the same a founding member of the left-wing folk similar protests happening in 54 south- freezers.” music group The Almanac Singers. ern cities. By the end of the year, most In this environment, there were emer- The first issue of Broadside was pro- of these protests had succeeded in getting gent cultural movements that were cri- duced on mimeograph with six songs, service for blacks in the cities where they tiquing the complacency, and conformity, including one by a young Bob Dylan, were staged. of American affluence. Malvina Reyn- making “Talking John Birch” the first of The lunch counter sit-ins were led by olds’ song “Little Boxes,” performed by his songs ever to be published. Dylan was black college students – young people Pete Seeger, is exemplary of this critical frequently published in Broadside and who had come to maturity watching their most or all of his explicitly political songs own families and communities being left were published in the magazine. Gordon out of the growing social affluence en- Friesen would often give newspaper clip- joyed by large swathes of the white work- pings to Dylan as suggested raw materials ing-class population. These black youth for topical songs. Dylan’s “The Lonesome had also seen that simply getting racist Death of Hettie Carrol” was one such laws changed could have little real effect song that resulted from those clippings. in changing their status in society. Ken Kesey and the “Beats” In April of 1960, riding a wave of non- violent direct action protest, black student Social disaffection was also expressed activists met in Raleigh and founded the by “Beat” poets and writers like Allen Student Non-Violent Coordinating Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and novelist Ken Committee (SNCC). SNCC adopted a Kesey. Kesey is best known for his two more radical, direct-action oriented strat- novels, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest egy and rejected what they perceived as and Sometimes a Great Notion. But his the more conservative activism of both significance for this story is that he was the NAACP and Martin Luther King. also an extremely prominent figure in SNCC was significant in being the first the San Francisco counterculture, contri­ radical organization of college students buting to its culture of psychedelia in to lead the fight against racism. Their ex- Above: plicit focus on non-violent direct action Radical (rather than lobbying, etc.) was new in music the post-war era and SNCC would be an publication inspiration for the radical student move- Broadside ment that would emerge in the coming was few years. founded White Cultural Disaffection by social activists. Even among those white communities Right: that were enjoying the benefits of eco- Folksingers nomic expansion, not everyone was hap- Joan Baez py. There was a growing sense – largely and Bob expressed by intellectuals and artists, but Dylan undoubtedly felt by others – that the new American social affluence was culturally and spiritually empty, that the culture of

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 53 ­important ways. provided by the band that would later be 1965 – The Turning Point In 1958, Kesey, then a graduate stu- known as the Grateful Dead. In 1965, the US again increased the dent at Stanford University, moved into Student Politics intensity of its involvement in Vietnam. a bohemian community in Palo Alto, It aimed to destroy Vietnamese Commu- California – at that time a centre of Cal- Finally, and crucially for the political nist opposition by the unrestrained use of ifornia’s literary, intellectual and artistic and social milieu around San Francisco, its military superiority. In February 1965, elite. In 1960, Kesey volunteered to be a was the emerging radical student move- the US began a massive and sustained paid subject in psychological experiments ment at University of California (UC) bombing campaign, Operation Rolling conducted at a nearby Veterans Adminis- Berkeley. During the 1960s, radical stu- Thunder, which would continue unabated tration Hospital on the effects of various dent politics, based primarily in universi- for three years. The air war was supported psychoactive drugs including mescaline, ties, became an important feature of cul- by an increase in troops on the ground. psilocybin and LSD. As part of the ex- tural and political life. UC Berkeley was Here is how historians Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin described it: “Sometimes intelligence reports pin- In 1964 student radicalism at Berkeley exploded in the free pointed the exact location of an enemy speech movement, a massive student protest involving acts unit. Then fighter-bombers, helicopter of civil disobedience, sit-ins and occupations of university gunships, and the big B-52s … could pile on the enemy with bombs, rockets, and buildings, confrontations with police and so on, that was napalm, followed by ground troops deliv- sparked when the University administration forbade the ered by helicopter to landing zones near- by. But more often, soldiers and marines distribution of political literature on campus property. had to pull on their packs and [set out on foot] seeking contact with the enemy in the back country. … When contact was periment, Kesey was paid to write down among the foremost centres of student made, the troops could call in artillery, the effects of his drug experiences. activism. In the early 1960s, Berkeley napalm strikes, and helicopter gunships. Inspired by these experiences, he in- students were active in a growing series Afterward, the enemy bodies would be troduced the drugs to his family and of political demonstrations, first against counted up