What was happening in Britain and the world 50 years ago?
At this time of year, my professional commitments are light, so I sign up for a number of short courses at the City Lit further education college in central London. My fourth such course of this summer was delivered by a lecturer called Alison Appleby and it was titled “Fifty years ago today: the world in 1967”.
I was 19 in the summer of 1967 and it was about this time that I started my lifelong interest in politics and current affairs, so I remember the events of 1967 well. During the course, the lecturer pulled out selected topics and I was struck at how so often the events of 1967 resonated with events in 2017.
In Britain, in 1967 there was a Labour Government struggling with the economy and forced to devalue the pound by 14%. Today, one year after the Brexit referendum decision, the pound has effectively devalued as you will know if you’ve been abroad recently. British politicians saw the longer-term solution to our economic problems as membership of what was then called the Common Market. In 1967, we made the second application to the Market which was vetoed by de Gaulle who saw the UK as effectively a Trojan horse for the Americans. It took us three attempts to get into what we now call the European Union and, after four and a half decades of membership, we are now negotiating exit.
Still in Britain, 1967 was a time of progressive change with the enactment of the Sexual Offences Act, decriminalising most homosexual activity, and the Abortion Act, making it much easier for a pregnant woman to obtain a termination. Both pieces of legislation were promoted as a Private Members Bill – by Labour MP Leo Abse and Liberal MP David Steel respectively – but the then Labour Home Secretary Roy Jenkins provide the government time that enabled the Bills to reach the statute book. Today attitudes to homosexuality have been transformed with the availability of gay marriage (although there is still prejudice), while abortion rights remain terribly restricted in Northern Ireland.
Of course, there were lots of important developments worldwide in 1967.
In the USA, the first African- American (the Republican Edward Brooke) was elected to the US Senate and the first African-American (Thurgood Marshall) was nominated to the Supreme Court. Could we imagine then that in 2017 the first black President would complete eight years in the White House to be followed by the most bigoted occupant in living memory?
In 1967, the Vietnam War was escalating with American and South Vietnamese troops conducting the largest airborne operation of the conflict (Operation Junction City). Today America is still struggling against insurgencies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Again in 1967, there was the Six Day War when Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria in a pre-emptive strike. Today, Israel remains in occupation of the West Bank and a solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict seems as far away as ever.