The Hour of the Gun: Anti-imperialist Struggle as the New Left’s Hope of Salvation in Germany and Italy

Abstract

‘1968’ has fittingly been described as the long summer of theory’. But we fail to do justice to the protest movement, both in terms of its widespread impact and its cultural legacy, if we reduce it solely to the content of texts that were consumed like a ‘narcotic’ at the time and since then have been thoroughly researched. The canon of New Left readings was only one factor, if also a quite important one, for the fundamental outlook of the revolt, an outlook that was also defined in part by a very particular ‘sound.’ It’s no coincidence that the ‘red decade’ is considered the last great period of the political song. Some of the movement’s anthems can actually be interpreted as sung professions of faith that point up not just the emotional dimension of the protests, but also their increasingly recognized ‘religious roots.’ The chapter proposes that the third-world-oriented anti-imperialism of the New Left should be seen as central dogma within a secular system of belief.