and compared to American wide circle of friends. By 1964 Kesey’s hearings of the Congressional House casualties. … Military dispatches would home had become the centre of a kind of Committee on Un-American Activities boast of a favorable ‘kill ratio,’ and anoth- drugged-out alternative literary and artis- Committee (HUAC) which conducted er victory would be chalked up. Killing tic community with people like Hunter S. the McCarthy witchhunts against sus- the enemy was not the means to tactical Thompson and Allen Ginsberg, members pected radicals, and later in campaigns or strategic gain such as taking back this of San Francisco’s artistic avant-garde, as against racism and war. In 1964 student or that village or hilltop from the enemy. well as the local Hell’s Angels, all spend- radicalism at Berkeley exploded in the Killing the enemy was an end in itself in ing time there or attending parties. Ac- free speech movement, a massive stu- a war of attrition.” cording to writer Hunter S. Thompson, dent protest involving acts of civil dis- War and the Youth Kesey’s home was “the world capital of obedience, sit-ins and occupations of madness. There were no rules, fear was university buildings, confrontations with The increasing war had a tremendous unknown and sleep was out of the ques- police and so on, that was sparked when impact on college-aged youth. The brunt tion.” And all manner of drug experimen- the university administration forbade of the war was carried by young Ameri- tation was going on. the distribution of political literature on can draftees – disproportionately blacks In the fall of 1965, Kesey and his friends campus property. and Hispanics, although many white expanded their parties into large-scale The tactics and rhetoric of the free kids were also drafted. The average age public events. Now going by the mon- speech movement was very strongly root- icker The Merry Pranksters, Kesey and ed in the traditions of the old left, and his entourage called these events “Acid represents a line of continuity reaching Voices of 68 Tests.” For the price of one dollar, those in back to the left-wing movement of previ- Forty radical student leaders attendance would receive a cup of LSD- ous decades, as well as the civil rights ac- laced “electric” Kool-Aid. One might tivism of SNCC and others in the previ- send out for pizza and begin talk find a room full of “thunder machines,” ous few years. So it is not surprising that of revolution. large soundmakers constructed from auto folk music, with its long association with The Globe and Mail, parts, piano strings, etc. for participants the old left, became the music of choice to explore and improvise on, or live music for early student activists. Sept 10, 1968

54 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 of soldiers was 19, some younger. As a Above left: Country Joe and the Fish; result, students became increasingly con- right: Jimi Hendrix. cerned about the war. In response to the increased involvement in Vietnam, the main left-wing national student politi- first began as performers of folk music cal organization, Students for a Demo- who embraced elements from electric cratic Society (SDS), grew in a big way. rock music after 1965. Students from all over the country began Under Dylan’s influence, popular mu- to write in to the SDS asking how they sic began changing, from a simpler, more could get involved. lighthearted form of escapist entertain- ment, into something else. For example, San Francisco Rock the first hit pop song in the fall of 1965 Meanwhile, some big changes were was “Eve of Destruction,” a Dylanesque The magic bus: Ken Kesey bought happening in folk music, the most ex- political folk-rock piece recorded by Bar- the bus in the mid-1960s and took plicitly political music of the day. In ry McGuire. it on trips – both hallucinogenic and 1965, Bob Dylan, then the pre-eminent cross-country. In the parlance of the Country Joe and the Fish political folk musician, created a storm day, you were either “on the bus” of controversy by rejecting his earlier Among the most explicitly political of – i.e., open to an alternative lifestyle acoustic sound and adopting an electric, the bands to emerge from San Francisco – or you were “off the bus.” rock-influenced approach to his music, after 1965 was Country Joe and the Fish. first on one half of his album Bringing The band’s lead singer, Joe McDonald, it All Back Home (released March 1965) was born in 1942 to left-wing parents ­people are like water and the [Red] army and then performing with the Paul But- – he is said to have been named after is like fish.” Like other folk musicians and terfield Blues band at the 1965 Newport Joseph Stalin. In 1964 he began studies ensembles, by 1966, Country Joe and the Folk Festival. at UC Berkeley and soon found him- Fish had reorganized and switched to an This was a radical departure and one self participating in the left-wing folk all electric, amplified rock format. that alienated many of Dylan’s fans in music scene while also becoming ac- “Are You Experienced” the urban political folk community. But tive in campus politics. While at Berke- Dylan’s embrace of an amplified, rock- ley, he played in a folk group called The By 1966 the psychedelic, countercul- based musical aesthetic also inspired a Instant Action Jug Band that included tural scene was starting to become an number of young folk performers to fol- Barry Melton, and at times as many as 10 international phenomenon. In London, low his lead by adopting important ele- other musicians. When members of this England, ex-patriot American electric ments taken from rock into their music. group made their first recordings in 1965, guitarist Jimi Hendrix put together his The musicians who played in the San they did so under the name Country Joe innovative band, The Jimi Hendrix Ex- Francisco acid rock bands The Grateful and the Fish – the name a reference to perience. Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe a quotation from Chinese Communist Hendrix was probably the most im- and the Fish, and singer Janis Joplin, all Party Chairman Mao Zedong, that “The portant and influential electric guitarist

