Anarchy 89/Whitsun in the streets - Revision history

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Whitsun in the streets | author = P.B. | section = | previous = ../I am a megaphone|I am a..."

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Created page with "{{header | title = [[../|ANARCHY 89 (Vol 8 No. 7) JULY 1968]]<br>Whitsun in the streets | author = P.B. | section = | previous = ../I am a megaphone|I am a..."

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{{header
| title = [[../|ANARCHY 89 (Vol 8 No. 7) JULY 1968]]<br>Whitsun in the streets
| author = P.B.
| section =
| previous = [[../I am a megaphone|I am a megaphone]]
| next = '''[[Anarchy 90]]'''
| notes =
}}

<div style="max-width:500px; margin:auto; text-align:justify;">

{{p|214}}<font size="5">'''Whitsun in the streets'''</font>

<font size="4">'''[[Author:P.B.|P.B.]]'''</font>

{{sc|The most revolutionary impression}} of {{w|Paris}} over the {{w|Whitsun}} weekend was that of the simple freedom of movement and human contact in and around the Sorbonne; a simplicity which ought to be a natural way of behaviour, but which now comes as a surprise in a modern city.

{{tab}}In the {{w|Sorbonne|Sorbonne_University}}

{{tab}}But there is a seriousness

{{tab}}In contrast to the freedom of the Sorbonne,

{{tab}}It is presumably

{{tab}}Posters, slogans, pamphlets, newspapers,

{{tab}}However, they had no clear idea

{{tab}}Despite the proliferation

{{tab}}I have an impression

{{tab}}One of the most hopeful signs

{{tab}}A {{qq|Commission of Inter-<wbr>Professional Relations}}

{{tab}}Practically every educational institution in Paris

{{tab}}The main work of the students

{{tab}}The Sorbonne so clearly stands for something,

{{tab}}It is more difficult to predict

{| style="text-align:justify; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; border-collapse:collapse;"
|-
| <font size="2">'''View from the {{w|Island|United_Kingdom}}'''

{{tab}}''{{w|Christopher Logue|Christopher_Logue}}, poet laureate of the Left, asked earnestly what We in Britain could do'': ''that, said [[Author:Daniel Cohn-Bendit|Cohn-<wbr>Bendit]] wearily, is your problem. {{w|Kenneth Tynan|Kenneth_Tynan}}, in a kimono short, kept inquiring how rebellion could succeed without army support. Among iconoclastic cheers, Cohn-<wbr>Bendit resorted to'' (''Anglo-<wbr>Saxon'') ''four-<wbr>letter words. You felt, breaking free of the shambles, that the only thing our Fidelistas will be able to do with paving stones is drop them on their feet.''

<div style="text-align:right">{{dash}}{{w|the guardian|The_Guardian}}, 13.6.68.</div></font>
|}</div>

{{DEFAULTSORT: Reflections on the revolution in france}}
[[Category:Anarchist history]]
[[Category:Labour and industry]]
[[Category:Protest]]
[[Category:Strikes]]
[[Category:Student movements]]
[[Category:Articles]]
[[Category:Clippings from other publications]]

