Monday 12 May 2008

Beaneath the pavement, the beach!




It was forty years ago today. In Paris, during May 1968, a revolution of the imagination was underway. Students rallied for the workers of the world to be realistic by demanding the impossible. They made up killer slogans and even better posters. They chugged on Gaulois and lobbed cobblestones at coppers. It was so much fun, the workers came out to play with them. The French government and the economy was brought to its knees, and for a few fleeting moments it looked like the funkiest overthrow of a regime in history was about to happen. Then, according to who you ask, either the Communists sold out the revolution (again) by negotiating a deal for extra pay between the government and the workers at the Renault factories, or the rebellion dissipated when the college summer holidays started. I prefer the latter. Who knows, some of the kids may have gone surfing. Either way, for a brief moment, the landlocked, beret-rocking intellectuals of freedom realised where true liberty was to be found.
Beneath the pavement, they realised, lay the beach!

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