When I was a small child I thought that the Vietnam War was taking place in a
car park.
Every time I watched the news, I heard reporters talking sombrely of that
conflict, accompanied by pictures of violent encounters. Some of the
soldiers wore uniforms and charged on horses, others were clothed in denim.
It wasn't clear who was winning, but I remember the smoke and the chaos, and
a young man lying across a car bonnet being hit with a club. The young man
was carrying a poster on a stick, which even to my infant mind seemed an odd
thing to carry into a warzone.
Ever since I grew up enough to understand this error, I have been amused by my
childish naivety - confusing the Vietnam War with the protests, indeed! But
at the weekend, reading Tariq Ali's account of the events of 1968 (“It
turned violent. Like the Vietnamese, we wanted to occupy the embassy”) I
realised that what I had displayed all those years ago was not naivety it
all. It was a precocious talent for political analysis.
The 1968 protests are not best understood as their instigators would have them
understood - as the antithesis of war, as the street carnivals of the peace
movement. The protesters should instead be seen as having some similarities
with the warriors they were opposing. Both were trying to solve a problem
with violence. The protesters sought to resolve political conflict in the
street and through confrontation. Many of the leaders were not wishing for
an end to war, but for victory by the North Vietnamese. In my confusion
between the protests and the war I had accidentally seen things clearly.
Now I am not trying to make a point about who was right and who was wrong, who
had the bigger weapons and who did the killing. Instead, I am trying to
rescue the protests of 1968 from the romantic memories of the participants.
I hope in this way to try to show why they are still relevant.
Every attempt to revisit 1968 majors in ideology. Tariq Ali talks of sexual
revolution, the liberal author Paul Berman writes of the democratic ideal
and the struggle against fascism, the French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy
sees the common thread between the fight for liberation against Western
oppression and the Prague Spring. Meanwhile, the playwright Tom Stoppard
found little of any value. He thought the whole thing was merely
embarrassing.
I am with Stoppard. This is not, however, just because I think the slogans of
the soixante-huitards silly and their flirtation with communism disgusting.
It is because I believe all attempts to explain 1968 in terms of ideas are
doomed to failure. The events of 1968 were not about ideology, but
demographics.
Consider this - a favourite fact that I have rehearsed here before. Young
Americans were the group most in favour of the Vietnam War, according to
contemporary opinion polls. This remained the case even when the war became
unpopular. Here's another fact - young people in this country are the group
most in favour of the Iraq war. If you see the events of 1968 as
ideological, this opinion poll data is hard to understand. Why aren't young
people more idealistic and pacifistic than others? And if they aren't, why
wasn't Grosvenor Square packed with rioting old age pensioners?
However, if you see the événements as the product of demographics, the data is
easy to comprehend. Young people, particularly young men, tend to see
violent solutions to problems as more acceptable than do other groups in
society. In 1968 there was a bulge in the number of hot-headed young males.
Some of them chose protest violence on the streets of Europe, others riots in
America's ghettos or dissent in Eastern Europe, while still others supported
foreign wars. They were united not by ideas but simply by youth. Tariq Ali
appears bewildered that the anti-Iraq war movement hasn't evolved into
something similar to the soixante- huitards. This isn't because idealism has
died. It is because there is no youth bulge. And it is the youth bulge, not
anything they said or did, that gives a reason for the 1968 riots to be
remembered.
Violent conflict in 17th-century England, the French Revolution, German
nationalism in the First World War, the 1979 Iranian revolution, the
Cultural Revolution in China and most 20th-century revolutions in developing
countries took place where large youth bulges were present. And academic
studies suggest that the number of deaths in armed conflict is much higher
in countries with a large youth bulge, even when controlling for income and
inequality. Between 1989 and 1993, violence in the former Soviet republics
varied with the size of their young male population, even where the initial
political conditions were similar.