@@ Line 40: / Line 40: @@
 {{tab}}Practic&shy;ally every edu&shy;ca&shy;tional in&shy;stitu&shy;tion in Paris has been taken over: a friend of mine at a school for {{w|inter&shy;pret&shy;ers|Language_interpretation}}, for ex&shy;ample, has spent the past two weeks work&shy;ing ex&shy;tremely hard on the de&shy;tails of a new {{qq|con&shy;sti&shy;tu&shy;tion}} for his col&shy;lege.
-{{tab}}The main work of the stu&shy;dents over the Whit week&shy;end ap&shy;peared to be the organ&shy;is&shy;at&shy;ing of groups to go to the factor&shy;ies to help per&shy;suade the strik&shy;ers to con&shy;tinue. The seri&shy;ous&shy;ness had not evapor&shy;ated over the hot sunny week&shy;end. The {{w|Od&eacute;on|Odéon-Théâtre_de_l'Europe}} on Tues&shy;day was still packed with ardent de&shy;bat&shy;ers, speak&shy;ing in rapid but ordered suc&shy;ces&shy;sion. The atmo&shy;sphere has holi&shy;day, but a heady holi&shy;day which was no escape {{p|224}}from life, like our stand&shy;ard fort&shy;nights in {{w|Black&shy;pool|Blackpool}} or {{w|Tor&shy;remo&shy;linos|Torremolinos}}, but a con&shy;firm&shy;a&shy;tion of life. A holi&shy;day in which every&shy;one part&shy;i&shy;cip&shy;ated, a holi&shy;day which every&shy;one had them&shy;selves cre&shy;ated (in this sense it was more than the joy&shy;ful feel&shy;ing of dis&shy;rup&shy;tion pro&shy;duced by heavy snow&shy;falls or power fail&shy;ures). The crowds in the Sor&shy;bonne did per&shy;haps ap&shy;pear to be mill&shy;ing about aim&shy;lessly, but it was the open aim&shy;less&shy;ness of people search&shy;ing, ques&shy;tion&shy;ing, come to dis&shy;cover the situ&shy;a&shy;tion and their part in it, and by their very being there they made the situ&shy;a&shy;tion.
+{{tab}}The main work of the stu&shy;dents over the Whit week&shy;end ap&shy;peared to be the organ&shy;is&shy;ing<!-- 'organisating' in original --> of groups to go to the factor&shy;ies to help per&shy;suade the strik&shy;ers to con&shy;tinue. The seri&shy;ous&shy;ness had not evapor&shy;ated over the hot sunny week&shy;end. The {{w|Od&eacute;on|Odéon-Théâtre_de_l'Europe}} on Tues&shy;day was still packed with ardent de&shy;bat&shy;ers, speak&shy;ing in rapid but ordered suc&shy;ces&shy;sion. The atmo&shy;sphere was holi&shy;day, but a heady holi&shy;day which was no escape {{p|224}}from life, like our stand&shy;ard fort&shy;nights in {{w|Black&shy;pool|Blackpool}} or {{w|Tor&shy;remo&shy;linos|Torremolinos}}, but a con&shy;firm&shy;a&shy;tion of life. A holi&shy;day in which every&shy;one part&shy;i&shy;cip&shy;ated, a holi&shy;day which every&shy;one had them&shy;selves cre&shy;ated (in this sense it was more than the joy&shy;ful feel&shy;ing of dis&shy;rup&shy;tion pro&shy;duced by heavy snow&shy;falls or power fail&shy;ures). The crowds in the Sor&shy;bonne did per&shy;haps ap&shy;pear to be mill&shy;ing about aim&shy;lessly, but it was the open aim&shy;less&shy;ness of people search&shy;ing, ques&shy;tion&shy;ing, come to dis&shy;cover the situ&shy;a&shy;tion and their part in it, and by their very being there they made the situ&shy;a&shy;tion.
-{{tab}}The Sor&shy;bonne so clearly stands for some&shy;thing, in&shy;de&shy;fin&shy;able, but de&shy;fin&shy;itely some&shy;thing much more than the sys&shy;tem of human rela&shy;tion&shy;ships we sur&shy;vive on at the mo&shy;ment. Even when the pres&shy;ent ex&shy;cite&shy;ment and open&shy;ness has died down, as Cohn-<wbr>Bendit says, the people now know their power, and even if there is no im&shy;medi&shy;ate change in work con&shy;di&shy;tions and rela&shy;tion&shy;ships, people who feel that the mechan&shy;ised role-<wbr>play&shy;ing life is again over&shy;power&shy;ing them, can con&shy;tinue to pro&shy;voke crisis after crisis until the changes do oc&shy;cur. The re&shy;newed at&shy;tacks upon the police of June 11th showed that the stu&shy;dents have by no means lost hope in the re&shy;volu&shy;tion: and whether or not re&shy;volu&shy;tion is achieved, the af&shy;flu&shy;ence of Western so&shy;ciety in general and the com&shy;mit&shy;ted posi&shy;tion taken by so many French pro&shy;fes&shy;sion&shy;als, in&shy;tel&shy;lec&shy;tu&shy;als and stu&shy;dents, are bound to ensure that sub&shy;stan&shy;tial changes do oc&shy;cur within the ecu&shy;ca&shy;tional and pro&shy;fes&shy;sional sys&shy;tems.
+{{tab}}The Sor&shy;bonne so clearly stands for some&shy;thing, in&shy;de&shy;fin&shy;able, but de&shy;fin&shy;itely some&shy;thing much more than the sys&shy;tem of human rela&shy;tion&shy;ships we sur&shy;vive on at the mo&shy;ment. Even when the pres&shy;ent ex&shy;cite&shy;ment and open&shy;ness has died down, as Cohn-<wbr>Bendit says, the people now know their power, and even if there is no im&shy;medi&shy;ate change in work con&shy;di&shy;tions and rela&shy;tion&shy;ships, people who feel that the mechan&shy;ised role-<wbr>play&shy;ing life is again over&shy;power&shy;ing them, can con&shy;tinue to pro&shy;voke crisis after crisis until the changes do oc&shy;cur. The re&shy;newed at&shy;tacks upon the police of June 11th showed that the stu&shy;dents have by no means lost hope in the re&shy;volu&shy;tion: and whether or not re&shy;volu&shy;tion is achieved, the af&shy;flu&shy;ence of Western so&shy;ciety in general and the com&shy;mit&shy;ted posi&shy;tion taken by so many French pro&shy;fes&shy;sion&shy;als, in&shy;tel&shy;lec&shy;tu&shy;als and stu&shy;dents, are bound to ensure that sub&shy;stan&shy;tial changes do oc&shy;cur within the edu&shy;ca&shy;tional and pro&shy;fes&shy;sional sys&shy;tems.
 {{tab}}It is more dif&shy;fi&shy;cult to pre&shy;dict what will happen in the factor&shy;ies. But per&shy;haps the whole feel&shy;ing of the re&shy;volu&shy;tion was crys&shy;tal&shy;lised in the meet&shy;ing we had with a group of anarch&shy;ist work&shy;ers when we were cook&shy;ing our supper in the street in {{w|Les Halles|Les_Halles}}, dur&shy;ing the monster traf&shy;fic jam on the Tues&shy;day evening. They leapt out of a caf&eacute; on top of us, asked us what we thought of the re&shy;volu&shy;tion, de&shy;clared the strike was con&shy;tinu&shy;ing 100%, clenched fists, pro&shy;claimed; {{qq|{{popup|''C{{a}}est une re&shy;volu&shy;tion de vivre, les patrons, les ouvriers, tous les deux''|It's a revolution to live, bosses and workers alike}}}}, and {{qq|{{popup|''Les syndicats sont depass&eacute;s, depass&eacute;s''|The unions are overtaken, overtaken}}}}, leapt into a big {{w|Citro&euml;n|Citroën}} van shout&shy;ing they were off to the provin&shy;ces to spread the word, and just dis&shy;ap&shy;peared down the street where traf&shy;fic had been mov&shy;ing at the rate of two car-<wbr>lengths every minute. A minute later they were gone, but leav&shy;ing a stronger im&shy;pres&shy;sion on us than any other people in Paris.
-{| style="text-align:justify; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; border-collapse:collapse;"
+{| style="text-align:justify; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; border-collapse:collapse;" cellpadding="4"
 |-
 | <font size="2">'''View from the {{w|Island|United_Kingdom}}'''
-{{tab}}''{{w|Chris&shy;topher Logue|Christopher_Logue}}, poet laure&shy;ate of the Left, asked earn&shy;estly what We in Brit&shy;ain could do'': ''that, said [[Author:Daniel Cohn-Bendit|Cohn-<wbr>Bendit]] wear&shy;ily, is your prob&shy;lem.  {{w|Ken&shy;neth Tynan|Kenneth_Tynan}}, in a kimono short, kept in&shy;quir&shy;ing how re&shy;bel&shy;lion could suc&shy;ceed with&shy;out army sup&shy;port. Among icon&shy;o&shy;clastic cheers, Cohn-<wbr>Bendit resorted to'' (''Anglo-<wbr>Saxon'') ''four-<wbr>letter words. You felt, break&shy;ing free of the sham&shy;bles, that the only thing our Fidel&shy;istas will be able to do with pav&shy;ing stones is drop them on their feet.''
+{{tab}}''{{w|Chris&shy;topher Logue|Christopher_Logue}}, poet laure&shy;ate of the Left, asked earn&shy;estly what We in Brit&shy;ain could do'': ''that, said [[Author:Daniel Cohn-Bendit|Cohn-<wbr>Bendit]] wear&shy;ily, is your prob&shy;lem.  {{w|Ken&shy;neth Tynan|Kenneth_Tynan}}, in a kimono shirt, kept in&shy;quir&shy;ing how re&shy;bel&shy;lion could suc&shy;ceed with&shy;out army sup&shy;port. Among icon&shy;o&shy;clastic cheers, Cohn-<wbr>Bendit resorted to'' (''Anglo-<wbr>Saxon'') ''four-<wbr>letter words. You felt, break&shy;ing free of the sham&shy;bles, that the only thing our Fidel&shy;istas will be able to do with pav&shy;ing stones is drop them on their feet.''
 <div style="text-align:right">{{dash}}{{w|{{sc|the guardian}}|The_Guardian}}, 13.6.68.</div></font>

