I have always heard that history progresses slowly, taking two steps forward and one step back. I have also heard that history can vary depending on which voice is speaking; each country in this world has its own version of official history and true history. Even though we still question what history is and what it is not, or how history is and how it was and how past events have repercussions today, in order to make collective decisions we need to create memory and know what we were in the past, what we are now and what we could be in the future. “World history” is a transnational term itself: it encloses borders and cultures and it seems to be the product of events, wars, rebellions and political forces across the cultures that compound the world’s space and time. All of these ideas came to my mind while I was reading the articles for this week. But how did the past determine the present? How is it that a single event in one place could be spread and determine a decade? And how could it change the world order?
According to the readings assigned, we move back to a particular year in a “recent” past in a postwar context to 1968, considered to be the first global and transnational rebellion which revealed itself in several places (such as in Mexico and Europe) and that continues to have relevance in a closed present time. But the results of 1968 are also a construction of imaginary spaces that embrace contradictions and complexities even today. Studies of memory, history and identity such as “Introduction: 1968 Memory and Place” claim a lack of attention to this year and how societies have constructed different ideas and interpretations of it–sometimes it was sold as a myth and an utopia– and also how it has been used and manipulated by political interests. Waters and Cornils emphasize the importance of this year, a rebellion year that was also focused on equality, and they pose a reconstruction of this year as memory through a collective consciousness and the creation of a transnational memory. In addition, the memory of 1968 could provoke a broader questioning that would redefine national and historical experience, locating the threads of a common national identity or opening it as an international movement.
In “Revisiting the Revolution: 1968 in Transnational Cultural memory”, Klimke focuses more on the different levels of 1968 and how individual acts differed from country to country but at the same time was part of a larger social framework that constitutes memory, a social memory. The year 1968 created national recollections and transnational memories such as icons, images, references and experiences. The ‘sixties’ was an important decade for liberal ideas and the development of new trends in academic disciplines. The year 1968 was a transnationalist year that echoes other countries, a year that cross borders. Klimke describes “1968” as a central part of globalization.
There is no doubt that 1968 was a highly remarkable year. It encapsulated a phenomenon that sailed across the Atlantic Ocean. The introduction to the article “1968 in Europe A History of Protest and Activism, 1956- 1977” Klimke and Scharloth state that 1968 constituted a protest movement that had transcended national borders in its attempts to realize an alternative society and world order. 1968 was as a “transnational moment of crisis and opportunity.” It provided a window to the panorama of European experiences during and after this year. Protest techniques were a widespread resource for mobilization and were only selectively adopted according to to structural opportunities available in each country. The movements of 1968 influenced others and have been the foundation, icon and model for others today that call for rights and equality.
However, political forces tried to “forget 1968”. Others have seen the year as one of modernization and prosperity; a year with benefits and limitations depending on the voice who speaks, on who experienced it or not. Every event tries to find a place and space in history and even its reflection in our days. Today we have twenty-five years distance in time from the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event which also has limitations and benefits but that changed our civilization. It was also emblematic of the physical removal of a city and a distinguished date in the calendar of 1989 that chained other events and became a transnational event due its consequences.
The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union are facts that changed the world order. When the political leadership of the Soviet Union was renewed and Gorbatshov came to power, an economic system reform was carried out. The reforms in the Soviet Union, the division and the emergence of countries like Romania, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia contributed to the end of the communist system.
The fall of the Berlin Wall led to the unification of the “two Germanies” physically separated by a “frontier”, and in the Gorbatshov reform it joined two systems clearly dividing the world: the communist and the capitalist. Later, these facts influenced internationally crossing borders reaching even the Chinese communist regime that even now is still “communist”, yet has adopted a market economy, a capitalist system.
The fall of communism and the access of communist countries to the capitalist economy make the world change economic structures and their functions according to a more globalized world order. However, a paradox emerges today: on one hand, a globalized world with its economic and financial integration, trade liberalization and the revolution of knowledge appeared –also called the technological revolution– with its icon: the Internet. On the other, more social divisions have emerged from this revolutionary period.
Everything in history is interconnected and defines the present. Everything that supposed a change in the world order remained relevant and became a symbol, an icon, a set of principles and archetypes. Images and symbols of Che Guevara and Communism or flags with the hammer and sickle could be seen in contemporary protests. They are a decoy of ideals, freedom of speech and reminiscences of world changing events and (trans)national forces.
In your post, you say, “The year 1968 was a transnationalist year that echoes other countries, a year that cross borders. Klimke describes “1968″ as a central part of globalization,” which nicely sums up what the articles we had to read for this week had to say about this year. I remember reading them and thinking that, for once, it was nice to see recognized that something that had an impact in Europe came from Latin America. People often think of the relationship between Europe and Latin America and one in which Europe provides the cultural standard of living for people in Latin America (in literature, for instance, we certainly see this in all of the 19th century and for many decades more during the 20th; and let us not forget that the term “Latin America” itself was first used by the French). And yet this time around it is a Latin American country which makes an impact in Europe and thoroughly shakes up the status quo there. Of course, let us not forget that this transnational intersections came at the price of many deaths and national trauma. However, the emphasis on the transnational effects of this event in Mexico could provide a starting point to seeing Latin America and Europe, not in an unequal relation to each other, but one in which both continents are equally affecting and influencing the other.
This concept of who records history is such an interesting one. You say that “history can vary depending on which voice is speaking; each country in this world has its own version of official history and true history.” You couldn’t be more correct; the expression says “History is written by the victors.” Learners who are aware of this phenomenon, though, must be curious of that part of history that dwells with victims or the defeated.
John Kraniauskas mentions this idea as he references Walter Benjamin, who “writes of the ‘oppressed class itself’ (which Chakrabarty might call the subaltern) as ‘the depository of historical knowledge'” (122). This concept fascinates me, because it makes me wonder how much history dies with the ‘subaltern,’ as Kraniauskas calls them. Just imagining this vast amount of unspoken knowledge is awesome, yet terrible. It is crucial for modern historians to forbid this phenomenon to continue, and instead uncover all facets of the truth. Another expression goes, “Every story has at least two sides.” Kraniauskas, Cornils, and Waters all show us how important it is to consider all sides, even (or especially) those who are so often ignored or unheard.
Reading your post and the comments made me think about the imaginary spaces that the State created after Tlatelolco massacre. The media played an important role in developing this official discourse. As Brewster points out in her article, the press minimized the events. While there were reliable reports about the events of October the second, the most accessible means of communication was televisión, which was aligned with the regime. In the popular imaginary, it is believed that Jacobo Zabludovsky, one of the most watched news anchors, opened the edition of his nightly news program by stating that that day had been a sunny day (There is band called Molotov that has a song titled “Que no te haga bobo Jacobo” roughly translated as “Don’t Let Jacobo Fool You” in reference to Zabludovsky’s role in concealing these and other events). My father was 16 at the time and tells me that he remembers how the media in general associated the students with foreign communist instigators. In addition he mentions that people were made to believe that the students attacked bystanders and caused infrastructural damage during their demonstrations.
On a related subject, but not directly to your post. I found a gallery about the Mexican Student Movement of 1968. Of particular interest are the last pictures, since they portray a student, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, who would later become president of Mexico. Here is the link: http://fotos.eluniversal.com.mx/coleccion/muestra_fotogaleria.html?idgal=5186