Global Insurgencies since 1968

Abstract

Abstract In my view, the global movement’s capacity for synchronous international coordination after 1968 has grown by leaps and bounds. Each wave builds upon its predecessors: from the disarmament movement of the early 1980s, to the wave of Asian uprisings from 1986-1992, Eastern European insurgencies, the alterglobalization wave from the Zapatistas to Seattle, and most recently in the concurrent Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Indignados, and Greek anarchists, history becomes increasingly endowed with direct action by self-conscious human beings. Our collective intelligence is becoming an ever-more powerful material force. Recent global waves have focused on transformation of the world economic system, not simply on opposing its weapons, wars, debt crises, and ecological devastation. Today there are more people consciously opposed to international capitalism than ever before in history, a potential for action that has yet to be fully realized.