In the US today school children are protesting along with their parents. I watch with interest. I stopped to take this picture and the mum said to me ‘Please do something.’

OK. Sharing.

I was part of a school protest when I was 15. A real full blown school protest. One that would lead to real change. My friend Mike Lichtman was an organizer. We were both white and smart and able to leave the country to escape the consequences of our actions as well as the consequences of a rotten education system.

The year was 1976. The day for the protests set for June 16th. Children who took on the system set up to disempower them from birth. An educational system run by a Betsy De Vos of the day, designed to keep them away from critical thought. To dumb them down. Like the Fox news watchers. The education department of the National Party decided the Blacks should learn their lessons in Afrikaans (The language of the oppressor). Not in English, as they elected, or in their native language. They could then understand the ‘baas’ when he gave them orders. An education agenda drawn directly from the Bible that would prepare them for a life as ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’. To till the fields.

I protested in my own way. Us privileged Whites had a very different educational curriculum. I graduated high school at Damelin. A private school based on a model of education on a par with excellence in the first world. Excellent in every way except the one imposed on them by the Government. Afrikaans was a compulsory subject. If you failed Afrikaans – you failed the year. In this way forcing my generation to learn their language.

I had turned 17 two weeks before my final exams. My place at medical school hinged on a good result. At least 3 A’s.
Maths was fine. geography was fine. Biology was fine. English was fine. Then came the Afrikaans exam. Three hours. Written exam. I showed up on time. I sat down with my paper. The teacher clicked the clock and said You may begin.

I didn’t have to think about it. My actions were intuitive and instinctive. I filled out my name where indicated and turned to the first question. Obviously, written in Afrikaans. I wrote in English next to it “I do not understand”.
Same with Question 2. And three. I turned to the end page and signed off. “I don’t understand.”
And I raised my hand. The teacher came over.
“What is it?”
“I am finished”
But its only five minutes. This is a three hour paper. Are you sure.
“Yes, I am finished I said” Handing him the paper, and talking my bag before leaving the room.

I never spoke a word of Afrikaans and I throughout my schooling, in Afrikaans class, I simply either cut class where possible, or worked at my meditation. Losing myself in deep thought, far from this odious language and all it represented.

I remember June 16 like it was yesterday.

And when I saw those kids from Florida on Bill Mahers show, talking up a good revolution in the name of gun control, I was reminded of how it felt when I was their age and driven by a very similar concern.

I fear those kids are not knocking on the doors of history, about to bring that change that will transform the country from what it is to what it should be.

And I say this having lived though precisely the same student led protest myself.

Here’s the thing. Change is never given. It is fought for. An iPhone generation entitled kid with a foul mouth and a xanax habit makes great TV for old people to mutter how smart the kids are these days, but in reality. Fawgeddabowtdit.

For starters. Every movement needs a leader. They have Trump. Who will lead against that pillar of genius with the power to Tweet any opponent to submission.

The South African school protest started off peacefully, around 15,000 students marched towards Orlando Stadium in Soweto where police were waiting for them. In numbers. Ordered to not allow the protest to grow. ‘Return to your schools or else.’

And that led to the moment when real change happened. A big white Afrikaans policeman with a crew cut fired into the crowd hitting 13 year old Hector Pieterson. As he falls, he is lifted by the boy next to him and the march carries on.

Mbuyisa Makhubu walks on carrying Hector who is bleeding out in his arms, with Hector’s sister at his side. She is crying for her brother.

More than anything, to contextualize the struggle facing the American kids against a rod of iron regime, look at the great picture of Mbuyisa Makhubu carrying Hector. That is what it takes.

Sacrifice. And an iconic picture that tells the whole story.

We all know what happened to Hector, he died, but what of Mbuyisa Makhubu?

A year after this photo was taken Mbuyisa went into exile. He has never returned. No one knows what has happened to him. Rumors find him in Nigeria,  becoming unwell,  dying – but to date his family do not know what became of him. His mother appeared before the Truth Commission – and her plea at the end of it was:

All of us are going to die but I do want to know how my child died and when did my child die. And I’ve come here because this is my last hope, that maybe the Commission could help me find out what happened to my child.

She died in 2004 never knowing what had happened to her son.

The sacrifices made by this generation led to immense change. Soon after they started burning schools. The Afrikaner right wing christian conservative government clamped down with an iron fist. The white kids were all conscripted, trained, armed, and sent to kill those Blacks who would challenge  the empowered regime.

That generation of blacks had no education. They were referred to as ‘The lost generation.’ Same with the white boys who went to the army. Many of them became a similarly lost generation. The untreated PTSD. The alcoholism. The white guilt. The blind submission to Jesus forgiveness.  And the luckiest ones left altogether. Elon Musk. Dave Mathews and many of my friends. Mike Lichtman got a refugee passport, ending up in Switzerland for his part in organizing the June 16 protests.

I do hope that the small protests I am seeing today lead to something good. But if your interested in my experiential view on what is most likely, I would say, look at this picture of Mbuyisa carrying Hector. That’s what it took – plus 25 years of violent conflict. The price is high. If you want political change. Finally it worked in South Africa. The terrorist became the government. And the schools were rebuilt.  The Trumps of the day, Botha and his ilk, consigned to high cholesterol retirement in the sticks, with their bitter right wing hatred as company. And the ‘lost generation’ can say they prevailed. For the next generation at least.

I don’t see that level of commitment in today’s kids. I don’t hear it in their music. I don’t see it in their parents conservatism.  I don’t see they have a cause worth dying for.

But I remember that day so well. And I wish Mbuyisa’s mother had found out her sons fate before she died.

To conclude. Success in the process of effecting social change is difficult at the very least. Without an iconic image, some martyrs and a charismatic leader, you might as well be watching lesbians complaining about quality control in the anal bleaching salons.

Much of this post is extracted from my book – The Emergency Bouzouki Player.  Available from Amazon