You Say You Want a Revolution?
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Bila sam na izložbi “You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-1970” u muzeju Viktorija i Albert. Rođena sam 1947. godine. Dok sam išla na izložbu, savladavao me je neodoljivi osećaj “Hej, ja ovde pripadam!”, baš kao kada uđeš u bioskopsku dvoranu na pola filma, a onda ostaneš da odgledaš sledeću projekciju da vidiš propušteni početak (kao što smo radili ranih šezdesetih). Kao kontrast industriji nostalgije koja vlada oko pedesetih, koja iritira sa svojim kolačićima, nemirima hladnog rata i striktnim rodnim ulogama, prva soba ove izložbe vrištala je “da, da, OVO je ono u šta smo verovali”.
Nisam bila hipik. ’63. sam se predstavljala kao petnaestogodišnji bitnik, a vrednosti kasnih pedesetih i ranih šezdesetih prelivale su se u eksploziju revolucija kasnih šezdesetih. Kao što Dylan Jones navodi u tekstu povodom izložbe za V&A časopis “… to je bilo vreme kada je politički preokret delovao istinski i žestoko”. Bio je, izgledalo je, nezaustavljiv, činilo se da je vreme neumitno na našoj strani – The Times They Were A-Changing, pevao je Bob Dylan. Od tada sam već zaboravila taj osećaj, isprva zaprepašćena koliko je kratko trajao, zatim šokirana pojavom desničarskih grafita u univerzitetskim toaletima osamdesetih, ophrvana razočarenjem. A onda je sve ponovo isplivalo na površinu sa “You Say You Want a Revolution?”.
Izložba je prepuna ikoničnih fotografija, postera, citata sa ukusom pobune vremena koje prepoznajem na jeziku: “Nikada ne sumnjaj u to da mala grupa osvešćenih posvećenih građana može promeniti svet” – govorila je Margaret Mead 1960, ili “… bez obzira koliko racija i hapšenja napravi policija… ne može biti konačne racije jer se revolucija odvija U UMOVIMA MLADIH” – pisao je Ian McGrath, urednik the International Times 1967. (Delovalo je kao da smo svi zajedno, mladi tog vremena. Srela sam samo jednu osobu koja se nije protivila napadu Amerike na Vijetnam). Politički posteri obznanjivali su solidarnost sa Black Power, sa potlačenim ljudima celog sveta, sa studentima i radnicima iza Pariskih barikada u maju 1968. Revolucionarni citati William Blakea ukrašavali su zidove obrazovnih institucija. Stokely Carmichael je u aprilu ’67. objavio da je vijetnamski rat “rat u kome ljudi bele rase teraju ljude crne rase da se bore protiv ljudi žute rase, zbog zemlje koju su ukrali od ljudi crvene rase”. Da, da, ova izložba je podsećala na sve.
Volela sam muziku koja je dopirala iz slušalica koje su date posetiocima i sa kojima se može obilaziti iz sobe u sobu. Muzika se automatski uključivala pri prilasku svakoj novoj sekciji. Bilo je tu svega što je oživelo moju mladost: Joan Baez, Dylan, The Rolling Stones; čak i Mail Order katalog modne kuće Biba kod kojih sam naručivala odeću par godina pre nego što se otvorila prodavnica. Sve je vraćalo taj osećaj sveta čiju kulturu su stvarali vizionarski studenti umetnosti.
Izložba pokriva godine 1966-1970, a pokoji artefakt koji se odnosio na Gay Liberation Front i Pokret otpora žena (WLM) bili su uglavnom iz 1970. sa možda pokojim kasnijim artefaktom. Na svu sreću ti kasniji artefakti su se ipak provukli na izložbu, koja bi bez njih davala utisak da je, uprkos citatima Margaret Mead i Joan Baez, u pitanju revolucija mladića koji se bune protiv patrijarhata: frojdijanska revolucija u kojoj se Sin obraća Ocu. Ono što je uspelo da se provuče nasuprot toj paradigmi bilo je fascinantno, i volela bih da je bilo više toga. Poželela sam da izvučem iz vitrine časopise i pročitam svaku stranicu: “lezbejka koja repuje, str. 11”, “homoseksualni vešci, vidi stranu 16”, ili “da li je homoseksualnost prelazna? na strani 7”. Sve jako zanimljivo.
Bio je tu i veliki deo o konzumerizmu koji nisam ni pokušala da pogledam, jer sam se već premorila od proučavanja svake reči na zidovima Revolucije, one koju sam nekada poznavala. Postavka je podstakla mnoge misli o tome šta je značilo biti dete tog vremena, i deliti snove koje smo tada imali. Zaista smo verovali da će vrednosti i strasti naše mladosti promeniti i spasiti svet. Bili smo prilično arogantni i preterano optimistični. Bojim se da Tim McGrath nije bilo u pravu, revolucija se nije dogodila u umovima mladih i nije bila održiva, nije se konsolidovala. Bila je to revolucija sa mnogo nedostataka, pre svega ispoljavajući aroganciju prema starijim generacijama – jer ipak su naši roditelji, a ne mi, napuštali svoje plesne dvorane i teniska igrališta da bi davali živote za borbu protiv nacizma, i njihovi su životi bili uništeni ogromnim surovostima i gubicima Drugog svetskog rata. Uprkos pokretu za građanska prava koji je inspirisao pobunu mladih, uprkos Black Power i Anđeli Dejvis, ti napori nisu bili ni približno dovoljno intersekcionalni. Na izložbi je stajao ogromni uvećani poster mase ljudi sa Woodstock-a preko celog jednog zida, ali na njemu nisam uspela da vidim ni jednu osobu tamne puti, iako su mnogi morali biti tamo.