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 55 of the 1960s. His music would exert a strong artistic influence on a wide range of musicians well beyond the sphere of rock or popular music. Hendrix, who had ‘This Whole Funky worked in various American rhythm and blues bands, including those of the Isley Brothers and Little Richard, relocated World is a Ghetto’ to London, England in the fall of 1966. Black Power and Soul Music Upon arrival, Hendrix quickly put to- gether the band that would launch him by Daniel Serge to international fame and establish him as a countercultural icon. Hendrix and The Jimi Hendrix Expe- ccording to liberals, the civil rights funky world to be a ghetto in 1972, there rience quickly created a sensation among Amovement in the US had two was a rich tradition of hard funk and soul leading British rockers like Paul Mc- phases. From the mid-1950s to the early denouncing poverty and oppression. Cartney, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck and Pete 1960s, African-Americans and their al- How could such a violent, hopeless era Townshend. In the summer of 1967, the lies mounted non-violent boycotts, mass produce such good music? The answer band’s first album, Are You Experienced marches and campaigns for integration is that the liberals are wrong. The Black placed number two on the pop album and equality. The mid-1960s to the early Power movement expressed hope and a charts. In June of that year The Jimi 1970s saw riots across America, assassi- determination that formal political equal- Hendrix Experience returned to the US nations and the rise of the militant Black ity wasn’t enough. Blacks needed social to perform at the Monterey Pop festival Panther Party. The Panthers carried guns and economic equality too. The Panthers – said to be the first large-scale rock fes- and preached armed self-defence. Dem- arose to meet that need. Pop music gave voice to it. tival – where he performed along with onstrations were violent and chaotic. The Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, the British rallying cry was “Black Power.” This sec- Civil Rights rock band The Who and Indian classical ond, “bad” phase was seen as the youthful musician Ravi Shankar. Hendrix’s 1967 Soul music is a catch-all term for excess of the baby boom generation. performance at Monterey introduced rhythm and blues (R&B), funk and the Black pop music doesn’t fit comfortably the innovative guitarist to the American myriad other genres of black music that into this story. Rhythm and blues broke countercultural community. Indeed, for flourished during the period. It came through the colour barrier during the many, Hendrix’s music – tunes like “Stone from the same place as the civil rights civil rights movement. But in the midst Free,” “Purple Haze” and others – would movement – the black gospel church of the conflict that followed in the later become emblematic of the countercul- which organized both the famous sit-ins phase, the music got better – faster, more ture, its politics, aesthetics and lifestyle. and bus rides in the Southern US and danceable and more topical. Soul gave In 1969 Hendrix performed with his provided venues where soul music stars way to funk with its driving rhythms, band at the peak musical and artistic event like Ray Charles and the Staples Sing- improvisation and cross-pollination with of the counterculture, the Woodstock ers got their starts. Late in the 1950s, psychedelic rock. By the time soul sing- Music and Art Fair, a three-day festival er Bobby Patterson declared the whole Continued next page of music, dance and protest involving hundreds of thousands of people. Also at Woodstock were Janis Joplin, Country The radical moment of the 1960s had When Hendrix reworked “The Star Joe and the Fish, The Grateful Dead and many threads, some explicitly political, Spangled Banner,” he was not only pro- many other performers associated with others only peripherally so, most often viding an unmistakable critique of Amer- the countercultural music scene. with layered and contradictory meanings. ican militarism, he was also creating a At Woodstock, Hendrix played one of But for everyone involved it was a time vision of an imagined future, making tan- his most political musical performances, of ideological fluidity, experimentation gible in musical experience the hope and reworking the American national anthem, and redefinition. In this context, the free possibility of a world of freedom, human H “The Star Spangled Banner,” as a searing and creative exploration of new expres- creativity, and spiritual fulfillment. sive music forms, in rock and elsewhere, critique of the American establishment Recommended Reading and its war in Vietnam, while also pre- was itself was an emancipatory declara- Isserman, Maurice, and Michael Kazin. senting a militant expression of counter- tion, an assertion of the possibility of a 2000. America Divided: The Civil War cultural creativity, asserting the legitimacy future free from war, oppression, exploi- of the 1960s. New York: Oxford University of his radically innovative approaches to tation and the spiritual emptiness of mass Press. electric guitar playing. culture under post-war capitalism.

