A Retrospective on Berlin Defiance
If you've been reading these Berlin dispatches for any amount of time, you've heard plenty about Berlin's inclination for insurgency: "Berlin and rebellion. The two go together like pork and sauerkraut. The twentieth century here, in particular, is as rich in subversion as Friedrichshain is thick in tongue piercings. Dissent is in Berlin's blood, part of the city's life force."
The fact that Che Guevara's image has reached iconic status among today's disaffected youth points to the current-day dissident culture's roots in the 1960s student protests, during which he first came to symbolize the heroic revolutionary. While the legacy of the "counterculture" movement and/or its political and social affects are contested among liberal and conservative groups in the Germany, America, and elsewhere, the image of the German movement, and its impact, is still a bright spot on the country's tarnished past among many younger Germans. Hence the adoption of Che. This reverence for the events of 1968, the popular culture surrounding it, and the positive and negative impacts of the era on the world we live in today is the subject of a series of events taking place in honor of the now-symbolic year's 40th anniversary.
In February of 1968, the Socialist German Student Association (SDS) held its international Vietnam Congress in Berlin. The event in opposition to authority was made all the more powerful through the German authorities' attempt to prohibit the proceedings. Its underlying focus was Vietnam, so the meeting was inherently opposed to American imperialism and an effort to exhibit solidarity with the Vietnamese. But it also largely launched the German studentenbewegung -- the student movement, which was ultimately about much more than just Vietnam -- and German leaders' collusion with the imperialist American state. It was a rebellion against political and social authority in general and against the older generation, who had ties back into the National Socialist past. And Che Guevara was there in spirit. The revered revolutionary had been captured and killed in Bolivia only a few short months prior, making him something of a martyr for the movement that followed. Though he hadn't yet reached the iconic status of the 1990s (when he was resurrected, partly in opposition to post-Wall social and political change), his quote, "the duty of every revolutionary is to create revolution," was something of a tagline for the Congress' proceedings -- and, for some, a mantra in the years to follow.
In addition to screenings of the "War at Home" series, about the presentation of the Vietnam War in American film, during this week's Berlinale, the city will remember 1968 through a series of events kicking off in the week to come. Key among them is Brennpunkt Berlin, an exhibition and series of events taking place through May at the Amerika Haus Berlin. It will include readings and forums debating the effects of the movement and discussing the transnational nature of the events in Berlin, which had ties to other Vietnam protests, the Prague Spring, and the Paris Riots.
The Festival Musik und Politik beginning February 21 also takes the 1960s as inspiration for some of its events, ranging from movies to podium discussions to musical performances. Of course, the 1960s-themed highlights on the program have explicit ties to American popular culture (à la Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin). Good thing they didn't choose another phrase from the era's bard, in particular one that critics of the era might pick: "The past and the future ... are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking there's some kind of change."
[Photos: Günter Zint]