The social scientist Gunnar Heinsohn in his book Sons and World Power argues
that when 15 to 29-year-olds make up more than 30 per cent of the
population, there is a good chance that violence will follow. There are 67
countries in the world where there is such a bulge and there is violence in
60 of them. He cites the Palestinian territories and Afghanistan as examples
and contrasts them with, say, Tunisia or even the passing of the youth peak
in Lebanon.
With our blithe conviction that we can always make things better, we are
convinced that political education and economic amelioration will work to
bring peace where there is conflict. Heinsohn suggests that it might make
things worse. Educated and well-fed young males tend to greater violent
unrest.
The only hope? That young men eventually grow up. In Northern Ireland, the
vast majority of victims and perpetators were young men. But one day Gerry
Adams decided he was getting too old to strap on a gun. And the rest is
history. Our only alternative in, say, fighting al-Qaeda may be to hold firm
and wait it out.
The real lesson of the 1960s isn't Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out. It is Press On,
Calm Down, Grow Up.
daniel.finkelstein@thetimes.co.uk
P D, Dublin
I think you'll find that 50% of the Rebublic of Ireland's population is over 33 so your arguement is void!
David, Bordeaux, France
When younger generations comment about why the protests of the 60's happened I never recognise the picture they describe of the period. I was there; I was one of the many many thousands who protested non-violently as did all my friends; war seemed so unnecessary then especially with fears of escalation into nuclear war. Much of my childhood had been spent in a small seaside town surrounded by bomb sites; with parents and grandparents scarred and damaged by war experiences; with faces in photos I would never know. Those were the influences that motivated me - I can't agree that our beliefs and energy to change the future can simply be reduced to demographics.
Sonia Joy, Penmon, Anglesey
I think that you will find that politicians and militarist throughout the ages have been well aware that the young, having never experiencing failure whilst simultaneously believing themselves immortal can be comfortably manipulated into fighting their wars for them. In the present case, the perpetrator has skipped off with a clear conscience to live a comfortable life in retirement. It is only the experienced and wise who see war for the folly that it really is and anyone who believes that the casus belli should be anything other than a last resort against a threat to national security should read their history books. They will discover the fact (as to their surprise did the instigators) that most wars rarely turn out as their perpetrators planned.
Trevellyan Black, London, England
If violence is the direct result of the majority of a population being under, say, 25, and about half of that proportion being composed of males, then why isn't Ireland (the Republic) in a state of constant revolt? About 60% of Ireland's population is aged under 25. You don't see 'em rioting on the streets of Dublin at regular intervals, do you? Or have I missed something here?
P D, Dublin, Ireland
Oh for heavens sake - blaming what is happening today on what happened 40 years ago is as pointless as New Labour still blaming their mess on the Tories.
Every generation does things differently, and responds in its own way to the different times.
Fatuous article. One might say - "Your point is, Daniel?".
Jeremy Poynton, Frome, Somerset
'Here's another fact - young people in this country are the group most in favour of the Iraq war. If you see the events of 1968 as ideological, this opinion poll data is hard to understand'
What opinion poll was this? When was it taken? From personal experience I'd say that we are the least enthusiastic.
Michael, Inverness,
""..The Taliban was composed primarily of young orphaned teens. Many without mothers."
I'm sure biologists would be VERY interested to meet them and even more interested to see the factory that made them. If the North West of Pakistan has a secret facility for producing men without mothers this radically changes the political situation. "
John, to be orphaned, you actually need to have had parents to lose to become one. And to be orphaned then means that you do not have a mother, just that you did.
John, Knutsford, UK
The youth of today commit far less violence than their baby boomer parents. Or rather, most of the worst violence they do commit is on behalf of the state, at the behest of those peacenik parents. Isn't it ironic that 'peaceniks' Tony Blair and Jack Straw in later life should go on to orchestrate a crime of aggression against Iraq?
It's grim to see politicians and their sycophant journalists espouse 'respect' agendas to the hoodied ones, while at the same time committing and promoting the worst sort of savagery through invasions, bombings, making, selling and buying weapons etc.