56 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 From Black Voices to Black Power It’s easy to look back on the quaint songs of early 60s R&B and forget that even their liberal, allegorical lyrics were a victory. Before then, black-made mu- sic was marketed as “race music” to black audiences through record labels and ra- dio stations that never reached whites. It took decades until white audience could even listen to black artists, let alone what was being said. But the road from simple Black representation – having a black person on Panthers: the radio – to Black Power was fast and dedicated to steep. James Brown, for example, brought black pride funk music to black and white audiences. and freedom. Songs like “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” became civil rights anthems. entrepreneurs realized that gospel singers means necessary,” including armed strug- Yet it was Brown’s bandmates who had had the potential to break out of the seg- gle. The Black Panther Party, a militant to push him to record political songs. For regated music market, rigidly separated organization for black self-determination Brown, a staunch capitalist, pop was first between black and white listeners, and and an end to police brutality and US im- and foremost a business. Motown and the create albums that both groups would perialism, had thousands of members at other major labels were conservative. They buy. Civil rights had nothing to do with its height, a newspaper that sold 140,000 didn’t record black power music until au- it – the white audience was much bigger copies weekly and an impact well beyond diences demanded it. Even then, they of- and promised more profit. its numbers. ten released political songs on subsidiary However, R&B artists themselves were While Black Panther leaders Huey P. labels by secondary artists. “War,” with affected by the struggles of their people. Newton and Bobby Seale were organiz- its militant question of “What is it good Sam Cooke’s 1964 “Change Is Gonna ing armed self-defence committees in for? Absolutely nothing!”, was written for Come” vividly reflected the aspirations of Oakland, California in 1966, artists af- superstars The Temptations, but Motown civil rights, all the more so because Cooke filiated with the Black Arts Movement boss Barry Gordy didn’t want his star was a clean-cut mainstream star. Stevie (BAM) were publishing poetry and lit- performers upsetting white audiences so Wonder covered Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ In erary journals in New York and Chicago he gave it to Edwin Starr, a lesser-known The Wind” in 1966 as an allegory of the and performing in jazz ensembles. BAM artist, who made his career on it. movement, while The Impressions’ 1965 artists drew their material from Black In 1970, just six years after Cooke’s pas- “People Get Ready” dealt with the massive Power demonstrations where they often sive lament, “A Change Is Gonna Come,” 1963 civil rights march on Washington. performed. Since the link between cul- Martha and the Vandellas recorded “I These are highlights from a huge number ture and politics existed from the outset Should Be Proud,” in which lead singer of songs that shared the hopes of social of the movement, it is no surprise that Martha Reeves sang that a lover killed in change through non-violent struggle. Black Power both used, and was reflected Vietnam “didn’t die for me” but for “the The Black Power movement arose out in, popular black music. evils of this world.” of the ashes of the civil rights movement. Formal political rights didn’t mean an end to oppression and, as the 60s wore Voices of 68 on, US blacks were still poor, underedu- cated, living in slums and overrepresented ... an enormously exciting alternative. ... It consists of learning the rules in the military – itself a racist institution. of the game by which most people play out their lives, in our case, Political leaders Martin Luther King Jr. those of the technological society – and then using them to create and Malcolm X grew more radical along with the burgeoning New Left. ways of life which subvert the values those rules usually serve. The Black Power movement dedicated Dennis Lee describing Toronto’s experimental Rochdale College,­ itself to black pride and freedom “by any Rochdale Handbook, 1968. From Rochdale College Museum, Daniel Serge does not have Soul, but would http://homepages.nyu.edu/~spores01/rochdale.html like some.

