Growing an activist

Activists are trees that keep growing, I've decided. I was thinking about activism (taking action for a cause outside my own personal needs is my current working definition) this morning and my first rambling thoughts had me pulling up trillions of life details. Which was telling in terms of how I define myself. But more telling about my whole life story than I care to share in minute detail online. So I've picked out a few key experiences that I think are really important.

1. It's 1981, I'm nine years old and New Zealand is being pulled apart by debate on the Spring Bok Tour. An all white team from South Africa is touring New Zealand and many many New Zealanders are protesting about the implicit support of apartheid that receiving this team gives. My beloved grandfather says that sport and politics don't mix. No one in my family protests against the tour. I disagree with Grandad for the first time ever.

2. I spent some of my early years in suburbia. Clean house, loving family, reasonable school life and a routine and sameness which could destroy the souls of many. My Mum was and is a devout Catholic and the hymns, ritual and symbolism and sermons provided a sense of life outside of suburbiana. I remember thrilling to the romance (for indeed it was romantic to read about) of the stories of sacrifice and commitment in the books on saints' lives which I got out of the children's section of the Church library.

3. I had a pleasant enough experience at high school. Of course at the time I moaned and avoided hard graft and lusted after the wrong boys but really it was fine. I was in the top set in a decile 7 school and had absolutely no idea I was alive. In the seventh form, I did peer tutoring of English as an additional language students and also of juniors struggling with English. One teacher asked me to support a particular student in her class. When we did newspaper reading tasks, he identified with the article relating to prison issues as his brother was in prison.

So that's some key childhood stuff growing me into an activist. Part two soon.