The cycle of struggles that Immanuel Wallerstein baptized as world revolution of 1968
, was basically a gigantic youth movement powerful enough to transform the world-system. It ranged from the streets of Mexico City to those of Paris, from the jungles of Vietnam to the working-class neighborhoods of Córdoba, from the universities of the United States to the avenues of Beijing and Prague.
It did not leave authorities standing, because it was also a movement against the established order, cracking from Fordist factory discipline to the walls of psychiatric hospitals, from the patriarchal family order to study centers. The post-revolutionary socialist bureaucracies and the Western ruling classes were rocked by several waves of youth rebellion.
Half a century after that intense youth activism, things have changed radically. Millions of young people support the far-right Javier Milei in Argentina, many others turned to Bolsonaro at the time, against the Chavista government of Venezuela, in favor of the Ecuadorian right these days and of the retrograde forces in many other countries of the world.
It is true that many young people mobilized in the revolts in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Peru. Therefore, one should not think that all the youth have gone over to the right. But the ranks of the popular movements, with the notable exception of the anti-patriarchal ones, no longer have the massive presence of young people in their ranks. They do mobilize on occasion, but what we miss is their presence in stable organized spaces.
This poses difficulties for us in anti-capitalist resistance, because the youth impulse has long been the most important material and cultural force, the one that allowed the renewal of anti-systemic forces.
It is evident that youth defections from the fight against capitalism are related in large part to the policies created by the World Bank, the IMF and the global right, which oscillate between the cooptation of the movements and general confusion, inventing nonsense like the green mining
or sustainable. Consumerism and social networks attract and distract even those who are harmed by the system.
But a part of the youth desertion is our responsibility, those of us who are in resistance to the hegemonic system, because we do not listen to the young generations or make an effort to understand them, nor do we accept their ways when they become involved in the movements. It seems to me necessary to address, even in a summarized way, the ways of doing things that anti-systemic movements have taken that keep young people away from organizations.
The first is the taming of the popular and anti-capitalist field, either by adhering to the institutions or by joining a progressivism that has only legitimized domination. If all the problems will be solved by the State, according to the majority currents on the left, what is the point of organizing to resist and change the world?
The second problem is the persistence of patriarchy in our ranks, in our attitudes and organizational styles, which always causes the most critical women and young people to distance themselves. Anti-capitalism is intertwined with the fight against machismo and racism, but in many organizations it is white and mixed-race men, academics and the middle class, who speak up without listening to or taking into account other political cultures.
The third is the little or no rotation in responsibilities, something that still characterizes the parties and unions that keep them in the leadership for decades. They concentrate knowledge and become untouchable leaders, as we see in the progressive forces that have been with the same leaders for more than two decades.
The fourth is mistrust in the ways in which anti-patriarchal youth and women behave in movements. It is clear that they do it in their own way, that they can make mistakes, but that cannot be synonymous with denying them the possibility of assuming tasks. Don’t we sixties make ugly mistakes many times?
The last, although there is more, is the inability of veterans to adequately convey their experience. It is not a question of giving boring speeches, but of leading by example. Many are no longer in the resistance, but they want to continue giving orders, they feel an unpleasant moral superiority and have forgotten about self-criticism, which prevents them from relating on an equal footing with young people.
We do not know how the generational change is made, we do not have manuals that show us the way, but we are sure that the continuity of the movements depends on it.
By Raúl Zibechi
