Nation: THE AGE OF CONTENTION

• Share

THE U.S. was deeply preoccupied with politics and with social ferment at home. Yet the events in France, with the sudden tottering of that tall, human statue, brought a sense of shock and unease. Admittedly, Charles de Gaulle has done his best to harass and embarrass the U.S. in the world. Yet no French leader of this century could have risen to the time as he did. He was a hero because he seemed to outstare history, reversing trends and forces that had seemed irrevocable. In the decade since the general swept into power, France has been transformed from the sick man of Europe into a nation of rekindled purpose, seemingly strong, ambitious, cohesive.

De Gaulle's troubles distress the U.S. not only because they presage a France weak and divided as of old (see THE WORLD). In a less concrete sense, it is disconcerting because what is happening in France can be seen as a harsh paradigm of events the world over. In many places, the familiar leaders seem challenged, the apparently certain is in doubt. What one revolutionary era called "the people," and another referred to as "the masses," are being heard from emphatically and violently.

"This quite remarkable spring," says John Kenneth Galbraith, "will possibly go down as the most contentious since 1848. We are watching a worldwide revolutionary movement." Indeed, the seeds of dissent seem to be sprouting everywhere and almost simultaneously. West German students riot against a democratic coalition government while their Spanish counterparts make Francisco Franco's twilight years uneasy. Harold Wilson's government bobs precariously in a sea of discontent, while in parts of Africa the old tribalism engulfs the new nationalism. In Czechoslovakia, having overturned one of the most obdurate Stalinist regimes to survive in Eastern Europe, libertarian pressure refuses to subside.

Lyndon Johnson's retirement was also a direct, if more gradual, reaction to popular unrest. The anti-establishment forces at work in the U.S. today-black militance, the poor people's crusade, the antiwar movement, student riots and demonstrations over these and other issues—are comparable in causation if not degree to the upheaval in France. In both countries, and many others, the malaise reflects the resentment of those who feel that they have been neglected, ignored or oppressed by outdated, inflexible political and bureaucratic systems.