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 57 In many ways, the Vietnam War crushed the hopes raised by the civil rights movement. Veterans began return- ing from Vietnam injured and angry. The deaths of Vietnamese civilians, along with their heroic resistance, fed into the awakening sense that faith in American capitalism would not bring the promised land. Blacks rioted in Watts, California in 1965, in Detroit in 1967 and across the country after King was assassinated in 1968. Along with the community, black musicians picked up the new militancy. The liberal music press is embarrassed by political music, condemning it as di- Curtis Mayfield dactic and simplistic. But at the height of album cover Black Power, politics inspired the work of makes a brilliant musicians. In 1970, Curtis May- strong political field recorded “Power To The People” and statement. in 1971 the Chi-Lites made “(For God’s Sakes) Give More Power To The People” – both based on the Panther slogan. To der and worked as a radio DJ, wrote “Are its music lives on. The rap-poetry it cre- many African-Americans, Mayfield em- You Really Ready For Black Power?” a ated was the basis for hip-hop and today bodied Black Power more than King. socialist call-to-arms for the movement: its songs are being released on compi- Nina Simone recorded her own Black lations and through the internet. It is Power numbers and also reworked The The idea seems to be that money will make now music consumed by the subculture Beatles’ counter-revolutionary “Revolu- us free of soul enthusiasts, no longer part of a tion.” The original weasels, “You tell me Black capitalism says the system is what we vibrant movement. Still, it is an impor- it’s the institution/well, you know/you really need tant reminder of what happens when a better free you mind instead.” Simone But what difference does it make in the mass movement grows. Culture is never answers, “Now we got a revolution/be- colour of that hand an exact mirror of politics, but the two cause I see the face of things to come... If it takes food from the mouths of black get closer together when society goes I’m here to tell you about destruction/of people in order to become a richer man? into ferment. When political struggle all the evil that will have to end.” declines, artists are no better at politics Elaine Brown, an editor of the Panthers’ The Main Ingredient was a second- than anyone else. Today, although there is newspaper and later chair of the party, string ballad group. But their song, “Black a re-emerging underground in hip-hop, released two albums of militant jazz and Seeds,” saw them stepping away from most of black pop music is as soulless as spoken word poetry, Seize The Time and their standard apolitical fare to chide “the its white indie-rock counterpart. Until We’re Free. Gil Scott-Heron and The people who would condemn, in slavery At its height, Black Power shaped the Last Poets are militant black nationalists time, their brothers and sister for being music that even liberals cherish. Jimi whose songs – including Scott-Heron’s ignorant ... you black man, should love Hendrix was a talented musician who “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” those brothers and sisters, even in death; remained apolitical while his black com- and The Last Poet’s “Niggers Are Afraid for their valiant struggle for life made patriots were singing about struggle. But Of Revolution” – are anthems of the you what you are today.” “Black Seeds” when people asked him to name his fa- era. The Watts riots, which so horrified combines its musical plea with African vourite guitar player, he always said Curtis mainstream America, inspired the Watts drums and a blistering horn section. In Mayfield, whose music embodied Black Prophets to rap, “Ever since they passed this period, funk got heavier, stronger and Power to millions. Militant funk and soul the civil rights/Those fires have been light- deeper – much like the black liberation reflects the real legacy of civil rights – a ing up the nights/And they say they ain’t struggle itself. radical, anti-racist and sometimes anti- gonna stop/till we all have equal rights.” The Black Power movement declined capitalist movement that reached into Many Black Power songs were recorded in the 1970s under pressure from police economics, politics and culture. As the on small, independent labels by unknown and FBI subterfuge, the internal contra- Chi-Lites say, “They know we’re not satis- artists or those known as balladeers. Gary dictions of its marxist-leninist dogma fied, so we begin to holler. ... Now we’re Byrd, who collaborated with Stevie Won- and the retreat of the left in general. But gonna get on up and get some more of it.” H 58 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 If I Had A Song Folk music and politics in 1960s English Canada by Gary Cristall

he folk music of English Canada – ascending from a marginal genre intoT a mass phenomenon inextricably linked to the civil rights, anti-war, stu- dent, women’s and every other social and political movement of the decade – helped to create the culture of the 60s. But it did not emerge out of nowhere. Above: Label of The Milestones’ recording funded by the BC The Origins Federation of Labour – Canada’s In English Canada, folk music as a first labour songs recording, 1965. genre of popular music was pretty much Left: Cover of Broadside, a New assembled and popularized in the 50s by York publication devoted to a small group of cultural activists in the political folk music in the 60s. orbit of the Labour Progressive Party This one features an obscure (LPP) and its youth wing the National song by Bob Dylan. Federation of Labour Youth (NFLY). These were the names adopted for the Communist Party of Canada and the from struggles in many lands from China other gracing stages across the country. Young Communist League after they to South Africa to the Nazi Germany of A year or so later, Bob Dylan established were banned in the early 40s as a result of the 30s. the singer-songwriter as a legitimate fig- their opposition to the war. The rewriting of Woody Guthrie’s ure on the folk scene. Folk music, or “people’s music” as it was “This Land Is Your Land” with Canadian Political Songs first called, was adopted by the Commu- references by The Travellers – either in nists as part of the popular front in the or sympathetic to the LPP/NFLY – was Many of the artists who pioneered mid-30s. Following the doctrine of so- emblematic of folk music of the day. With folk music in Canada in this period per- cialist realism, the party and its follow- its nationalist and populist aesthetic, the formed a mixture of songs that included ers looked for music that met the criteria song produced Canada’s first folk hit in traditional ballads with no obvious po- of “socialist in content, national in form.” the late 50s. litical content and