← Older revision		Revision as of 01:54, 10 April 2018
Line 44:		Line 44:
	{{tab}}The Sorbonne so clearly stands for something, indefinable, but definitely something much more than the system of human relationships we survive on at the moment. Even when the present excitement and openness has died down, as Cohn-<wbr>Bendit says, the people now know their power, and even if there is no immediate change in work conditions and relationships, people who feel that the mechanised role-<wbr>playing life is again overpowering them, can continue to provoke crisis after crisis until the changes do occur. The renewed attacks upon the police of June 11th showed that the students have by no means lost hope in the revolution: and whether or not revolution is achieved, the affluence of Western society in general and the committed position taken by so many French professionals, intellectuals and students, are bound to ensure that substantial changes do occur within the ecucational and professional systems.		{{tab}}The Sorbonne so clearly stands for something, indefinable, but definitely something much more than the system of human relationships we survive on at the moment. Even when the present excitement and openness has died down, as Cohn-<wbr>Bendit says, the people now know their power, and even if there is no immediate change in work conditions and relationships, people who feel that the mechanised role-<wbr>playing life is again overpowering them, can continue to provoke crisis after crisis until the changes do occur. The renewed attacks upon the police of June 11th showed that the students have by no means lost hope in the revolution: and whether or not revolution is achieved, the affluence of Western society in general and the committed position taken by so many French professionals, intellectuals and students, are bound to ensure that substantial changes do occur within the ecucational and professional systems.

