Forgotten peoples’ 43-year re-uprising — Wallerstein

1968 global movement 

 “The decisive characteristic” of the current global uprising, Immanuel Wallerstein writes in an opinion piece published this month at Al Jazeera-English, is that it “is the second feature of the world-revolution of 1968.”

Seattle, Washington, USA
1999

Excerpting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

forgotten peoples’ rising

“The world-revolution of 1968 included, in a very major way, a revolution of the ‘forgotten peoples’ — those who had been left out of the concerns of the major organized forces of all political stripes. The forgotten peoples had been told that their concerns, their complaints, their demands were secondary and had to be postponed until some other primary concerns were resolved.

District of Columbia, USA
1963

“Who were these forgotten peoples? 

They were first of all women, half the world’s population. They were secondly those who were defined in a given state as ‘minorities’ — a concept that is not really numerical but rather social (and has usually been defined in terms of race or religion or language or some combination thereof).

Myanmar 2007

“In addition to women and the social ‘minorities,’ there exists a long list of other groups who also proclaimed their insistence on not being forgotten.

Those with ‘other’ sexual preferences. Those who were disabled. 

Those who were the ‘indigenous’ populations in a zone that had been subject to in-migration by powerful outsiders in the last 500 years. 

Greenpeace protest
near Murcia, Spain, 2007

Those who were deeply concerned with threats to the environment. 

Lebanon 2005

Those who were pacifists. The list has continued to grow, as more and more ‘groups’ became conscious of their status as ‘forgotten peoples.’”

As one analyzes one after another Arab state, “one realizes quite quickly that the list of forgotten peoples and their relation to the regime in power varies considerably so the degree to which ‘concessions’ can limit revolt varies. The degree to which ‘repression’ is easy or difficult for the regime varies; but … all regimes want, above all, to stay in power.” 

1970 Kent State University, Ohio, USA
U.S. National Guardsmen 
firing a tear gas

powers relinquish power, hegemony unwillingly

“… [T]he 1968-revolutionaries were against vertical decision-making and in favor of horizontal decision-making — participatory and therefore popular. … [T]he rapid public embrace of this current terrified those in power — the rulers of every Arab state without exception, the governments of the ‘outside’ states who were an active presence in the geopolitics [Britain, France] of the Arab world, even the governments of very distant states [USA]. The spread of an anti-authoritarian logic, and especially its success anywhere, menaced all of them [and] governments of the world joined forces to destroy the ‘1968 current.’…

Yemen protests

“In the ‘Arab Spring,’” … this current is “strongly at work in Tunisia and Egypt…

“One way to stay in power is for some of those who are in power to join the uprising — casting overboard a personage who happens to be the president or ruler in favor of the pseudo-neutral armed forces. This is exactly what happened in Egypt. It is that about which those who are today reoccupying Tahrir Square in Egypt are complaining as they seek to reinvigorate the ‘1968 current.’

Bahrain protests

The problem for the major geopolitical actors is that they are not sure how best to ‘distract’ attention and advance their own interests amidst the turmoil. …” 

despite repression 

‘68 becomes 43-year re-uprising

“[T]he Arab Spring has become one part of what is now very clearly a worldwide unrest occurring everywhere: Oxi in Greece, Indignados in Spain, students in Chile, ‘Occupy’ movements that have now spread to 800 cities in North America and elsewhere, strikes in China and demonstrations in Hong Kong, multiple happenings across Africa.

Birmingham, Alabama, USA
1963

“The ‘1968 current’ is expanding — despite repression, despite concessions, despite co-option.… Those who believe that Arab unrest, that world unrest, is a passing moment will discover in the next major bubble burst (which we can anticipate quite soon) that the ‘1968 current’ will no longer be so easily contained.”

