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Lädt ... Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventiesvon Jeremy Varon
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In this first comprehensive comparison of left-wing violence in the United States and West Germany, Jeremy Varon focuses on America's Weather Underground and Germany's Red Army Faction to consider how and why young, middle-class radicals in prosperous democratic societies turned to armed struggle in efforts to overthrow their states. Based on a wealth of primary material, ranging from interviews to FBI reports, this book reconstructs the motivation and ideology of violent organizations active during the 1960's and 1970's. Varon conveys the intense passions of the era--the heat of moral purpose, the depth of Utopian longing, the sense of danger and despair, and the exhilaration over temporary triumphs. Varon's compelling interpretation of the logic and limits of dissent in democratic societies provides striking insights into the role of militancy in contemporary protest movements and has wide implications for the United States' current "war on terrorism."Varon explores Weatherman and RAF's strong similarities and the reasons why radicals in different settings developed a shared set of values, languages, and strategies. Addressing the relationship of historical memory to political action, Varon demonstrates how Germany's fascist past influenced the brutal and escalating nature of the West German conflict in the 60's and 70's, as well as the reasons why left-wing violence dropped sharply in the United States during the 1970's. Bringing the War Home is a fascinating account of why violence develops within social movements, how states can respond to radical dissent and forms of terror, how the rational and irrational can combine in political movements, and finally how moral outrage and militancy can play both constructive and destructive roles in efforts at social change. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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 Google Books — Lädt ...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)322.420943Social sciences Political Science Relation of the state to organized groups and their members Political action groups Revolutionary and subversive groups Biography And History Europe Germany & Central EuropeKlassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt: (4)
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But, unusually, he does a great job bringing out the emotional and intellectual roots of both groups' turn to violence. He argues that the Weather Underground ended up where they did because they wanted to oppose the war; help radical African-American movements; and renounce their *structural privilege*. Combine this with the general sixties fascination with transgression, and the desire to shock, and you end up with a pretty good basis for violent action. For the RAF, on the other hand, he lays more emphasis on a possible desire to compensate for the lack of German opposition to the Nazis, and to break the chain of German guilt.
Intellectually, both groups thought themselves into a corner, as did many sixites (soi disant) Marxists: violence was thought to change one's subjectivity and break internalized norms; it would function as an example for the Revolutionary Subject of working class youth, or as a sign to anti-imperialists in Vietnam or other non-Western countries that the white middle class was with them. Violence was also a way to prove one's authenticity, realness, aliveness and various other nonsensical existentialist qualities.
So far from being pathological in any way, these two groups are perfectly comprehensible.
Varon doesn't point out--probably for good reason--that most of their assumptions still circulate on the left, only instead of leading people to bomb empty buildings, they lead to constant online bickering and complaining that x isn't aware enough of his/her privilege; to endless, boring attempts epater the bourgeoisie; and they end up essentially immobilizing a large number of people who want to make the world a better place, but can't, because to suggest that you have an idea that might help someone else would be so crypto-imperialistic, unless they happened to have that idea too. Let's just hope the current, internet-enabled, low-intensity criticism-self-criticism sessions don't end up driving everyone (back) into the arms of the usual political villains. (