1. "Subaltern Nationalism" and the West Berlin Anti-Authoritarians
- Author:
- Jennifer Ruth Hosek
- Publication Date:
- 03-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- The West Berlin anti-authoritarians around Rudi Dutschke employed a notion of subaltern nationalism inspired by independence struggles in the global South and particularly by post 1959 Cuba to legitimate their loosely understood plans to recreate West Berlin as a revolutionary island. Responding to Che Guevara's call for many Vietnams, they imagined this Northern metropolis as a Focus spreading socialism of the third way throughout Europe, a conception that united their local and global aims. In focusing on their interpretation of societal changes and structures in Cuba, the anti-authoritarians deemphasized these plans' potential for violence. As a study of West German leftists in transnational context, this article suggests the limitations of confining analyses of their projects within national or Northern paradigms. As a study of the influence of the global South on the North in a non-(post)colonial situation, it suggests that such influence is greater than has heretofore been understood.
- Topic:
- Nationalism and Political Theory
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Germany, Cuba, Island, and Berlin