Forty years ago, the world was almost in a similar situation as today's. Except that the "enemy" at the time was: Communism. Vietnam was mourning its deaths as the US invasion continued to cause more and more horrors, while in the Middle East, Israel launched a war that would reverberate durably in the region, attacking its Arab neighbours causing deaths, huge movements of refugees and seizing Palestinian land, it still occupies today.
This climate of fear, deaths and uncertainty, added to hours upon hours of images of war and misery, mainly caused by the American foreign policy and that of its client states, created a growing antiwar feeling and an unprecedented wave of solidarity and peace activism.
In Parallel, the Hippie countercultural ideals of love, freedom, and unity, reached their momentum with an ever growing number of wonderfully talented and popular artists joining the movement.
Hundreds of thousands of young and less younger people from around the world and from all walks of life, converged to the city of San Fransisco. The attempt by the local authorities to stop the flow, added even more media interest.
Although the "experience" was tarnished by incidents of violence, drug abuse and many other problems, it produced a generation of "flower children" with new ideals and new views on the World and it inspired similar experiences in other parts of the world. But most of all, this summer sparked a new movement of worldwide solidarity. The peace movement was born.
What's more, this was an opportunity for so many unique artists to produce an inspiring new music genre, still influential today.
In the Internet age we're living in today, with an ever easy interconnection between different people from different parts of the world, the solidarity ideals are even stronger than they were back in 67; but one has to admit that the world has not become a safer place, quite the contrary. Extremists from all sides are fuelling each other's rhetoric and wars, while "moderates" (which I suppose are the majority) remain mostly ineffective in avoiding illegal wars of occupation and violence in all its forms.
This climate of fear, deaths and uncertainty, added to hours upon hours of images of war and misery, mainly caused by the American foreign policy and that of its client states, created a growing antiwar feeling and an unprecedented wave of solidarity and peace activism.
In Parallel, the Hippie countercultural ideals of love, freedom, and unity, reached their momentum with an ever growing number of wonderfully talented and popular artists joining the movement.
Hundreds of thousands of young and less younger people from around the world and from all walks of life, converged to the city of San Fransisco. The attempt by the local authorities to stop the flow, added even more media interest.
Although the "experience" was tarnished by incidents of violence, drug abuse and many other problems, it produced a generation of "flower children" with new ideals and new views on the World and it inspired similar experiences in other parts of the world. But most of all, this summer sparked a new movement of worldwide solidarity. The peace movement was born.
What's more, this was an opportunity for so many unique artists to produce an inspiring new music genre, still influential today.
In the Internet age we're living in today, with an ever easy interconnection between different people from different parts of the world, the solidarity ideals are even stronger than they were back in 67; but one has to admit that the world has not become a safer place, quite the contrary. Extremists from all sides are fuelling each other's rhetoric and wars, while "moderates" (which I suppose are the majority) remain mostly ineffective in avoiding illegal wars of occupation and violence in all its forms.
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