1968

1968 was also an important year in Turkey, when students took to the street just as they did in the rest of Europe. But in Turkey the state’s reaction was more severe and repressive; many of the old ’68-ers emigrated to Germany. The resurgence of Islam in Turkey began as a counter-reaction to the leftist students of 1968: one of the main activists among the right-wing students of the time is now the president of Turkey. By Zafer ŞenocakMore ...

Cinema and 1968. In comparison to the political and social upheavals taking place across the world at the time one might be tempted to see films as a secondary phenomenon, more a mirror than a protagonist of the revolt. Yet cinema was a part of things right from the beginning. By Amin FarzanefarMore ...

one day in june 1967 i was going, as i did almost every day, to the trikont café in munich’s schellingstraße: café, bookshop and meeting place of the socialist german student alliance, the driving force behind the revolt. there was a heap of leaflets on the bar; someone asked me: ‘comrade, don’t you want to hand them out?’ i glanced at the title: ‘the chief butcher of persia is in munich’. and so i took a pile, clamped them under my arm, went to the stachus and handed them out; i was 19. By SaidMore ...

For young, rebellious people behind the Iron Curtain, 1968 was an unhappy year. It was the end of the beginning, the victory of apathy over rebellious thought. This was a time when many East Germans started to read their dissident poets: ‘I stood on the bridge, / Alone beneath the listless cold of the sky. / Is the frozen river / Still breathing faintly / Through the throat of the reed?’ By Evelyn FingerMore ...