If a few yoof get on the streets for some minor disobedience, this is hardly comparable with the state's killing apparatus. It is an antidote to it, a challenge to violence.
Therefore "who had the bigger weapons and who did the killing" is exactly what matters.
W.Anderson, Melbourne, Australia
I think this was an excellent article. I remember the acute disppointment of some of my friends in the Territorial army that were not going to the Flaklands. They really wanted to go very badly.
When you see pictures of riots and violent public demonstrations in the streets of Gaza or the West Bank, Iraq, or some troubled African States, for example, you see thousands of unemployed young men with nothing but time on their hands and nothing but hate to pass their time of day.
It is not the West leaning on the Israelis that will solve this conflict, because they truly do want peace, becasue most of them have jobs, but providing work and employment for the millions of young men without hope, that populate this region.
Stephen Rothbart, Prague, Czech Republic
"..The Taliban was composed primarily of young orphaned teens. Many without mothers."
I'm sure biologists would be VERY interested to meet them and even more interested to see the factory that made them. If the North West of Pakistan has a secret facility for producing men without mothers this radically changes the political situation.
John Small, Faversham, UK
Very very interesting article. I once heard someone say in American that the WWII generation who had lots of male death leaving single parents was also partly to blame. Also many some WWII vets had trouble telling their sons not to protest the war.
Males without father figures in some cases and other fathers also drafted who didn't really like the idea of a draft.
I also once saw on Animal Planet how poaching breaks down the social structure of Elephants. Several young mail orphaned elephants seperated from their pack demostrated violent behavior and bad manners. Once joined again back into a heard of Elephants the senior elephants and larger put them in their place. The rest of the pack would not tolerate their rudeness. In short time the young elephants accepted and enforced the rules of the heard.
So if young out number the adults, the adults need to stop in strongly and govern. The Taliban was composed primarily of young orphaned teens. Many without mothers.
johngonole, Alachua, Florida
Let's not forget the protests of the late 1960's also co-incided with the increasing popularity of national TV. Combine this with hords of over-regulated, institutionalised young people who may have felt otherwise powerless to make a difference to global events and it's not surprising that things got so easily out of control.
Of course these days individuals have more ways to criticise or even deconstruct and then reconstruct more positively the things they don't like about the world. I would hope that governments worldwide can cotton on the the power of IT communications as a "virtual" way for all kinds of people to vent their spleens, so to speak. It would be even better if more people worldwide could "send an e-mail" to their P.M. for example, and receive some kind of acknowledgement as we do here in the UK.
Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley, Bacup, UK
The Iraq war will only stop when oil flows...in the right direction.
jayil, london, uk
And don't forget Jack Straw's role, as Secretary of the NUS , in organising massive student demonstrations against the Iraq war - woopsie! - er - oh yes, sorry - the Vietnam war...
Edmund Burke, Kingston upon Thames, England
Born to rebel!
It is not only violent behavior, but risk taking in general that one can expect from the bulge cohort, females included. A lot of positive results occur (Apple Computer, e.g.) but the news and researchers tend to focus on negativity. Bread and butter for them. Mitigation by exportation (Jihad? Crusade?) is a natural response. Advice to the young: keep your wits about you and don't get sucked into somebody else's game plan (Lyndon Johnson, Osama Bin Laden, e.g.).
Joe, Healdsburg, Calif.
The answer to violence is educating women. Educated women have fewer children, so the bulge disappears. The environmental benefits are huge too. Just in case anyone misunderstands, educating is in itself a worthy goal, its just that the side benefits are huge as well.
Serf, Istanbul,
Very good thinking-for 6 year old.
People forget there was a vast change in peoples behaviour, and a corresponding amount of research and comment that does not get the same publicity.
