WOODSTOCK
(All you need is love)

A few days ago I was leafing through a book of interviews with the Woodstock festival participants. Our life now is considerably darker and more complicated than in those days, so that any comparison of the Woodstock with our protest would be out of place if there was not one key thing that links them. Woodstock, in its duration: from the preparations to the days of the festival itself, was most of the time on the verge of disaster. When the hippies on LSD were left without food and water even the National Guard intervened (which will most probably not be the case here). However half a million people left the Yuasgur farm happy and satisfied having experienced a unique event. They all claim that they were led by a strange feeling and the strength that it gave them kept them confident in every one of their actions which always turned out right.

This feeling is often called love. It looks like the events here have much things in common with this feeling. After five years of death, desperation and depression, love and laughter are the only things we have left. Like with most problems in life the solution is a paradox. The answers to violence, primitivism and darkness are peace, nonviolence and love. It is impossible not to notice the smiling faces of the people which have been such a rare sight these last few years. People are joyful, not because of political victories or whatever; they are happy because of the youthful spirit that has returned to fight apathy. Life can teach us that all is possible, even paranoid statements that all this is American. Maybe it is. Maybe we are all mason marionettes but what do I care. The people are smiling again.

The people with a TV set instead of a brain in their heads have a hard time understanding that its their lives that are important and not the lives of some abstract "great" tycoons controlling their helpless subjects all over the world. But it looks like the number of TV screens that are shattering here is rising by the minute. This is a metaphysical struggle. Spirits are at war. Primitivism and friendliness, smiles and cynicism. We'll see who wins (but not on TV, that's for sure).


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