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| By Daniela Faulwasser |
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| Ever since 9/11 the word Terrorism became a whole new dimension. Not only have we started wars in its name, but nowadays kids grow up knowing about Al Qaida and the Taliban. Society’s view on Rebellion changed long before that. Take for example Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. Back in 1960 he was considered one of the top terrorists when he, Fidel Castro and the Guerrillas of the ‘July 26th Movement’ were active in Cuba, Bolivia and Argentina. Over the years he evolved from the feared combat fighter into an international icon. His image now stands for rebellion, liberty and pride. Not many people know that until his death he trained guerrilla fighters in Bolivia. |
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Or, take a look at the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, Joschka Fischer. Back in the 1970s he had close contacts with the anarcho-communist scene and rose in public life as an important figure in the anti-American, anti-liberal, neo-Marxist, revolution-minded German radical left of the generation of 1968. This was the left that produced and supported the Baader-Meinhof Gang (or Red Army Faction). In the 1970s the RAF called out for the armed fight against the ‘Force of the Sovereigns’ in Germany. Their targets were mainly politicians, leading industry executives and officials. In 1976 Fischer planned and participated in a Frankfurt Demonstration to protest the death in prison of Baader-Meinhof founder Ulrike Meinhof. He was arrested for tossing a Molotov cocktail at policemen but was not charged. |
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| In 2001, the German Government put on trial his old friend Hans-Joachim Klein, who had been an underground "soldier" in the Revolutionary Cells, an ally of the Red Army Faction and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The Revolutionary Cells helped in the murder of the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich in 1972, and Klein himself took part in a 1975 joint assassination operation with Carlos the Jackal in which three people were killed. |
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During Fischer’s testimony at Klein's trial, he was accused of having harboured Red Army Faction members in his Revolutionary Struggle house, the Frankfurt center for the group Revolutionary Struggle, which he co-founded with housemate Daniel "Danny the Red" Cohn-Bendit. He was forced to admit there was some truth in the accusation after it was revealed that Margrit Schiller, "who had served jail time for her connections to the Red Army Faction," had in her memoirs "plainly stated that she had spent a `few days' in the early 1970s living in the Revolutionary Struggle house."
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| Joschka Fischer attended the meeting of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1969, in which the PLO resolved that its ultimate aim was the extinction of Israel -- that is to say, the extinction or expulsion of the Jews of Israel. Nearly seven years later, Revolutionary Cells terrorists headed by his Frankfurt colleague, Wilfried Boese, hijacked an Air France plane to Entebbe. The intention of the hijackers was to murder all of the Jewish passengers on that flight. But before that could happen they were killed by Israeli commandos. |
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| In 1981 Fischer joins the German Green Party and in 1983 entered the German Parliament where he later became the Minister of Environment and Power for the State of Hessen (He attended his adjuration in Sneakers and Jeans). |
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When the Greens and the German Democratic Party formed a Coalition in 1998 he became the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Today Fischer wears a suit and tie and nurtures international relationships. So what happened? Did he change his views? Betray his beliefs? The answer is no. Demonstrating against the Vietnam War, handcuffing himself to a tree and getting into fights with the police Fischer was surely considered a ‘Terrorist’ by the standards of the time.
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| It’s not Fischer that changed, it’s our society. |
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| What was considered being ultra-liberal back in the 1970s is today moderate. While the Students back in 1968 were revolting and demonstrating out of an inner need and profound beliefs, the fast-food-fast-paced-TV-consuming-generation-X of today cannot find the motivation or even see a ‘reason’ to do the same. And for some in the last 20 years it became hip to be a rebel. To step up for your beliefs and fight for freedom and liberty against the establishment became normal. There are no more windmills to fight against in the view of our oversaturated and jaded society. In a time and world where the images of Che Guevara, Mao and Ulrike Meinhoff decorate T-Shirts, mugs and panties, there is no space anymore for the ‘underdogs’ and ‘rebels’ of bygone eras. Rebellion has become Mainstream. |
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