The first culprit was nuclear testing and strontium 90 and other fall out. It was shown that if the danger level for this was 10ppm No one on the planet had ever been exposed to more than 1ppm . Lead however which was being released into the environment from leaded petrol was estimated at varying levels, some experts said there was no margin, but if the consensus was 10ppm, some children were already exposed to 13, even 20. There was not only no safety margin but on some estimates many children were already well over what consensus there was. Over 5 million chemicals were being invented or discovered, no one has the slightest idea what effect most have.
Beluga whales in the St. Lawrence are so full of chemicals they are treat ed as hazardous waste. I shudder to think what humans are like.
ged, manchester,
As a young Police Officer I was present at several "demos", including, one not yet mentioned, in Fleet Street outside the UK offices of a German magazine group, Axel Springer.
The descrfiption "rent a mob" was fairly acvcurate.
On one such march I remember seeing a young journalist from Muswell Hill who only a couple of weeks earlier had deliberately "set up" a local drug pusher in order to run a story (and not doubt enhance his cv).
Such was the character of the "committed" demostraters.
PS This is not a Hilary Clinton moment.
Peter Bolt, Redditch, UK
Daniel,
like it or not 68 was more than a flirtation with communism. 68 was the starting point for many of the movements that have profoundly shaped our society over the intervening 40 years; it saw the birth of the Green movement, the women's movement, gay rights, anti racism and the new left. And in a way it also saw the birth of Thatcherism.
Though Norman Tebbit decried the 60s he failed to see that the entrepreneurs of the 80s were the product of 60s individualism not 50s conformity - they were people like Richard Branson who had been determined to do their own thing. Felix Dennis is but the most obvious example of a 'hippie' (though he'd probably argue that he was just a young and hairy businessman) who went on to be a leading capitalist.
And an some important level the Che and particularly the Marx and Mao T shirts were only the 60s equivalent of Sid Vicious wearing swastikas - it shocked. Most punks had no love for Nazism, most 68ers rapidly grew to hate the old left.
Jonathan, Wadhurst,
I am not so sure it makes sense that demography is the only motivating factor behind violent protest. I mean just to start it leaves open the question of why this issue and why that side of this issue. Ideology matters and is the only way to engage these problems head on. More on this: http://airingofthegrievances.blogspot.com/2008/03/ideology-or-demographics-only-reason.html
Jonathan, New York, NY
It's an interesting theory, but if it is true, does that just mean that all our politicians, the ones who took us into the Vietnam, Iraq War etc etc, are just overgrowng young men who need to grow up?
Tom Adams, London,
This piece shows up the limitations of relying only on quantitative analysis. That is not to say that the correlation between demographics and protests is not valuable, only that it does not explain WHY the protests took place, which is something that those who look towards ideas and ideology are seeking to do. To put it another way, if age (which is the implied cause in the analysis) is the explanation for protest activities, how does this explain why some people in this age group protest and others don't?
Dan, London,
Don't be distracted by the passive behaviour of India's 536 million males, They'll do whatever their women tell them to...
Ashok, London,
Tariq Ali came to speak to our 6th Form. We were not impressed but ended up being at the forefront of the pro abortion demonstration. Wish men would stop claiming the past as their own.
janr, Whittlesey, uk
Am I the only person who noticed that in the same newspaper that Tariq Ali was pontificating on the glories of protest in the 60's, the foreign office warnings about the activities on holiday of the over 55's was also being discussed? It must have been the free orange juice or free school milk we were treated to. Whatever it was, my memeory is sufficiently clear enough to remember that it wasn't only high political ideals that ended in violence. After all what were the Mods and Rockers protesting about? Yes Daniel there was an awful lot of testosterone around in the 60's.
Wendy, York,
I was at Grosvenor Square too, Derek. Don't think the fear of conscription contributed, as we weren't in the Vietnam War. Do recall such a fear with the Israeli 6-day war, though. I do remember young men relishing violence, though, very vividly. And I wondered why. Young men, with violent propensities, tend to jump on any social or political bandwagon to give vent to it, and students in those days had time on their hands.
