2ND POST

THIS IS A SECOND POST

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My late teens and early twenties corresponded with the late sixties and early seventies. Daniel Cohn-Bendit (AKA Danny the red) and the student uprising in France in 1968 was the first major political event that informed my political being. Sharpeville occurred when I was only eight years old and kind of passed me by at the time. Even though I was still at high school, I remember Bobby Kennedy's visit to South Africa and was hugely impressed by the "word on the street". Of course there was no television and so I saw no coverage of him. Vietnam and the Kent State massacre also had a huge impact on me. The massacre occurred in May 1970 just a few months before I arrived in Berkeley California as an exchange student. I was seduced by the writings of, amongst others, Malcolm X, Abbey Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley was my main hang out and I would spend all my spare time enthralled by the speeches of the then student leaders. By the time I returned to South Africa, I think it is fair to say that I had been somewhat radicalised and was probably more an anarchist then an adherent to any specific political ideology.