How MTV Helped End Apartheid
I first discovered what being a global citizen meant when I was just thirteen and a part of the MTV Generation. MTV debuted in 1981, but in rural Virginia I didn’t get my MTV until 1986. It was the era of the super group. The famine relief charity, Band Aid, had surprised everyone with the hit “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” That was followed with the spectacular success of “We are the World”. The idea of the super group wasn’t new, but this super group was like nothing I had ever seen.
Every face that flashed by seemed either fascinatingly original or historic or both like Dylan, Miles Davis, Springsteen, Pete Townshend, Run-DMC, Bono, Kurtis Blow, Joey Ramone, and The Rolling Stones! These were just a few of the musicians that created United Artists against Apartheid. A super group formed not just for charity, but for protest. I didn’t know most of the artists, but with the ones I knew I was immediately hooked. These weren’t new wave singers or pop stars, these were rockers and rappers. These were my heroes singing about a place called Sun City.
In the days of no internet, my only choice was the public library where normally I used the children’s section, but this time was different. I went and met the adult librarian and explained my interest in South Africa and Sun City. She led me to a card catalog and then taught me how to look up things on microfilm. Here I discovered the horrors of apartheid. She directed me to Archbishop Tutu’s calls for stiff sanctions on his own country in the New York Times.
What was I to do? I had to write my first letter to my representative, supporting something called the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act. I received a nice letter thanking me for writing in support of the measure and behaving in such a fine civic matter. I was so excited, this is what democracy was supposed to look like. You write a letter and your bill gets passed! To my disbelief, President Reagan vetoed the bill, and then Congress overrode his veto!
That summer MTV played the video “Biko” by Peter Gabriel in heavy rotation and I committed to raise awareness about apartheid. The song had a new video to coincide with the release of the movie, Cry Freedom. A fantastic film about the life of the slain leader Steve Biko, starring Denzel Washington. “Biko” was such a powerful song that it inspired me to join Amnesty International and buy my first Free Mandela shirt to wear to school. Its lyrics with their harsh simplicity cut to the core of his murder. Gabriel’s performance at Live Aid 1986 for Amnesty was absolutely mind blowing. I wanted to show my classmates the injustice of apartheid and the brutality of this racist system. While I had never traveled to South Africa, I could feel the pain of people trapped in the townships forced to suffer under an oppressive government. Then the day came in 1994 when Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa and apartheid was over. As Mandela was fond of saying “What's past is past. We look to the future now.”
I felt a sense of triumph and purpose, I had been a very tiny part of a cause greater than myself and I had been on the right side of history. I had been teaching for 16 years in 2003, when I had the chance to watch with awe as Gabriel sang to a packed stadium in Cape Town “Biko” to Mandela. My humanities moment was being awakened to the world outside my doorstep by the global revolution of music television and empowered to help make it a better place.
Artists Against Apartheid Video - Sun City
Spring of 1986
Patrick Touart, born 1973, public school teacher, Pittsylvania County Virginia
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Parts Unknown, or How a Great Mind Taught Us to Be Better
"Maybe that's enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom ... is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go" (A. Bourdain).
I just fell in love instantly with the show, the concept, and each episode. The way Bourdain would narrate each place he visited would awake something that I longed ever since I moved from France to the US: traveling. It is not just the food and the connections he created when filming all parts of the world that resonated with me, it is the way he is taking us on a private tour and taught us not just the gastronomical facets of a culture, but its history, complexity, as well as the challenges it faced and what each region tries to do to overcome them.
Bourdain became a historian, a chef, and curator, a tourist, and an environmentalist, but more than anything else a story teller. He was able to find the most remote places and exposed their beauty, their secrets, and their tortured histories.
This empathic way of approaching a different culture just opened my eyes to see beyond a place and to try to understand its context, its narrative and peculiarities. The episode on Mexico takes us not only through all the food stalls and typical tacos joints, it showed the dependence America has with its workers working the fields as well as the tension arising from the wall being built and expanded. It is with food though that Bourdain discussed all of these sensitive topics, rallying and unifying opponents and critics around a meal. He was raw and unapologetic and was able to engage in a constructive discussion while sharing wine and food.
To walk in someone else's shoes to see how one lives was his advice and soon a motto I embraced. Traveling is one of the best ways to learn and I can't express how invaluable he was to the community. He made us dream of places and took us on adventures that connected us to all parts of the world. To say that his show opened my eyes and deepened my understanding of different cultures is an understatement. His impact was truly immeasurable.
Anthony Bourdain
<em>Parts Unknown: Mexico</em>
Sorya Or, 42, High school Social Studies teacher
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Spellbound by a Sleeper
Musician Dave Wilson describes being struck by the legacy of <em>The Night of the Hunter</em>, a film essentially ignored directly after its release in 1955 but celebrated by critics decades later. (In fact, in 1998 the magazine <em>Cahiers du Cinema</em> listed it as the second most beautiful film of all time.)
<em>The Night of the Hunter</em> (1955), directed by Charles Laughton
Dave Wilson, lead singer-songwriter of bluegrass group Chatham County Line
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The Musical Awakening of Steven Van Zandt
On February 9, 1964, The Beatles’ group appearance on <em>The Ed Sullivan Show</em> electrified the nation. Four months later, a young Steven Van Zandt had an “epiphany” while watching <em>The Hollywood Palace</em>, another variety show. That night, singer Dean Martin hosted—and then teased—The Rolling Stones, representing a generational shift. The past met the future, and it opened up new possibilities for an aspiring musician.
The Beatles’ performance on <em>The Ed Sullivan Show</em> and The Rolling Stones’ performance on <em>Hollywood Palace</em>
1964
Steven Van Zandt, musician (E Street Band), actor (The Sopranos), and founder of Rock & Roll Forever Foundation
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