Zato se sada nadam novoj revoluciji koja proizilazi iz pokreta Occupy, kao i svih ostrašćenih ekoloških pokreta, opozicije globalnom kapitalizmu, klimatskim promenama i korišćenju fosilnih goriva, opravdanog gneva pred nehumanim tretiranjem mladih, invalidnih, nezaposlenih. Imam nade u otpor pružen netrpeljivosti prema migrantima, otpor prema ksenofobičnosti Bregzita koja nas sve potresa. Nadam se da će otpor koagulirati bolje ovog puta, da neće toliko brzo implodirati, da ga mediji neće potpuno podriti. Verujem da je revolucionarna tendencija 21. veka podjednako jaka kao i ona šezdesetih, da je žestoka i jaka, i da će dalje rasti.
Odlazeći, kupila sam bedž “Make Love Not War” u prodavnici. Rekla sam prodavcu “ovaj bedž nisam imala šezdesetih, iako sam bila tamo”. Rekao je “svi smo želeli da tamo budemo”. Nasmejala sam se, ali sam posle pomislila da je trebalo da mu kažem “Ali upravo sada ste tamo”.
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You Say You Want a Revolution?
Lindsay River
I went to the exhibition “You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-1970” at the Victoria and Albert Museum. I was born in 1947 and as I walked in there was an overpowering sense of ‘Oh! this is where I came in,’ just like a film you walked into late, and then stayed on into the next showing to see the first part you’d missed (as we used to do in the early sixties).
In contrast to anything coming from the industry of nostalgia for the fifties, which irritates me with its cupcakes, its cold war anxieties and its gender roles, the first room in the exhibition screams ‘yes, yes, THIS is what I believed in.’ I was not a hippy though, rather I had been posing as a 15 year old beatnik in 1963, and the values of that late fifties and early sixties mini-era bled through into the explosion of Revolution in the later sixties. As Dylan Jones says in his article on the exhibition in the V & A magazine ‘…it was a time when political upheaval seemed genuine and fervent’. It was, it seemed inevitable, it seemed unstoppable, it seemed as though time was unassailably on our side: The Times They Were A-Changing as Bob Dylan sang. Since then I’d forgotten quite how that felt, I’d been astonished how little lasted, I’d been shocked to see right wing graffiti on the wall of a university toilet in the eighties, and I’d grieved. “You Say You Want a Revolution” brought it all back.
There were iconic photos, posters, quotations, the very flavour on my tongue again of the rebellion of the times: ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world’ – Margaret Mead in the 1960s, and ‘..no matter how many raids and arrests the police make… there can be no final bust because the revolution has taken place WITHIN THE MINDS of the young’ – Ian McGrath, editor of the International Times in 1967. (It did seem as though we were all together, the youth of the time: I only ever met one person my age who did not oppose the role of the Americans in Vietnam). Political posters proclaimed solidarity with Black Power, with the oppressed people of the world, with the students and workers who barricaded Paris in May 1968, the more revolutionary quotations from William Blake festooned the walls of educational institutions. Stokely Carmichael announced in April 67 that the Vietnam War was ‘white people sending black people to make war on yellow people in order to defend land they stole from red people’ and ah yes yes yes, this exhibition reminded me.
I loved the music coming through the headphones they gave you to walk round with, and which switched itself on automatically as you approached each new section. There was plenty of the music that animated my youth: Joan Baez, Dylan, the Rolling Stones, there was an early mail order Biba catalogue from which I had ordered an item, some years before she had a store, and the feeling that this was a world whose culture was made by visionary art students was everywhere.
The exhibition covers the years 1966-1970, and the late entries on the Gay Liberation Front and Women’s Liberation Movement were mostly from 1970 (perhaps with a few later artefacts sneaking in?), but thankfully they were there because in spite of Margaret Mead and Joan Baez and female style icons, you did get an impression of a lot of men with plenty to say to the patriarchy: the rather Freudian revolution of the Son addressing the Father. But what was there was fascinating, I wish there had been more. I wanted to hoik the gay magazine out of its glass case and read every page: ‘A lesbian raps page 11’, ‘A gay witch page 16’, ‘Is homosexuality catching? Page 7. It was way too tantalising.
There was a large section on consumerism I couldn’t even attempt, tired as I was from pouring over every word on the walls of the The Revolution as I once knew it. It has made me think a lot about being a child of that time and the dreams we had. We really thought the values and passions of our youth would change and save the world. We were a pretty arrogant and a lot over-optimistic. I am afraid Tim McGrath was wrong, the revolution that had taken place within the minds of the young did not last sustainably, it did not consolidate. That revolution had so many failings, not only the arrogance towards other age groups (it was our parents, not us, who had given up their dance halls and tennis courts to fight the Nazis, or whose youth had been devastated by horrendous cruelties and loss, after all) and in spite of the Civil Rights Movement that had inspired youth rebellion, in spite of Black Power and Angela Davis, it was not nearly, nothing like intersectional enough. There was a huge blown up photo of the crowds at Woodstock all across one wall, I stared and stared because it was so hard to see a person of colour in that huge crowd, though many must have been there.
That’s why I hope for the new revolution coming out of Occupy, and all the impassioned environmental movements, the opposition to global capitalism, to climate change and fossil fuels, the justified fury at the treatment of young people, disabled people, unemployed people, the horror I hear everywhere about anti-migrant bigotry, as strongly held a view as the recent peri-Brexit bigotry that has dismayed us all. I hope it’s coming together better this time, it may not explode so suddenly and the media does not give it star billing, but I do believe this 21st century revolutionary tendency is as genuine and as fervent and will grow. It will grow.
I bought a ‘Make Love Not War’ badge in the shop. I said to the assistant ‘I never had this badge before, but I was there.’ He said ‘We all wish we were.’ I smiled as I left but later I thought I should have said to him ‘Ah, but you are.’
