As a young student at Wits in the mid-seventies I was drawn into student politics on the campus. It was a slow start because I grew up in a middle-class Afrikaans home, but soon I could quote Marcuse and "Red Danny" with ease, sprayed "pigs" on walls in Empire Road and grew my hair and beard long. I must confess that we never even considered burning a library or destroying a colonial work of art. And I can’t recall anyone hitting a professor in the face … although you must remember that Max Price stood on our side of the barricades at the time. I was donnered a few times by the police and spent some nights as a guest at the Hillbrow police station. But it was all for a noble cause, I don’t regret anything and I do still believe we made some contribution to turn the tide of history against the apartheid system. However, it only became clear to us a few years later that the organisers and leaders of our uprising were agents provocateurs, paid members of the security police. Serving on...
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