_____________________________
I nodded. Protest tactics like sit-ins and blocking traffic only inconvenienced the average citizen.
For another twenty minutes, the protesters sat and chanted antiapartheid slogans. I reached the financial aid window and set my book bag down to retrieve my financial aid documents when the clerk said, "We just received word to evacuate. The riot police are coming. You better leave too." She shut the window.
I hit the glass with my fist. Fuck humanitarian principles! These damn protesters didn’t have international solutions to a better world. They only created microproblems, none of which would end apartheid or free Nelson Mandela.
Jail was the last thing I needed. I had to get out of there. I didn't want my head bashed by a police baton. It was this defining moment in my emerging political awareness when I concluded a person's right to protest peacefully ended when it started impinging on my right to collect a financial-aid check.
A new metallic voice bellowed from a bullhorn. "THIS IS THE POLICE. YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO LEAVE THE BUILDING, OR YOU WILL BE ARRESTED FOR TRESPASSING."
The mention of arrest unsettled the students whose resolve for social justice was less than their desire for something exciting to do. Several tried to head for the exit, but protesters, determined to be arrested, blocked the doors. Nobody could leave.
Another student, dressed in black and red, spoke to the seated crowd. "Don’t abandon the cause now. When they arrest you, go limp. Make them carry you out."
A student with a bullhorn wearing a shirt with "Legal Observer" printed on it told the crowd what would happen. "The police will inform you that you are under arrest."
The crowd groaned.
The legal observer said, "They will ask you to stand and walk out with them. If you do, you will be issued a citation and let go."
The crowd cheered.
"If you go passive and limp, several cops will lift you and carry you out."
The crowd booed.
"If you are too heavy to be lifted," the legal observer pointed at some fat people, "the police will roll your limp body onto a net, wrap the net around you and drag you out."
The crowd laughed at the thought of the fat people being dragged out.
"If you choose passive resistance, you will be arrested, booked at the jail and released on your own recognizance. If you actively or violently resist, you will be pepper sprayed and charged with felony resisting." The crowd booed again.
"Resist!" A protester yelled. "Become martyrs for the cause!"
The legal observer said, "A felony arrest means you will have to post a high bail, and if you can't afford to pay, you will remain in jail until your court arraignment in forty-eight hours."
The crowd buzzed at the financial implications. Free speech wasn't exactly free if you had to pay a bail bondsman to stay free. The protesters talked among themselves, each trying to determine the best action to take.
A protest organizer in his black and red uniform encouraged the crowd. "We need consensus, people. Only through strength in numbers can we win this battle." However, consensus went only so far.
I saw the back of a woman in black and red carrying a protest sign. She was talking to each seated student and taking a tally of what his or her arrest action would be. She wrote this information on the back of her protest sign. She turned to me. "Derek? What a surprise! I didn't see you as a protester type of guy."
It was Diane, Ms. Revolutionary Student Brigade. The young woman I had met at Sather Gate handing out flyers.
"I'm not," I said. "I was here to pick up my financial aid check."
"Derek, when are you going to stop being a money grubbing whore for the establishment?" she said.
I was still incensed at my predicament. I was trapped because of her. "Don’t point fingers until you stop taking money from your rich daddy!"
She was taken aback, "Gee, I didn't know you'd be so sensitive about taking the Man's blood money."
I looked at her eyes when she apologized. She seemed sincere. She was cute, but this was no time for flirting.
"What's it going to be?" she asked. "Stand and walk, go limp or actively resist?
"Why are you taking a tally?" I asked, thinking, shouldn't one's defiance to authority be a private personal decision?
____________________________
Two episodes to go before the end of chapter ten and the preview ends.
Amazon
Indiebound
BARNES&NOBLE
This episode is based on a true story.
Although seventy-five percent of this memoir is factual, liberties were taken with the other twenty-five percent for plot purposes. That is where scenes were recreated from memory when they were not clearly defined in the journals written by the author from 1976 to 1980.
Individual characters are composites of several people and do not represent any one person, and the names have been changed to protect innocent people that may be guilty of indiscretions in their youth.
All characters, names and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this memoir should be considered products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.