I sympathise with younger people now blaming the 1960s generation for messing the world up, though I doubt they'll do much better when their time comes. I knew Jack Straw in the 1960s - what a left-wing firebrand. I laugh now, though I should know better. He always had authoritarian tendencies, even if the politics has changed with the advent of power.
Main problem though is loss of civil liberties, muting of public opinion, and debt. Teachers should strike rather than put up with uncivilised children, their parents and targets. Huge mortgage, anyone?
monica, guildford, uk
1968 seemed to about a bunch of self-important hippies and the only difference now is that in 2008 they are superannuated as well. The real revolutions of the age were Wolfenden (homosexual law reform), the Equal Oppportunities Act, the Race Relations Act and reform of divorce laws and abortion, and one unbelievable retro-reform, the Misuse of Drugs Act, which has shaped our society as disastrously as the others have benefited it. All of these were the work of aging politicians, not young men, as was the decision to wage war on Vietnam.
I have to declare an interest. I turned 13 in 1968. There was great music and great football, but these kids a bit older than me were idiots.
Dave, Slough,
I believe the author mentioned 67 countries fit the demographic, 60 have a problem
India could be in the 7 that dont, could it not?
But then again, how was Indias population looking when Ghandi wandered around?
How does it compare to Pakistans during the numerous wars, including that in Bangladesh?
Dominic, Manchester, UK
I was politically active, at least as far as my job would allow, in the late 60s. My family were all passively anti-war and I objected to my country's involvement in Vietnam without a lot of thought. However from what I remember from that time, the major fear of youth was conscription and a sizeable majority of the demonstrators were there for a good time - a bit of a laugh and a punch up. There were refugees from football supporters there just to kick people.
The biggest turn-off was Tariq Ali's self-indulgent and somewhat farcical lead role on a television programme. There were a lot like me - somewhat bewildered and confused, wondering what the point was. Trying to talk to most about politics was a waste of time.
Any attempt to paint the Grosvenor Sq riots as a movement for change must take into account that most of the demonstrators were there for a fun day out, a bit of a laugh, a punch-up if they were lucky.
It was the last one I went on.
Derek Smith, Brighton, UK
I am not a weary intellectual, Matthew M. However, I was there in the 1960s and have watched with interest as so many firebrand revolutionaries inevitably turn to the negotiating table as their physical energy declines, and they fancy being remembered as elder statesmen. Young men are potentially dangerous for many reasons, and idle young men are particularly so. India's growing economy provides more employment opportunities, perhaps?
Daniel missed one interesting result of the demographics - the slow rise of women in industry and public life. In the 1950s/1960s there were many grammar schools, and I went to one. We were taught by women who'd lost their fiances in WW1 and were extremely determined that their charges should have careers. The intake, I might add, included many pupils from the council estates. Most women marry men about 4 years older than themselves, and those born between 1944 and 1948 found the pool of available men a bit smaller. They often turned to careers.
monica, guildford, uk
The Self-Indulgent of 1968 have had a good life and now sit atop the professions and politics and media screwing up the present for the rest of us.
They really were the cuckoos in the nest and listening to Tariq Ali on Desert Island Discs was to observe narcissistic self-regard on parade coupled with the arrogance of the upper middle-class who can always count on high tea being available at a set hour.
Still as they are approaching pensionable age we should reflect on how they have debased WEstern society and culture with their arrogant materialism and crass opportunism all the while preening themselves and worshipping SELF
TomTom, Leeds, England
Daniels views are really not borne out by facts. India's median age is 24.8 as per the CIA World Factbook.
A large proportion of these are the "educated and well fed young men" Daniel refers to as creating greater violent unrest.
However I dont see them rioting in the street like in the Palestine or suicide bombing people like in Iraq.
They generally queue up for jobs in the IT sector (ok a cliche but true neverthless).
Daniel's facile explanation of events seems familiar.
It is redolent of the plight of weary intellectuals in the West.
They are trying to wash their hands of the collective responsibility they have for meddling in matters they knew not of and then trying to get out once things go sour.
mathew m, London, UK