1968 / 1989 / 2020: Different This Time?
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n barely more than a half century—within the lifetimes of more than a billion now on earth—the globe has seen three separate years of cultural convulsion. The first came in 1968; the second in 1989; and the third is unfolding right now. In each of these years, there was not just a dream, but a resolve to make a better world.
The first two efforts largely failed. But by considering them, maybe we can find clues on how to see a better outcome this time.
1968
Each of these nascent revolutions was motivated by a demand for freedom of one sort or another. The 1968 moment in America began with a civil rights movement that sought freedom from racially motivated discrimination, brutality and murder. Soon it was joined (and effectively overtaken) by young college students seeking freedom from conscription into a corrupt war in Vietnam. These protests eventually morphed even further into causes including: women’s rights (Yale University did not accept women undergraduates until 1968); and environmentalism (the first Earth Day would come two years later).
The whole simmering pot was set to boiling by the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis in April; and of presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy in Los Angeles in June. Cities burned, and club-wielding police left student protestors bloodied at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Then, at the summer Olympic games in Mexico City, American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists on the awards stand in a salute to black power. The country felt like it teetered on a precipice.
And America was not alone. Police and protestors also clashed across Europe. But the USA remained fixated on itself.
And while consciousness was raised, in the end the protests largely fizzled.
1989
This was the year that the Berlin wall came down…and most Americans were happy to declare victory and turn their attention inward. But that ignored a true revolution emerging across Europe and the Soviet Union. The opening of Berlin was only a tease.
The push toward democracy was all shepherded by a single man, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. His actions held out the promise of expanded personal freedoms, and a rapid reduction in the world’s nuclear weapons stockpile. For his efforts, he won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Gorbachev’s motivations were pragmatic. He realized that as long as his country continued to spend disproportionately on its military, his citizens could never be sufficiently provided for. In effect, peace promised more prosperity.
In China, the mood was far different. Any threat of reform to oppressive Communist rule was unwelcome. Student demonstrations in Beijing led to the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Military troops opened fire with rifles, and hundreds—maybe thousands—of protesters were killed. No official death count was ever provided.
Any thought of revolution in China was put down by force. In Russia, Gorbachev’s hopes were snuffed out in a bloodless manner: hardliners in the Kremlin pushed him out. Predictions for the Fall of Communism turned out to be fantasy.
So, after failures in 1968 and 1989, will true change falter again in 2020?
2020
This year is different not simply because of COVID-19, but also due to the killing of a black man by a white policeman in Minneapolis. That crime sparked outrage in more than 75 nations around the world. Groups numbering in the hundreds or thousands took to the streets to say, “enough!” But in many of those overseas locations the outcry was also aimed at other injustices. George Floyd lived as one black man, but in death he represents so much more.
here’s a metric that compares wider suffering in current human existence around the world. A decade ago, academics developed something called the Social Progress Index, which marks the development and well-being in any nation by three components:
Basic Human Needs: do people have access to food, shelter, clean air and water? Are they safe?
Foundations of Well Being: do people have access to the tools they need to advance? That includes information and education...access to health care…and, in a democracy, the ability to vote freely.
Opportunity: Are people free from artificial and structural barriers that prevent them from succeeding? Are they blocked by racism, sexism, structural income inequality and unequal access to justice?
For example, in America, protests stemming from the Floyd killing focused both on aspects from the first component (safety) and from the third (racism).
In the U.S. right now there’s an understandable focus on “fixing” police departments one way or another. But as a society, we can’t pretend that an end to racism (even if that were possible) is also an end to all our problems. We are a country where:
--in Flint, Michigan people couldn’t find clean water;
--in hundreds of communities, thousands stand in food lines every night;
--people everywhere won’t go to the doctor because they can’t pay.
This is pretty fundamental stuff. The “best economy in the history of the world” should at least be able to supply that first category of basic human needs to all. But we don’t. And the federal government itself is actively preventing people from voting.
The bottom line is this: in the SPI rankings, currently America is found nowhere among the top 13 nations that constitute “Tier 1”. To repeat, we are NOT a top nation. (Norway is #1; most Scandinavian countries are in there, along with others including Canada, Japan and Australia.)
Scroll down and you find the U.S. at #28. A little ahead of Malta. Not quite as good as Cyprus. In fact, the term “progress” doesn’t even apply to us.
“the United States continues to backslide…(and) is only one of three countries declining in social progress over the past decade.”
--2020 Social Progress Index
mong the three major categories, the U.S. fares relatively better only in “opportunity” (#14). And that would be much higher were it not for two specific and dismal results: 84th in “equality of political power by socioeconomic position”, and 100th in “discrimination and violence against minorities”.
In other words, the protests stemming from the Floyd killing are spot on in addressing our most glaring flaws. It’s a logical place to start. But we also fail in so many other areas.
o, where does hope come in? How can we do better?
The good news is that protests CAN work. In 1968, marchers impacted public opinion, and once public support dwindled, the Vietnam pullout was ordained. In 1989, progress toward lasting democracy was achieved in some parts of the former Soviet Union.
Right now, support for the Black Lives Matter movement has dropped from 67% of all adults in the immediate wake of the Floyd death to 55% at this writing. However, that’s still a sea change from where it was. Many whites have seen the injustice and changed their minds.
And there is brewing support on other issues. Polls this year showed Obamacare more popular than ever—and that was before COVID hit. Also, more than half of Republicans support a ban on assault weapons. The chance for change is once more in the wind.
But we are doomed again unless we heed the lessons from 1968 and 1989:
--The power structure will fight back. It has more resources, more guns and more to lose. Even if Trump is forced out, the work will only have begun. Perseverance is essential. The Old Guard will not go quietly into the night; they will not go away.
--Join passion with precision. Shouting is a reaction. Planning is an action. Reconstructing a police department or providing all Americans with health insurance, or assuring a safe and easy way to vote are goals that require a million small steps. Someone needs to do that work. Who will? When? How?
--Don’t yell without listening. For any revolution, there is a need to build consensus. People assuming all members of any “movement” will eventually wind up on the same page are fooling themselves. You either make concessions or you fail—in which case, the power structure rises again.
ake no mistake. The year 2020 is the first chance to demonstrably make our world better in more than three decades. If you ask whether it can really be done, I say “absolutely!” But that’s no prediction. History says it’s far less than a 50/50 shot.
But it’s a shot. And in the end, we may actually have Donald Trump to thank for it. Only his consuming ineptitude proved how bad things could get.
So, let’s make them better.
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