−	{{tab}}It is more difficult to predict what will happen in the factories. But perhaps the whole feeling of the revolution was crystallised in the meeting we had with a group of anarchist workers when we were cooking our supper in the street in {{w\|Les Halles\|Les_Halles}}, during the monster traffic jam on the Tuesday evening. They leapt out of a café on top of us, asked us what we thought of the revolution, declared the strike was continuing 100%, clenched fists, proclaimed; {{qq\|{{popup\|''C{{a}}est une revolution de vivre, les patrons, les ouvriers, tous les deux''\|It's a revolution ~~of living~~, bosses and workers alike}}}}, and {{qq\|{{popup\|''Les syndicats sont depassés, depassés''\|The unions are overtaken, overtaken}}}}, leapt into a big {{w\|Citroën\|Citroën}} van shouting they were off to the provinces to spread the word, and just disappeared down the street where traffic had been moving at the rate of two car-<wbr>lengths every minute. A minute later they were gone, but leaving a stronger impression on us than any other people in Paris.	+	{{tab}}It is more difficult to predict what will happen in the factories. But perhaps the whole feeling of the revolution was crystallised in the meeting we had with a group of anarchist workers when we were cooking our supper in the street in {{w\|Les Halles\|Les_Halles}}, during the monster traffic jam on the Tuesday evening. They leapt out of a café on top of us, asked us what we thought of the revolution, declared the strike was continuing 100%, clenched fists, proclaimed; {{qq\|{{popup\|''C{{a}}est une revolution de vivre, les patrons, les ouvriers, tous les deux''\|It's a revolution to live, bosses and workers alike}}}}, and {{qq\|{{popup\|''Les syndicats sont depassés, depassés''\|The unions are overtaken, overtaken}}}}, leapt into a big {{w\|Citroën\|Citroën}} van shouting they were off to the provinces to spread the word, and just disappeared down the street where traffic had been moving at the rate of two car-<wbr>lengths every minute. A minute later they were gone, but leaving a stronger impression on us than any other people in Paris.

