Power of first awakening

History Says don't Hope
On this side of the Grave
But then once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme

Seamus Heaney: The Cure at Troy

istorical accounts of 1968 always cite Paris in May as the catalyst for many smaller revolutions around the world, including British redbrick universities like mine at Hull.

But of course there were many antecedents. 1967 had seen the 50th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. Communism still had some currency. We could all remember the extraordinary audacity of Cuba and the terrible threat of ‘the Bay of Pigs' incident.

On 9th October 1967, Bolivian forces executed Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara, amputating his hands for identification, and creating a new icon for youth revolt. At the beginning of 1968, it was becoming clear that the US would never achieve its imperialist goals in Vietnam. Even for the most politically naïve, the US had lost its innocence. In Grosvenor Square we heard Tariq Ali – then a British Vietnam Solidarity Campaign leader, tell us that resistance was not futile. If poor peasants could fight back, why not us here, in Western Europe? The Civil Rights movement had reached a momentous crisis with the assassination of Martin Luther King. We awoke to their struggle when US cities rioted and a large area of Los Angeles was torched.

In many ways we wanted to take action locally. Acting on immediate oppression as embodied within Universities enabled us to see a wider picture of arbitrary and authoritarian decisions within the state and the status quo. We were still nice middle class students, who had rarely voiced opinions about anything. We might have joined International Socialists, or even sought representation on Students' Union, but otherwise we had little voice in the huge events that were engulfing us.

And then the miraculous and unforgettable events in Paris in early May happened. Quite suddenly and spontaneously, students were digging up the cobbles and making barricades in the streets as a collective. Working people as well as students in the streets were taking direct action, challenging authority and the elite. We also (even in Hull) had a tremendous desire to do something to achieve change. On Tuesday 30th May 1968, a unique campaign began within the student body. It led to a Union General meeting decision to occupy the University Administration Block as the centre of power within the campus. Within hours, 800 students held a sit-in on the ground floor of this great building, refusing to move until they had direct discourse with the Vice Chancellor, and a chance to speak of our grievances and wishes for change.

We demanded a greater say in the decision making processes of the University- so opaque and yet so influential in our lives. We wanted one to one representation on every layer of that process. Senate would double in size with a student rep for every staff member. Appointments panels, disciplinaries, examination boards, nothing was omitted. It was agreed there and then. No further discussion.

And the reality was that by the end of that week, some of us had already attended our first student staff senate meeting. The first time we had ever had a voice. I was the only woman in that first group. My staff partner was the Pro-Vice Chacellor and my Professor of Psychology.

The speed of events was both extraordinary and exhilarating. Despite attempts by student conservatives to discredit the revolution, most of the student body became a tidal wave of people able to speak, learning to be confident and coherent, to seize the moment, and the chance to share power. In the words of Peter Latarche, one of the student leaders, “it was democracy of the public space in the market place, a discourse where nobody was privileged. If anything encapsulated what we were trying to do and why, it was that…”

Forty years on, I recognise the power of that first awakening of political awareness. Its power has stayed with me through socialism, through membership and comradeship in the Labour Party, through feminism, through performance art, community campaigns, ecological and environmental movements, and the more rule bound world of everyday democracy. At heart, however, I also learned something about the capacity, perhaps only once in a lifetime, of ordinary people to take power and rise up against structures that no longer serve them, and make hope and history rhyme.