Anti-occupation, Antiwar
March 2009 USA

Sources and notes

“The contradictions of the Arab Spring — The spirit of 1968 flows through Arab Spring and Occupy movement — as its counter-current attempts to suppress uprising” [Immanuel Wallerstein (opinion) is a professor in the department of sociology at Yale University and author of many books including The Modern World System, published in four volumes. …  Professor Wallerstein’s decades of work, critical of global capitalism and supporting ‘anti-systemic movements’ have led to recognition as a world-renowned expert in social analysis … The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy], November 14, 2011, Source: Al Jazeera,  

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111111101711539134.html

Added source: Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein

Born September 28, 1930 in New York City, Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein is a United States sociologist, historical social scientist, and world-systems analyst. He contributes syndicated commentaries on world affairs. Wallerstein’s interest in world affairs began in his teen years and he began as an expert of post-colonial African affairs as the focus of his studies after an international youth conference in 1951. Until the early 1970s, his publications were almost exclusively devoted to this area. Later he distinguished himself as a historian and theorist of the global capitalist economy on a macroscopic level.

Wallerstein has reportedly cited the ‘world revolution’ of 1968 as having a major influence on his work. Wallerstein is credited with anticipating the growing importance of the North-South divide at a time when the main world conflict was the Cold War. Since 1980, he has argued that the United States is a ‘hegemon in decline’ and was often mocked for this claim but since the Iraq War, this argument has become more widespread.

Wallerstein took his academic credentials at Columbia University (B.A., 1951; M.A., 1954; Ph.D., 1959). He has been on university faculties at McGill and Binghamton; has held several visiting professor positions at universities worldwide and has received many honorary titles.

Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein was on the faculty of Columbia University at the time of the student uprising there and participated in a faculty committee that attempted to resolve the dispute. He has argued in several works that this revolution marked the end of ‘liberalism’ as a viable ideology in the modern world system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Wallerstein

Terms

Indignado Movement

The Indignado Movement in Spain is “driven by supreme outrage or indignation (thus ‘Indignado’) at the present economic crisis in Spain.  The Indignados are deeply upset by the way that the political system in Spain works; their argument that there is always, effectively, only two political parties to choose from to govern the country and that both are notable for their corrupt and self-serving politicians.”

In October 17, 2011, “Spanish Indignado movement goes global, safe to buy property in Spain? Spanish bank downgrades…” http://www.culturespain.com/2011/10/17/spanish-indignado-movement-goes-global-safe-to-buy-property-in-spain-spanish-bank-downgrades%E2%80%A6/

Oxi

Anniversary of the ‘No’ celebrated throughout Greece, Cyprus and the Greek communities around the world on October 28 each year to commemorate Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas’ (in power from August 4, 1936, until January 29, 1941) rejection of the [occupation/war] ultimatum made by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on October 28, 1940.

Ohi Day (also spelled Ochi Day, Greek: Επέτειος του «’Οχι» Epeteios tou Ohi, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohi_Day

Captions

In 1968, socially and economically marginalized groups of people protested in a global movement [GALLO/GETTY], Al Jazeera

Demonstration against the World Trade Organization in Seattle, Washington, U.S., 1999.

John G. Mabanglo—AFP/Getty Images, Britannica

Buddhist monks protesting in Myanmar, September 2007, Yangon, Myan.

AFP/Getty Images, Britannica

Greenpeace: protest near Murcia, Spain; Greenpeace and other activists protesting the construction of a new harbour near Murcia, Spain, 2005, AFP/Getty Images, Britannica

Lebanon: protest against the Syrian presence in Lebanon, 2005; Thousands of Lebanese gathered in Beirut to protest against the Syrian presence in Lebanon, 2005, Ramzi Haidar—AFP/Getty Images, Britannica

U.S. National Guardsmen firing a tear gas barrage into a crowd of demonstrators at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, May 4, 1970, Britannica

March on Washington: Civil rights supporters carrying placards at the March on Washington, D.C., August. 28, 1963, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Warren K. Leffler (digital file: cph ppmsca 03128), Britannica

Civil Rights Movement: Civil rights demonstrator attacked by a police dog on May 3, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama; Prompted by the revived Ku Klux Klan and by the quickly organized White Citizens Councils, the general reaction of the white South to the sit-ins and other civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s was violence., Bill Hudson/AP, Britannica

Others Press TV
______________________________

Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
______________________________