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 <div style="max-width:500px; margin:auto; text-align:justify;">
-{{p|214}}<font size="5">'''Whitsun in the streets'''</font>
+{{p|221}}<font size="5">'''Whitsun in the streets'''</font>
 <font size="4">'''[[Author:P.B.|P.B.]]'''</font>
@@ Line 18: / Line 18: @@
 {{sc|The most re&shy;volu&shy;tion&shy;ary im&shy;pres&shy;sion}} of {{w|Paris}} over the {{w|Whitsun}} week&shy;end was that of the simple free&shy;dom of move&shy;ment and human con&shy;tact in and around the Sor&shy;bonne; a sim&shy;pli&shy;city which ought to be a na&shy;tural way of beha&shy;viour, but which now comes as a sur&shy;prise in a modern city.
-{{tab}}In the {{w|Sor&shy;bonne|Sorbonne_University}}
+{{tab}}In the {{w|Sor&shy;bonne|Sorbonne_University}} itself there is a total lack of sus&shy;pi&shy;cion and inter&shy;fer&shy;ence, in spite of fears of at&shy;tacks by {{qq|Oc&shy;ci&shy;dent|Occident_(movement)}} (a tough right-<wbr>wing counter-<wbr>revolu&shy;tion&shy;ary group). The whole world is there{{dash}}stu&shy;dents, work&shy;ers, for&shy;eign&shy;ers of all de&shy;scrip&shy;tions; activ&shy;ists (both seri&shy;ous and con&shy;trolled, and the wild), lib&shy;eral in&shy;tel&shy;lectu&shy;als, tour&shy;ists. Hun&shy;dreds of people sleep on floors and benches; there are rooms full of food sup&shy;plies for the oc&shy;cu&shy;py&shy;ing stu&shy;dents; and armies of stu&shy;dents sweep&shy;ing up. It seemed the na&shy;tural thing for us to set up a stove and cook our meal in the Sor&shy;bonne court&shy;yard, and other days we cooked and slept in parks and streets all over Paris; no&shy;body ob&shy;jected and it pro&shy;vided a good way of meet&shy;ing people. There was not a cop to be seen on the {{w|Left Bank|Rive_Gauche}} (ex&shy;cept those rush&shy;ing through in ar&shy;moured buses).
-{{tab}}But there is a seri&shy;ous&shy;ness
+{{tab}}But there is a seri&shy;ous&shy;ness which makes the fri&shy;vol&shy;ity im&shy;port&shy;ant, so that eat&shy;ing and lov&shy;ing and merry-<wbr>making in the parks be&shy;comes both an ob&shy;ject and a sym&shy;bol of the re&shy;volu&shy;tion. The Sor&shy;bonne scene is run by a series of Ac&shy;tion Com&shy;mit&shy;tees, deal&shy;ing with rela&shy;tions with the strik&shy;ers, art and theatre, edu&shy;ca&shy;tion, print&shy;ing of tracts, organ&shy;is&shy;ing of food, clean&shy;ing, etc. Meet&shy;ings are con&shy;tinu&shy;ally being held to dis&shy;cuss both ac&shy;tion and the philo&shy;sophy of the re&shy;volu&shy;tion{{dash}}live, ex&shy;cit&shy;ing meet&shy;ings where polit&shy;ical speeches be&shy;come poetry, both indi&shy;vidu&shy;ally and ''en masse.'' Things hap&shy;pen quickly; some Eng&shy;lish stu&shy;dents ar&shy;rived on Satur&shy;day; got to&shy;gether a large hetero&shy;gene&shy;ous group on the Monday to form an {{qq|Eng&shy;lish Speak&shy;ing People{{s|r}} Ac&shy;tion Com&shy;mit&shy;tee}}, dis&shy;cussed a pro&shy;posal to liber&shy;ate the {{w|Brit&shy;ish In&shy;sti&shy;tute in Paris|University_of_London_Institute_in_Paris}}; and, at 4 p.m. next day, with the co-<wbr>oper&shy;a&shy;tion of some stu&shy;dents from the In&shy;sti&shy;tute and from the Sor&shy;bonne, oc&shy;cu&shy;pied the build&shy;ing. (Many of the teach&shy;ers seemed quite pleased, and ap&shy;peared to wel&shy;come the op&shy;por&shy;tun&shy;ity of {{p|222}}teach&shy;ing the less bour&shy;geois-orient&shy;ated ver&shy;sions of Brit&shy;ish cul&shy;ture which are to re&shy;place the {{w|Cam&shy;bridge pro&shy;fi&shy;ciency|C2_Proficiency}} courses.)
-{{tab}}In con&shy;trast to the free&shy;dom of the Sor&shy;bonne,
+{{tab}}In con&shy;trast to the free&shy;dom of the Sor&shy;bonne, there is the {{w|Ecole Des Beaux Arts|École_nationale_supérieure_des_Beaux-Arts}}, which is being run like a para-<wbr>milit&shy;ary poster factory, hard men with helmets and sticks at the gate, ques&shy;tion&shy;ing every would-<wbr>be entrant in great de&shy;tail. The re&shy;strict&shy;ive atmo&shy;sphere is not re&shy;duced by the {{w|Stalin&shy;esque ar&shy;chi&shy;tec&shy;ture|Stalinist_architecture}} nor by the shin&shy;ing of torches into eyes in the ''{{w|dortoir|Dormitory}}'' (where rows of camp beds pro&shy;vide an ordered lux&shy;ury ab&shy;sent at the Sor&shy;bonne). Two friends of mine found that to ob&shy;tain three posters re&shy;quired the sort of feats of con&shy;man&shy;ship needed to steal files on {{w|draft-<wbr>dodgers|Draft_evasion}} from the {{w|Penta&shy;gon|The_Pentagon}}. But on the other side of the coin, they are seri&shy;ous. They want only people ready to work, for whom there are beds and food. They re&shy;cently threw out a load of {{qq|ma&shy;linger&shy;ers}}. Con&shy;scious of the dangers of hav&shy;ing {{qq|for&shy;eign agit&shy;at&shy;ors}} caught, they would not allow my two friends to go around Paris poster-<wbr>stick&shy;ing.
