Re-visiting the Sixties
The three-day Woodstock Music Festival of 1969, attended by
half a million young people, formalized the cultural change that began with the
beat generation of the fifties, bringing in an era of humanitarian ideals, peace,
hope and progress to benefit all humanity. It was “The Dawning of the Age of
Aquarius”. The sixties ethos spread to
countries in the sphere of American influence, both in Europe and in the newly
liberated countries that looked to the western model of progress. So Karachi,
at least it’s elite, had it’s own 60s culture of music, psychedelic Smartelle
fabrics and marijuana.
Behind the haze of LSD, free love and the Beatles, the
sixties were also known for achieving many political milestones. In USA, the
Civil Rights movement gained momentum, there was a call for equal pay for women,
reducing the voting age from 21 to 18, since this was the age for being drafted
in the army, and equal voting rights to African Americans. Politically aware students
now included the first working class youth and minorities, making campuses and public
spaces arenas for civil resistance, sit ins, boycotts and marches.
Conservative forces were alarmed and as White House Aide, John
Ehrlichman, said “We understood that we couldn’t make it illegal to be young or
poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common
pleasure.” However, the change could not be contained. By 1960, colour TVs in
almost every home showed images of the Vietnam war, poverty, racism, and the nuclear
threat.
The Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, spearheaded
the change. Along with committed social activism this was a generation of
inventors. The World Wide Web, internet, the USB, nanoscale motors and new
business models reshaped the world. By the end of the decade, the first men had
stepped onto the moon.
The philosophy of think big, live big, unwittingly ushered
in consumerism and capitalism. Stew Albert, the American radical described the
spirit of the 1960s as “socialism in one person”. Janan Ganesh says “it’s
emphasis on the individual reinforced the market, not the revolution,” epitomized
by the entrepreneur Richard Branson whose business grew from a 100 pound loan
from his mother, to a 4.8 billion empire.
There was change across the world. Africa acquired an
international presence as 27 countries gained their independence from colonial
rule. The Berlin wall was erected in 1961, and the Soviet Union faced many
rebellions. China broke with Russia to create a second large communist bloc,
sending waves of panic into USA that moved from Cold War to active war, and
scrambled for influence in the many new nations that emerged, finding it easier
to deal with autocratic one-party states and military juntas.
While the sixties was a difficult period for India, a time of
scarcity and prohibitions, the death of Jawaharlal Nehru, wars with China and
Pakistan, and a looming foreign debt that devalued the rupee by 57%, for Pakistan
it was a time of progress.
The Green Revolution and the boost to industry created an
economic growth of over 5% per year -
more than other developing countries. the GNP rose by 45% and manufactured
goods began to overtake exports of raw materials. Several hydroelectric
projects, canals and dams, and a nuclear power plant were completed. Educational
curricula were revised and many public-sector universities and schools were
built. PIA became the first Asian airline with a jet aircraft in it’s fleet. Suparco, a space programme, was established that
launched sounding rockets throughout the 1960s.
Despite reservations from USA and Europe, foreign relations
with Russia and China were strengthened. A Regional Cooperation for Development
(RCD)was established between Pakistan Iran and Turkey and interestingly in
1962, President Ayub Khan signed an international agreement for establishing a
single world constitution alongside many idealists including Martin Luther King
Jr and Bertrand Russell.
We are sixty years on from the sixties, living once more in
authoritarian times, part of what Vinay Orekondy calls the exhausted
majority Sixty years before the 1960s, was another
decade of world changing events – the first airflight by the Wright Brothers,
Einstein’s theory of Relativity, Freud’s theories of the subconscious and the
first full length feature film. The Babylonians, the Chinese and Hindus
consider 60 an important time marker. Are we on the brink of another era like
the sixties? Or as Fariduddin Attar said “The Sea Will be the Sea Whatever the
drop’s philosophy.”
Durriya Kazi
October 5, 2023
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