Heterochronias: reflections on the temporal exceptionality of revolts

ABSTRACT

Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of Heterotopias, the article explores how we can understand revolts and revolutions as ‘heterochronian’ moments. Revolts turn spaces of ordinary everyday life, streets and squares, factories and universities, into ‘absolutely different’ spaces, at least for a moment. But these are also times that radically differ from normal times. Revolts, the article suggests, fall outside the normalcy of time. As an empirical example, this article explores the urban revolts of 1980–81 in cities such as Zurich, Amsterdam, and, most famously, West Berlin, discussing how activists themselves interpreted their revolts as temporary disruptions for which the moment mattered, no matter the long-term outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• temporality
• urban revolts
• squatting
• radical left
• West Berlin

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers as well as Alexandra Paulin-Booth and Matthew Kerry for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Foucault, Die Heterotopien, 41. The German volume also contains the French original of the text, on which I am here relying.

2. Ibid., 39–40.

3. Ibid., 45.

4. Ibid., 45–6.

5. “Der Tod des politischen Subjekts. Interview mit Baudrillard,” in radikal: Fachblatt für alles, was Terroristen Spaß macht 126/127, March/April 1984, 14–19.

6. See Sewell, Logics of History, 225–70.

7. See Meinzer, Der französische Revolutionskalender; and Koselleck, “Remarks on the Revolutionary Calendar.”

8. The canonical reference is the work by the literary scholar Bahktin, Rabelais and his World.

9. See Ozouf, La fête révolutionnaire, 260–325.

10. See Benjamin, “Über den Begriff der Geschichte.”

11. For an impressive artistic representation of a prison revolt, see Stone, “Natural Born Killers.”

12. On the Easter Riots, see, for example, Hanshew, Terror and Democracy, 102–4; Siegfried, 1968, 163–8.

13. “Was ein Demonstrant in 30 Stunden Haft alles lernen kann! Für alle die, die vor einer Festnahme noch Angst hatten,” in Linkeck 3, no date, 2–3.

14. I have written about these revolts elsewhere in more empirical detail. See, above all, Häberlen and Smith, “Struggling for Feelings,” and Häberlen, Emotional Politics, Chapter 5. On the urban revolts of the early 1980s, see only van der Steen and Andresen, eds., A European Youth Revolt; Vasudevan, Metropolitan Preoccupations; Suttner, “Beton brennt”; von Vogel and Schultze-Kossack, eds., Zür(e)ich brennt; and Balz and Friedrichs, eds., “All We Ever Wanted.” On chronopolitics, see also Hezel, “Was gibt es zu verlieren, wo es kein Morgen gibt?”

15. For a chronological and geographical overview of squatted houses in Berlin and various forms of protest, see http://berlin-besetzt.de/, accessed 22 June 2019.

16. Anon, “Anarchie als Minimalforderung,” in radikal: Lieber explosives Chaos als Hochspannung 97, August 1981, 10.

17. Mickey, “Römerberggespräche,” in Pflasterstrand 33, July 1–14, 1978, 23–24.

18. “Der Mai ist gekommen – 1. Mai in Hamburg,” in Große Freiheit 13, June 1978, 8.

19. “Walpurgisnacht,” in Große Freiheit 45, May 1981, 3.

20. Duerr, Traumzeit, 40.

21. Ibid.

22. Röttgen and Rabe, Vulkantänze, 113–14.

23. Musidora, “Züricher Nächte: Der Potlatch der Zerstörung,” in Anschläge 2, February 1981, 3–16. Parts of the article are reprinted in radikal: Zeitung für den großen Abriss 93, June 1981, 18.

24. rAuChEnDeN buLLdooZer alaskAS, “Unterm Pflaster liegt der Asphalt,” in radikal: Zeitung für unkontollierte Bewegung 85, December 1980, 17.

25. Anon, “Eingemachtes,” in radikal: Zeitung für unbeschwerte Stunden 103, April 1982, 6.

26. “Der Tod des politischen Subjekts: Interview mit Baudrillard,” in radikal: Fachblatt für alles, was Terroristen Spaß macht 126/127, March/April 1984, 14–19.

27. For a theoretical elaboration of this argument with a particular focus on the concept of the event from a Dutch activist perspective, see Agentur BILWET, Bewegungslehre.