-{{tab}}It is pre&shy;sum&shy;ably
+{{tab}}It is pre&shy;sum&shy;ably the sheer number of people in the Sor&shy;bonne which allows it to remain open-<wbr>to-<wbr>all, yet re&shy;lat&shy;ively secure (as well as the group of {{qq|{{w|Katang&shy;ese|Katanga}}}} toughs who lived there until ejected by the stu&shy;dents on June 13th-14th). It would re&shy;quire so many at&shy;tack&shy;ers to take the build&shy;ing that they would be dis&shy;persed be&shy;fore they had time to group them&shy;selves in large enough num&shy;bers to be ef&shy;fect&shy;ive. (''A propos'' the at&shy;tacks, a large number of books in the Sor&shy;bonne ar&shy;chives were burned on May 31st, a sense&shy;less act blamed by the stu&shy;dents upon {{qq|Oc&shy;ci&shy;dent}}: but no one was able to verify this. This has been the only sign of vandal&shy;ism since the re&shy;volu&shy;tion began, how&shy;ever.)
-{{tab}}Posters, slo&shy;gans, pamph&shy;lets, news&shy;papers,
+{{tab}}Posters, slo&shy;gans, pamph&shy;lets, news&shy;papers, pro&shy;claim every left-<wbr>wing philo&shy;sophy known (with the pos&shy;sible ex&shy;cep&shy;tion of the {{w|CP|French_Communist_Party}}: I only saw one sign, which an&shy;nounced {{qq|The French CP does not want to change so&shy;ciety, only the Gov&shy;ern&shy;ment}}, but this may have been a {{w|Trotsky&shy;ist|Trotskyism}} joke). A good news-<wbr>sheet, ''Le Pave'' (The Paving Stone) prints a day-<wbr>by-<wbr>day ac&shy;count of the bar&shy;ri&shy;cades and a letter on {{w|Black Power|Black_Power}} by {{w|Rap Brown|H._Rap_Brown}}; also a letter from the Sol&shy;dier{{s|r}} Com&shy;mit&shy;tee of {{w|Vin&shy;cennes|Vincennes}}, warn&shy;ing sol&shy;diers  of the dangers of being used by the Gov&shy;ern&shy;ment to break strikes: {{qq|You are the sons of the people &hellip; to isol&shy;ate you from the people it (the Gov&shy;ern&shy;ment) orders you to the bar&shy;racks &hellip; de&shy;mand your passes. &hellip;}} The ''{{w|Voix Ouvriere|Lutte_Ouvrière}},'' a Trotsky&shy;ist paper run mainly by work&shy;ers, preaches full co-<wbr>oper&shy;a&shy;tion be&shy;tween work&shy;ers and stu&shy;dents, de&shy;noun&shy;ces the CP and the elec&shy;tions. Several strik&shy;ers we talked to who were on guard duty at the {{w|Renault}} factory at {{w|Billan&shy;court|Boulogne-Billancourt}} did want com&shy;plete re&shy;volu&shy;tion of the polit&shy;ical sys&shy;tem, did not sup&shy;port the {{w|CGT|General_Confederation_of_Labour_(France)}}, but other&shy;wise seemed fairly {{w|ortho&shy;dox Com&shy;mun&shy;ists|Marxism–Leninism}}, sup&shy;ported the Russian sys&shy;tem and be&shy;lieved that elec&shy;tions would achieve re&shy;volu&shy;tion. Ac&shy;cord&shy;ing to one striker the aver&shy;age wage for oper&shy;at&shy;ives is about &pound;18 a week, in&shy;clud&shy;ing bonuses, and it is per&shy;haps an ex&shy;ample of the French ap&shy;proach to life that it is the better-<wbr>off work&shy;ers, and those work&shy;ing in one of the most alien&shy;at&shy;ing work situ&shy;a&shy;tions of {{p|223}}all, who are the first to de&shy;mand changes in the power struc&shy;ture.
-{{tab}}However, they had no clear idea
+{{tab}}However, they had no clear idea as to who they wanted to form a Gov&shy;ern&shy;ment (cer&shy;tainly neither {{w|de Gaulle|Charles_de_Gaulle}}, {{w|Mitter&shy;rand<!-- 'Mitterand' in original -->|François_Mitterrand}} nor {{w|Mendes-<wbr>France|Pierre_Mendès_France}}).
-{{tab}}Despite the pro&shy;lifer&shy;a&shy;tion
+{{tab}}Despite the pro&shy;lifer&shy;a&shy;tion of re&shy;volu&shy;tion&shy;ary ideas at the Sor&shy;bonne, as [[Author:Daniel Cohn-Bendit|Cohn-<wbr>Bendit]] pointed out at the {{w|LSE|London_School_of_Economics}} {{w|Teach-<wbr>in|Teach-in}} on June 13th, the in&shy;tel&shy;lec&shy;tu&shy;als were caught un&shy;awares by the sud&shy;den erup&shy;tions, without hav&shy;ing formed a co&shy;her&shy;ent and co&shy;hes&shy;ive philo&shy;sophy on which to base ac&shy;tion after the crisis had oc&shy;curred. This task has yet to be done, and the lack of such a philo&shy;sophy may be one of the main reasons why the strik&shy;ers did not take over the run&shy;ning of their factor&shy;ies, nor take con&shy;trol of the dis&shy;tribu&shy;tion serv&shy;ices. (There is also the re&shy;luct&shy;ance of the CGT to com&shy;mit any {{qq|il&shy;legal act}}.) The ensu&shy;ing para&shy;lysis was an im&shy;port&shy;ant factor in gener&shy;at&shy;ing the re&shy;turn to work.
