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Daniel
Cohn-Bendit, born on April 4, 1945, in Montauban, France, was the spokesperson
and leader of the May Revolution in Paris (1968), a benchmark event of
the hippie era in which students rallied against the Vietnam War, the
de Gaulle government and the capitalistic system. After being expelled
from France, Cohn-Bendit worked at the Karl Marx Bookshop (1968-1973)and
later as an editor and publisher. Since 1994, he has hosted the Swiss
TV show "Literaturclub". Cohn-Bendit, now a resident of Germany, is a
member of the European Parliament, and has represented the Greens in Brussels
since 1999. Bulletin editor Pavel Antonov asked him to compare
the campaigns of the 1960s youth movement with Europe’s challenges of
today — sustainability and enlargement. During your recent talk at Central European University in Budapest, you said that after World War II the political elites of Europe were imposing conservatism upon society, a viewpoint that needed to be countered by the youth movements of the 1960s. Does the situation in Central and Eastern Europe today seem similar?Has the time come for ideas of sustainability, equity and clean production to replace the post-Cold War push for consumption and economic development at any cost? After Communism the people of the eastern countries wanted to reach the living standards of Western Europe. After a few years the thinking about where we were heading started to change slowly. Although today it still seems that heeding the markets is enough for the liberal organisation of our society, I think a new thinking of a social, ecological marketdriven society will be one of the main characteristics of the enlarged EU. Should the rebellious 1960s generation of the West take the blame for creating today's over-consumptive, unsustainable and inequitable world? One cannot talk about an entire generation. But we can single out some of its members. The representatives of this generation share responsibility for governing western societies. One example is Germany. There we are trying to reorient society towards sustainability. I would say it is high time for our generation to show what we can do in this respect. How do you think the accession of the ten candidate countries into the EU will affect sustainable social development? I think that the enlargement has historical logic and is necessary. On the other hand, enlargement means that we have to change the way Europe functions. We have to reinforce Europe's institutional structure. And we have to start a very intense discussion and debate with the new member countries about how to organise the reform of their societies together with the °old Europe", if we can use this term. I think the biggest challenge is how to harmonise the wish of the people for more wealth with the necessity for qualitative growth. This means that wealth should not come at the cost of destruction of the environment in which we live. This is one of the main problems that we have to solve together. You said some of the ideals of the 1960s movement were myths that society needed to continue developing. Is sustainable development a myth of our time? I think sustainability will become more and more reformist. It is a target. It is the direction we want to go. Sustainability means a very simple thing -- that if we are developing our society, instead of destroying everything, we must grow in a way that lasts longer than a single generation. This I think is one of the main myths in a positive sense that can structure today's reformist movement. As a politician who came from social and protest movements, do you believe that those in politics can relate this message to people's everyday lives? I am an atheist, and I do not believe in anything, including trying to make politics the answer to the questions of people's everyday life on one side, and trying to show the way to the future on the other. Structuring daily life must be toward a sustainable future, and what we need to do as politicians is simply organise that. |
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