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USA In the 1960s the war in Vietnam divided American society. The cleft ran for the most part along the generation gap. Many Americans who had fought for freedom and democracy in the Second World War saw the intervention in Vietnam as a downright obligation of the USA for the defence of freedom and fundamental values. Younger Americans, however, could only see in the US government an arrogant aggressor. The Woodstock Festival in the middle of August 1969 became the symbol of the massive – in the end, worldwide – protest movement. Some 400,000 young people and the music itself turned Woodstock into the embodiment of "Love & Peace". On the last day Jimi Hendrix played an improvisation of the American national anthem. He drew sounds out of the guitar that conjured up visions of airplanes, exploding bombs, and the rattle of guns. With this assault on the national anthem he struck a chord in America's self-identity. After all, each strophe of the hymn ends with the refrain that the star-spangled banner waves "O're the land of the free and the home of the brave." For the first time, the opponents of the Vietnam War had seriously troubled the American self-perception that had arisen out of the Second World War. |
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