-{{tab}}I have an im&shy;pres&shy;sion
+{{tab}}I have an im&shy;pres&shy;sion that the press is try&shy;ing to ex&shy;ag&shy;ger&shy;ate the split between the CP and the more milit&shy;ant left, with the ob&shy;ject of both dis&shy;credit&shy;ing the CP mor&shy;ally, and demon&shy;strat&shy;ing the in&shy;ef&shy;fect&shy;ive&shy;ness of the re&shy;main&shy;der: a ''{{w|France-<wbr>Soir|France-Soir}}'' journal&shy;ist we talked to thought that the CGT were philo&shy;soph&shy;ically be&shy;hind the Renault work&shy;ers, but that they did not want to com&shy;mit them&shy;selves pub&shy;licly to what they thought would be a failed re&shy;volu&shy;tion: so they simply ar&shy;ranged that the terms they nego&shy;ti&shy;ated with the gov&shy;ern&shy;ment would be bound to be thrown out by the work&shy;ers.
-{{tab}}One of the most hope&shy;ful signs
+{{tab}}One of the most hope&shy;ful signs during the re&shy;volu&shy;tion has been the in&shy;volve&shy;ment of pro&shy;fes&shy;sional groups. ''{{w|Le Monde|Le_Monde}}'' ran an ac&shy;count of a meet&shy;ing on May 23rd of 700 archi&shy;tects in the {{w|Insti&shy;tut d{{a}}Urban&shy;isme|Sorbonne_University#Other_campuses_in_Paris}}, which gave full sup&shy;port to the stu&shy;dents and de&shy;cided to par&shy;ti&shy;cip&shy;ate through their pro&shy;fes&shy;sion in the move&shy;ment towards chan&shy;ging the struc&shy;ture of so&shy;ciety and of the pro&shy;fes&shy;sions. They have also oc&shy;cu&shy;pied their {{w|re&shy;gional coun&shy;cil|Regional_council_(France)}} of&shy;fice, and in&shy;tend to hold all future meet&shy;ings at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. (''{{w|L{{a}}Express|L'Express}}'' re&shy;ports that the oc&shy;cu&shy;pa&shy;tion of the archi&shy;tect{{s|r}} re&shy;gional coun&shy;cil of&shy;fices was under&shy;taken by a group of which 90% were archi&shy;tects and only 10% stu&shy;dents.)
-{{tab}}A {{qq|Com&shy;mis&shy;sion of Inter-<wbr>Profes&shy;sional Rela&shy;tions}}
+{{tab}}A {{qq|Com&shy;mis&shy;sion of Inter-<wbr>Profes&shy;sional Rela&shy;tions}} (Ex-<wbr>{{w|ENSBA|École_nationale_supérieure_des_Beaux-Arts}}) con&shy;sist&shy;ing of groups of archi&shy;tects, {{w|city-<wbr>planners|Urban_planning}}, {{w|high&shy;way en&shy;gin&shy;eers|Highway_engineering}}, build&shy;ers, masons, so&shy;cial psy&shy;cho&shy;lo&shy;gists, etc., voted un&shy;an&shy;im&shy;ously at a meet&shy;ing on June 1st, to set up an organ&shy;isa&shy;tion to fight against the cap&shy;it&shy;al&shy;ist struc&shy;ture of the pro&shy;fes&shy;sions.
-{{tab}}Practic&shy;ally every edu&shy;ca&shy;tional in&shy;stitu&shy;tion in Paris
+{{tab}}Practic&shy;ally every edu&shy;ca&shy;tional in&shy;stitu&shy;tion in Paris has been taken over: a friend of mine at a school for {{w|inter&shy;pret&shy;ers|Language_interpretation}}, for ex&shy;ample, has spent the past two weeks work&shy;ing ex&shy;tremely hard on the de&shy;tails of a new {{qq|con&shy;sti&shy;tu&shy;tion}} for his col&shy;lege.
-{{tab}}The main work of the stu&shy;dents
+{{tab}}The main work of the stu&shy;dents over the Whit week&shy;end ap&shy;peared to be the organ&shy;is&shy;at&shy;ing of groups to go to the factor&shy;ies to help per&shy;suade the strik&shy;ers to con&shy;tinue. The seri&shy;ous&shy;ness had not evapor&shy;ated over the hot sunny week&shy;end. The {{w|Od&eacute;on|Odéon-Théâtre_de_l'Europe}} on Tues&shy;day was still packed with ardent de&shy;bat&shy;ers, speak&shy;ing in rapid but ordered suc&shy;ces&shy;sion. The atmo&shy;sphere has holi&shy;day, but a heady holi&shy;day which was no escape {{p|224}}from life, like our stand&shy;ard fort&shy;nights in {{w|Black&shy;pool|Blackpool}} or {{w|Tor&shy;remo&shy;linos|Torremolinos}}, but a con&shy;firm&shy;a&shy;tion of life. A holi&shy;day in which every&shy;one part&shy;i&shy;cip&shy;ated, a holi&shy;day which every&shy;one had them&shy;selves cre&shy;ated (in this sense it was more than the joy&shy;ful feel&shy;ing of dis&shy;rup&shy;tion pro&shy;duced by heavy snow&shy;falls or power fail&shy;ures). The crowds in the Sor&shy;bonne did per&shy;haps ap&shy;pear to be mill&shy;ing about aim&shy;lessly, but it was the open aim&shy;less&shy;ness of people search&shy;ing, ques&shy;tion&shy;ing, come to dis&shy;cover the situ&shy;a&shy;tion and their part in it, and by their very being there they made the situ&shy;a&shy;tion.
