Indian-Nordic Encounters 1917-2006 - Det danske Fredsakademi

Erik Stinus, a Danish sailor and poet also participated in the World Youth festivals were he in
1955 met Sara Mathai, the leader of the Bombay festival Committee. A year later he sailed to
India and they married. On the boat trip back to Europe they met the antiapartheid movement
in South Africa before starting a life together in Copenhagen in the solidarity, antiapartheid,
peace, women and other movements struggling for global justice. Stinus also edited a book on
Indian – Danish relations. But the Indian influence through the World Youth festivals was
primarily resulting in a joint struggle with all popular movements globally against colonialism
and for peace, not contributing to the development critical aspects of Gandhian thought that
during the 1950s also was marginalised in India.
The reactions against the World Youth Festivals
and their organisers were strong. Both WFDY and
IUS had their headquarters thrown out of Western
countries from their original seats in London and
Paris. No global organisation of political
importance to civil society with members both in
the East and the West was allowed to have the
possibility of showing that they had strong roots
also in the west. Committees or individuals going
to the festival were regularly criminalised both in
some Western countries and the South. A peak in
the repression was reached at the Berlin festival
1951 when the West German border police with
all means stopped thousands of West German
youth from crossing the border. But many
sneaked in anyway while one died in his attempt
to cross the borders when the police forced a group
of youth out into the Elbe River. In Communist
countries connections with the other side of the bloc Finnish textile
division was also suppressed, often more severely. symbol for the Berlin Festival
In two waves alternatives to the festivals and their organisers was created. At first in the
beginning at the end of the 1940s and beginning of 1950s liberals and social democrats set up
their own international organisations and created international students cooperation were
communists were excluded. It later became public in 1967-68 that these initiatives from early
on were strongly financed by CIA, especially in order to infiltrate World Youth festivals and
in general to communists out of international organisations. In all of them, Nordic young
politicians had crucial positions from the very start.
This generation of Nordic young politicians was anti-communists but primarily believers in
technological progress and liberation from colonialism. One of the key figures was Per
Wirmark, a liberal who soon had more contacts with liberation leaders as general secretary of
WAY than any other politician in the Nordic countries. He became a key person for
mobilising the opinion against apartheid in Sweden and internationally among liberals.
Another was Olof Palme, a social democrat. Together with others he started a campaign
among student to give blood to support South African students. Palme shared the criticism
against communism for being unrasonable and sectarian. In the discussions on alternatives to
the communist dominated IUS, Palme claimed that he saw it as important not to adopt an
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