1968 som klyscha

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims to explore and investigate the use of the cliché ‘68 in a contemporary Swedish debate. The sixties and especially 1968 is a historically significant year,and it is marked by political murders, protesting students and political energy. InSweden one of the most notable happenings was the occupation of the student union’s headquarters in Stockholm. The occupation, which was held by the students, lasted for three days and was initiated during a meeting to discuss a parliament proposal of regulated courses of studies, known as UKAS. In 2008, during the jubilee forty years after the occupation, a seminar was arranged by the cultural conservative forum Axessat the very same address where the student union’s headquarters once had been. The seminar is characteristic for the research material: It exemplifies how the leftist symbol ‘68 is used and transformed by participants who do not define themselves as left-wing. The purpose of this paper is to show how ‘68 as a cliché is used not to challenge thepolitical situation of today, but to present the discoursers and their political views asneutralised or natural. The hypothesis of this study is that ‘68 serves as a hegemonical gap, where leftist political values can absorb a minor part of the debate — just to bemarked off as something caused almost biological by youth, and placed in a largerscheme where the participants in forums, such as the seminar arranged by Axess, are acknowledged as judges of society both now and then, and as su neutralised. The cliché ‘68 can be positioned in the debate concerning the post-political society. Part ofthe cliché is the historical narrative where society evolves from immature to mature,from radical leftist to non-socialist and right-wing stands.