-{{tab}}The Sor&shy;bonne so clearly stands for some&shy;thing,
+{{tab}}The Sor&shy;bonne so clearly stands for some&shy;thing, in&shy;de&shy;fin&shy;able, but de&shy;fin&shy;itely some&shy;thing much more than the sys&shy;tem of human rela&shy;tion&shy;ships we sur&shy;vive on at the mo&shy;ment. Even when the pres&shy;ent ex&shy;cite&shy;ment and open&shy;ness has died down, as Cohn-<wbr>Bendit says, the people now know their power, and even if there is no im&shy;medi&shy;ate change in work con&shy;di&shy;tions and rela&shy;tion&shy;ships, people who feel that the mechan&shy;ised role-<wbr>play&shy;ing life is again over&shy;power&shy;ing them, can con&shy;tinue to pro&shy;voke crisis after crisis until the changes do oc&shy;cur. The re&shy;newed at&shy;tacks upon the police of June 11th showed that the stu&shy;dents have by no means lost hope in the re&shy;volu&shy;tion: and whether or not re&shy;volu&shy;tion is achieved, the af&shy;flu&shy;ence of Western so&shy;ciety in general and the com&shy;mit&shy;ted posi&shy;tion taken by so many French pro&shy;fes&shy;sion&shy;als, in&shy;tel&shy;lec&shy;tu&shy;als and stu&shy;dents, are bound to ensure that sub&shy;stan&shy;tial changes do oc&shy;cur within the ecu&shy;ca&shy;tional and pro&shy;fes&shy;sional sys&shy;tems.
-{{tab}}It is more dif&shy;fi&shy;cult to pre&shy;dict
+{{tab}}It is more dif&shy;fi&shy;cult to pre&shy;dict what will happen in the factor&shy;ies. But per&shy;haps the whole feel&shy;ing of the re&shy;volu&shy;tion was crys&shy;tal&shy;lised in the meet&shy;ing we had with a group of anarch&shy;ist work&shy;ers when we were cook&shy;ing our supper in the street in {{w|Les Halles|Les_Halles}}, dur&shy;ing the monster traf&shy;fic jam on the Tues&shy;day evening. They leapt out of a caf&eacute; on top of us, asked us what we thought of the re&shy;volu&shy;tion, de&shy;clared the strike was con&shy;tinu&shy;ing 100%, clenched fists, pro&shy;claimed; {{qq|{{popup|''C{{a}}est une re&shy;volu&shy;tion de vivre, les patrons, les ouvriers, tous les deux''|It's a revolution of living, bosses and workers alike}}}}, and {{qq|{{popup|''Les syndicats sont depass&eacute;s, depass&eacute;s''|The unions are overtaken, overtaken}}}}, leapt into a big {{w|Citro&euml;n|Citroën}} van shout&shy;ing they were off to the provin&shy;ces to spread the word, and just dis&shy;ap&shy;peared down the street where traf&shy;fic had been mov&shy;ing at the rate of two car-<wbr>lengths every minute. A minute later they were gone, but leav&shy;ing a stronger im&shy;pres&shy;sion on us than any other people in Paris.
@@ Line 53: / Line 53: @@
 {{tab}}''{{w|Chris&shy;topher Logue|Christopher_Logue}}, poet laure&shy;ate of the Left, asked earn&shy;estly what We in Brit&shy;ain could do'': ''that, said [[Author:Daniel Cohn-Bendit|Cohn-<wbr>Bendit]] wear&shy;ily, is your prob&shy;lem.  {{w|Ken&shy;neth Tynan|Kenneth_Tynan}}, in a kimono short, kept in&shy;quir&shy;ing how re&shy;bel&shy;lion could suc&shy;ceed with&shy;out army sup&shy;port. Among icon&shy;o&shy;clastic cheers, Cohn-<wbr>Bendit resorted to'' (''Anglo-<wbr>Saxon'') ''four-<wbr>letter words. You felt, break&shy;ing free of the sham&shy;bles, that the only thing our Fidel&shy;istas will be able to do with pav&shy;ing stones is drop them on their feet.''
-<div style="text-align:right">{{dash}}{{w|the guardian|The_Guardian}}, 13.6.68.</div></font>
+<div style="text-align:right">{{dash}}{{w|{{sc|the guardian}}|The_Guardian}}, 13.6.68.</div></font>
 |}</div>

@@ Line 56: / Line 56: @@
 |}</div>
-{{DEFAULTSORT: Reflections on the revolution in france}}
+{{DEFAULTSORT: Whitsun in the streets}}
 [[Category:Anarchist history]]
 [[Category:Labour and industry]]

Anarchy 89/Whitsun in the streets - Revision history

imported>Ivanhoe at 02:20, 18 April 2018

172.103.242.148 at 02:07, 14 April 2018

imported>Ivanhoe at 01:54, 10 April 2018

imported>Ivanhoe at 01:54, 10 April 2018

imported>Ivanhoe: Created page with "{{header | title = ANARCHY 89 (Vol 8 No. 7) JULY 1968Whitsun in the streets | author = P.B. | section = | previous = ../I am a megaphone|I am a..."

imported>Ivanhoe: Created page with "{{header | title = ANARCHY 89 (Vol 8 No. 7) JULY 1968
Whitsun in the streets | author = P.B. | section = | previous = ../I am a megaphone|I am a..."