songs that were highly Folk music with its roots deep in the ple- The success of The Travellers occurred political. bian and national culture fit the bill beau- simultaneously with the success in the In my collection of some 30 hours of tifully. US of the Kingston Trio. The Trio’s mas- tapes made in a Vancouver club in the After the Second World War, as the sive radio hit in 1958, an old Appalachian early 60s, there are numerous examples cold war began, the LPP adopted the murder ballad called “Tom Dooley,” ush- of the political content of a folk music slogan of “Put Canada First.” In music, ered in the folk boom and generated a performance. Songs sung include “The this meant folk music – ranging from thousand similar groups and soloists. In Miner’s Lifeguard,” a union song from traditional songs, collected by folklorists Canada, folk clubs began to open every- the Kentucky coal fields; Woody Guth- whose politics were more often than not where. In 1961, the first Mariposa Folk rie’s “Talking Dust Bowl” from the De- on the right wing of the political spec- Festival was held north of Toronto in pression; “The Klan,” an anti-racist song trum, to the writing of new folk songs Orillia. By 1962 there were dozens of written by the actor Alan Arkin, and about current issues, to songs imported folk music singers of one form or the “Vive La Quince Brigada” from the In- ternational Brigades in the Spanish Civil Gary Cristall is a cultural worker who lives in Vancouver. He is researching a book on folk music in War. Canadian songs were drawn from English Canada. His radio documentary series, The People’s Music, recently aired on CBC Radio. labour history: “Are You From Bevan?” He is a long time socialist activist and a member of the New Socialist Group. about the coal miners’ strike on Vancou-

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 59 ver Island in the 1910s; “Last Night I nent early folksinger, wrote a song about Had The Strangest Dream,” a peace song; American folk singer Pete Seeger’s refusal and new songs like Pete Wyborn’s “Sugar to testify before the McCarthyite “Una- Refinery” about working in Vancouver’s merican” hearings. A Montreal group, The Rogers’ Sugar factory. Newlanders, recorded a song denouncing In the mid-60s, union federations spon- the framing and execution of Wilbur sored two recordings. In Vancouver, the Coffin for the murder of three American British Columbia Federation of Labour hunters in Quebec’s Gaspé region. Ab- (BC Fed) sponsored a record of political original artist Willie Dunn made a record songs by The Milestones for the 1965 BC for the radical magazine Akwesasne Notes Fed convention and 50th anniversary of that contained powerful songs about Ab- the murder of labour songwriter Joe Hill. original history and reality, including one It featured songs from early union battles about a young man who died of exposure and a new song about medicare. fleeing a residential school. A year later, as a centennial project, These writers and their songs laid the the Canadian Labour Congress helped basis for the flowering of political song- The Travellers record an entire album of writing in the 70s, when artists including labour songs – a cross-country survey of Bruce Cockburn, Murray MacLachlan, Cover of The Travellers’ union mainly Canadian union songs, from a Perth County Conspiracy, Rita MacNeil, songs record, issued for the 1967 Canadian Centennial. 19th century Knights of Labour anthem Vera Johnson, Stringband, Nancy White to a recent composition about the 1966 and dozens more would expand and ex- strike at Peterborough’s Tilco plant. They tend political songwriting. picture of one of the students murdered are obscure recordings but testify to the The times and the radicalization that at an antiwar demonstration by the Ohio impact of the folk boom on workers and characterized them had an impact on National Guard at Kent State in May of their organizations. These weren’t coun- artists who were and remain prominent 1970 and produced “Ohio,” ending with terculture projects in any sense. Both The both at home and abroad. Ian Tyson was “How can you run when you know?” – a Travellers and The Milestones performed relatively conservative in his politics but call to action. widely for union meetings and conven- on Ian and Sylvia’s Nashville record- The Movement and the Music tions as well as picket lines. ing he contributed two songs that stand out as very different from his usual fare. While the legitimizing of political con- New Songwriters “House of Cards” is a powerful antiwar tent in popular music is the main legacy Songs by new songwriters began to ap- song, while “The Renegade” deals with of folk music in Canada in the 60s, it is pear, reflecting the social movements that the repression of aboriginal traditions. the functionality of the music – its inte- were entering the scene. Perhaps the most Leonard Cohen included a song from gration into political action – that is most often addressed topic was peace. Bonnie the French anti-fascist resistance during important. Dobson, a product of the Toronto NFLY, the Second World War on his first record- Folk music was the ultimate in low moved to the US and met with great suc- ing. Two songwriters who came directly tech. A single singer was all you needed, cess as an interpreter of traditional songs. from the folk music scene had interna- a guitar or banjo was cheap and required The first song she wrote, “Morning Dew,” tional hits with political songs, one rela- no technological support. At a thousand an apocalyptic description of a post-nu- tively gentle, the other a searing ballad. gatherings, songs were sung by singers clear deathscape, was widely recorded by Joni Mitchell wrote one of the first envi- who had few if any thoughts of turning everyone from the Grateful Dead to Lulu ronmental songs, “Big Yellow Taxi,” com- pro. A casual review of flyers from the to the Jeff Beck Group. paring a relationship with “my old man” time lists uncounted and mainly unre- Other issues drew the attention of to that with the earth. The chorus, “they membered singers performing at dem- artists. US draft resisters penned songs paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” onstrations and meetings. In that sense, against the draft. Karen James, a promi- still works well. Neil Young looked at the it really was the music of the folk, songs drawn from struggle by artists who were Voices of 68 an organic part of the movements they performed for. Those who talk of revolution and class struggle with no explicit While it is well worth searching out ­reference to daily life, without understanding the subversive character the music, it is even more useful to re- of love and the positive aspects of refusal, have a corpse in their mouth. member the 60s as a time when folk mu- sic was not a commodity but more often H Wall slogan, Paris 1968 a tool and a weapon.

