Sam
Beautiful and evocative writing. We certainly lived and witnessed history. I remember watching Mandela?s inauguration on CSPAN at 3 in the morning with tears streaming down my face. I never thought he would walk out of prison and feared a bloodbath of unimaginable proportions.
Although our objectives were the same I differed in the methodology. I was influenced by the radical student movements of the time in Europe and the U.S. While apartheid was the prescient issue in South Africa the larger issues of the Vietnam war, of inequality, of racism existed in mosst corners of the world. I believed that provocation was important and that convincing and reasoning with the opposition was futile. We wanted to shake up the world, to attack apathy and complacency and to encourage people to see the world differently.
An interesting aside is that while Das Kapital was banned in South Africa the writings of the radical new left in the late 60?s wasn?t banned. I found ?Steal This Book? by Abbie Hoffman to be far more subversive than Marx ever was.
The noise we made let people in South Africa and in the rest of the world know that not all white South Africans agreed with the status quo. Plus it was a lot of fun at the time. I know its sacrilege to suggest that anything amidst the pain, suffering and deprivation.