28. On violence in the squatting movement, see Anders, “Wohnraum, Freiraum, Widerstand.” However, while Anders notes the celebration of violence, she does not inquire exactly how and why riots were celebrated, and at which moment riots lost their appeal.

29. “En heissa Summer, aber subito,” in Stilett: Organ der aufgehenden Drachensaat 56, June/July 1980, unpaginated.

30. Jürgen, “Kreuzberg lebt,” in taz 51, December 15, 1980, 5, found in Ordner Häuserkämpfe, Papiertiger Archiv Berlin. See also Benny Härlin, “Von Haus zu Haus – Berliner Bewegungsstudien,” in Kursbuch 65, October 1981, 1–28.

31. “SPIEGEL-Gespräch: ‘Tränengas ist der dritte Bildungsweg’,” in Der Spiegel 43, 25 October 1983, 108–26, quotes 115–16.

32. Lecorte, Wir tanzen bis zum Ende, 81.

33. Personal conversation with G. U., Berlin, October 2011; see also Katsiaficas, The Subversion of Politics, 136.

34. Dr. Seltsam, “Käseklau und Bombenbau,” in radikal: Zeitung für Jagd aus Leidenschaft 104, May 1982, 11.

35. Fernando, “die schlacht absagen,” in radikal: Zeitung für den unkontrollierten Ernstfall 105, June 1982, 12.

36. See AG Grauwacke, Autonome in Bewegung, 73–6.

37. Das ‘reale’ no future, ‘[No title]’, in radikal: Zeitung für den reißenden Absatz 106, July 1982, 10.

38. Ätzer, “Rhythmuswechsel, oder: Wenn wir alle unser revolutionäres Über-Ich mitbringen, dannsind wir schon doppelt so viele,” in radikal: Zeitung für den reißenden Absatz 106, July 1982, 8–9.

39. Die Kämpfer der aufbrechenden sado-marxistischen Internationale, “Nicht stehenbleiben,” Pamphlet, June 1982, found in Ordner Anti-Nato Bewegung, Papiertiger Archiv Berlin.

40. Personal conversation with G. U., and personal conversation with U. W. and G. W., Berlin, November 2011.

41. Grauwacke, Autonome, 51.

42. Personal conversation with D. Z., Berlin, December 2011.

43. Personal conversation with U. W. and G. W. See also Wartenberg, Kreuzberg, 114.

44. Personal conversation with D. Z.

45. Personal conversation with G. U.

46. “Rückeroberung von Zeit- und Lebensräumen: Beiträge des Besetzerrats K 36,” in taz July 17, 1981, reprinted in Sachschaden: taz journal Nr. 3. Häuser und andere Kämpfe, 196.

47. “Die Nacht der Steine,” in radikal 92, May 1981, 23.

48. “Veronika der Lenz ist da,” in Instandbesetzerpost 2, March 25, 1981, 13.

49. “Liebe zur Stadt,” in Traumstadt 7, n. d., probably summer 1981, 5–11. On the appeal of West Berlin, see also Davis, “The City as Theater of Protest.”

50. For a detailed and complex history of the squatting movement, with numerous personal anecdotes, see Grauwacke, Autonome, 36–85.

51. Föllmer, “The Unscripted Revolution,” 167.

52. Krapfl, Revolution with a Human Face, 18.

53. Kenney, A Carnival of Revolution, 4.

54. On the Syrian Revolution, see only Yassin-Kassab and al-Shami, Burning Country; and al-Haj Saleh, The Impossible Revolution.

55. See Ther, Die neue Ordnung.

56. Jackson, Popular Front, 237.

57. This builds on an argument I have made previously in Häberlen, “Sekunden der Freiheit.”

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Joachim C. Häberlen

Joachim C. Häberlen holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He is currently Associate Professor of Modern Continental European History at the University of Warwick. He has published widely on the history of protest movements in post-war Europe, particularly from a history of emotions perspective. His publications include The Emotional Politics of the Alternative Left: West Germany, 1968–1984 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), as well as numerous articles and book chapters. He has also edited, with Mark Keck-Szajbel and Kate Mahoney, The Politics of Authenticity: Countercultures and Radical Movements across the Iron Curtain, 1968–1989 (New York: Berghahn, 2018). He is currently writing a general history of protest movements, entitled For a Better World, which will be published by Penguin Books.