60 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 Dropping out to change the world? The 60s Counterculture and Radical Activism http :// www by Peter Graham

adicalism has long been associated . historyofrights . com / assets gastown _ riot _ crowd with forms of counterculture, as dis- Rsidents used clothing, haircuts, music or particular expressions to set themselves apart from the mainstream. The Socialist Party in Canada was founded in part by disillusioned utopian colonists. Members of the Industrial Workers of the World wore distinctive caps and rumpled garb. In the 30s, young communists donned Bolshevik-styled black leather jackets. But counterculture of the 1960s would have an impact on the very DNA of the socialist movement. The 60s counterculture was born in a youth rebellion against the social norms . jpg and politics of the 1950s. Its anti-hier- archy ethos led it to challenge prevailing The Gastown riot in Vancouver was the most charged moment in struggles assumptions concerning gender, race and between the hippie subculture and the police. sexuality, both within mainstream society and in organizations of the left. Exist- There tended to be differences between ence exploring LSD at the University of ing socialist organizations seemed a little white male activists and proponents of Toronto. Even though LSD guru Timo- bemused by this development, yet were queer, black and women’s liberation. Al- thy Leary was held up at the border, con- hopeful that it was an indication of a po- though Toronto lacked politico groups ference participants explored 10 rooms litical awakening. that centred around a counter-cultural constructed to simulate a hallucinatory In the counterculture, politics were thrust (Toronto’s Diggers were neither experience and listened to the under- primarily expressed through new ways of as flamboyant or counter-cultural as ground rock stylings of The Fugs. Local living and thinking. In current sketches their American counterpart), there were television shows like Up Against the Wall of the 60s, the period is often associated a number that integrated the counter- in Ottawa and Guerrilla in Toronto tried with music, sex and drugs, and only sec- culture into their political practice. The to capitalize on youth radicalism, while ondarily with radical politics. Only a mi- Black Youth Organization favoured tra- Toronto’s CHUM-FM was branded as nority of the counterculture worked in the ditional African clothing and saw the an alternative radio station. political arena. Although the subculture recreation of black identity and culture as Numerous businesses, including some was antiwar, few were antiwar activists. the first step towards liberation and so- small chains, were founded to make mon- As they had no monolithic countercul- cialism. Members of the May 4th Move- ey from this burgeoning culture. Com- ture, politicos, speed freaks, back-to-the- ment adopted the uniform of the white munity-focused groups set up commerce- landers and the like often had little in- counterculture and viewed some drugs, free spaces, which included free stores, teraction with each other, outside their like marijuana and LSD, as assisting in co-ops and even a government-funded common cultural interests. the revolutionary process. “rap room.” As with any subculture, some time was spent defining its boundaries. Counterculture and Mainstream Even some official institutions got into the counterculture act, most spectacularly Many lamented a decline of authenticity “Politicos” was the word used in the in the form of a weekend-long confer- as the counterculture at times threatened counterculture to refer to people focussed to become the mainstream youth culture, Peter Graham is an editor of Relay and an on activism. Politicos varied widely in activist-historian exploring the Canadian left. and attracted much media attention. their embrace of the counterculture. The chief villain here was the “weekend

NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 61 At one demonstration, Toronto’s Harbinger tercultural ideas, that was responsible for the wave of walkouts and wildcat strikes sought to rattle the square left by decking that occurred during this period, most out a five-ton truck with huge signs prominently in the auto industry. Workers against Hippies? advertising “Freaks for Peace.” Those young people from socialist organizations who entered factories to proselytize amongst the working class ­hippy,” a business person at heart who Instead of wishing for a utopian result often ignored countercultural working would don hip duffs. like the authors of The Rebel Sell, it is class youth, with whom they may have But the main media voice of the more useful to investigate what really did had something in common, in favour of counterculture was the underground happen – how the counterculture became the “average worker.” Some young activ- newspaper. Toronto’s Guerrilla sought an important conduit for political devel- ists made the discovery that strong con- to integrate the youth movement into opment and action. nections could be made in the workplace broader struggles, while Logos in Mon- outside a specific class appeal. Some Radical Activism & Counterculture treal set upon “making Marxism hip.” At workers, for example, were politicized by one demonstration, Toronto’s Harbinger Maoists, the practitioners of the most working class feminism. sought to rattle the square left by deck- popular form of Leninism in the 60s, From blue-collar poets performing at ing out a five-ton truck with huge signs were divided in their approach to this coffee shops at the beginning of the 60s advertising “Freaks for Peace.” phenomena. The May 4th Movement, to the young drop-outs who helped spark previously mentioned, swam with the Yorkville’s hepatitis scare, working class A Hippie Diversion? counterculture while the Communist youth were an integral part of the coun- I won’t attempt a balance sheet of the Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) fa- terculture. Wacheea, a tent city commu- counterculture, but will focus here on voured a clean-cut look and decried any nity, was struck to help accommodate a refuting some of the slings and arrows drug use. Anecdotally, members of the deluge of 300,000 young transients who lobed towards it from the left. The hostile Young Communist League seemed to were expected to storm Toronto one sum- attitudes within the socialist movements embrace the counterculture more than mer. Although that number never mate- of the time are notable, and their argu- members of the trotskyist Young Social- rialized, some who did come were able to ments have recently been buttressed by ists, whose organizing in this milieu may make an irregular income by selling cop- publication of The Rebel Sell by Joseph have been encumbered by their relatively ies of Guerrilla. Heath and Andrew Potter. mainstream appearance and a regulation The 1960s counterculture should not The Rebel Sell looks at the countercul- compelling its members to leave any area be viewed as something apart from, and ture in terms of questions of reform and where marijuana was being smoked. opposed to, the political radicalism of the revolution. Rather than seeing the coun- The fundamental criticism of the Mao- times. In many ways, the counterculture terculture as a favourable milieu for so- ists was that the counterculture was bour- and political radicalism complemented cialist ideas, the authors see it as a rival. geois (it was no accident that feminism each other in the creation of spaces for To Heath and Potter, numerous young and homosexuality were put in this same challenging the system and experiment- people broke from the conservative framework). Yet numerous working-class ing with new ways of life. On the ground, mainstream in the 60s only to fall into youth had joined the counterculture. By however, there were also important ten- the dangerous trap of the counterculture. the early 1970s, the smoking of marijuana sions between those who saw alterna- Had this tie-dyed wool not covered their on the factory floor had begun to rival al- tive lifestyles as an end in themselves eyes, they surely would have become po- cohol use. It was the new generation of and those focussed primarily on political H litical activists, making real change pos- factory workers, defined in part by coun- change. sible. But instead, this bourgeois safety device diverted these nascent revolution- Voices of 68 aries from challenging capitalism on the political field and led them into impotent Six bucks for a New Year’s eve party sparked off a protest complete struggles of personal transformation and with regalia (leaflets, placards, etc.). the like. But, unfortunately for us politicos, a Harbinger (no date) reporting on a protest against a cover charge majority of people have never become for a New Year’s eve party at Grossman’s Tavern political activists, whether we’re talking in Toronto, a counterculture hangout. about the 60s or the Russian revolution.

62 NEW SOCIALIST 2008-2 time to organize Branches and members of the New Socialist Group are active in a number of cities. Call for information about our activities.

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The New Socialist Group is an The NSG works with the Québec organization organization of activists working to renew socialism GAUCHE SOCIALISTE from below as part of today’s struggles. Our socialism is revolutionary and democratic, committed to working- mONTRÉAL [email protected] class self-emancipation, internationalism and opposition QUÉBEC CITY [email protected] to all forms of oppression. We reject bureaucratic and and the outaouais [email protected] authoritarian notions of socialism and look instead to the radical tradition of socialism from below, which gauche socialiste believes that liberation can only be achieved through the CP 52131, Succ, St-Fidele, Québec G1L 5A4 activity and mobilization of the oppressed themselves. www.lagauche.com Ideas need to be put into action. If you like what you read, get in touch with us.