Their pain, their purpose
Grief-stricken Florida students declare war on America's gun culture, politicians' silence
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/02/2018 (2225 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
That night, as distant storm clouds gathered, we met on the steps of the legislature. We held candles in the darkness as violent drums beat louder, and for an hour, or maybe a little longer, it seemed as if we could dream a peace to life.
It was March 16, 2003, and the world waited anxiously to see if the United States would launch a new Iraq war.
Atop the steps of the legislature, can you see, there was me, all of 21 years old. I had fallen quite accidentally into helping organize the local vigil, a story of its own. It was one of more than 6,000 happening that night around the world.
We were beautiful that night, you know. In the faces below I saw people of all faiths, all ages. Some of them stepped up to speak: a minister, a priest, a teen named Jonny who spoke with passion and later grew up to be a leader.
So we were Manitobans together, but also part of something bigger. That night, millions took to the streets, from Auckland to Winnipeg and Washington, D.C. The sky hummed with calls for justice; my chest swelled with love.
“Surely,” I thought, “surely, it will be enough.” In that moment, I believed we could snuff the fuse of war.
Four days later, American bombs shredded Baghdad. They broadcast the destruction live on CNN.
“Shock and awe begins,” the chyron read at the bottom of the screen, as if it were a Hollywood blockbuster.
Oh, the strange things we remember: it was karaoke night at a bar near Confusion Corner. Somewhere between warbling renditions of Bon Jovi and Bob Seger, the ceiling-mounted TV flashed with lurid bursts of explosive light.
At that moment, confronted by the futility of my hope, I buried my face in my hands and cried.
The world grinds us down with time. It erodes the determination of conviction.
We hope less, strive less, spend more time minding our own business. The thought that any one of us could actually make a difference begins to ebb away.
At last, sufficiently drained of our idealism, we call it maturity: “This is how the real world works,” we say.
The greatest shame of all: it’s been almost exactly 15 years since I last believed that I could change the world.
Yet this week, in the same place where that faith long since withered for me, I felt a flicker of that same feeling.
A hope renewed, for a new generation of youth: this time, the teens of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD).
These are teens who, within the space of a week, were transformed from regular kids to massacre survivors, and then to portraits of resilience and national movement leaders. Teens who announced they would not be ignored.
Even as I sit down to review their week, their energy astounds me. Within days of the mass shooting that left 17 people dead, they had begun organizing media blitzes and national days of action from their families’ living rooms.
Speaking the language of social media — the mother tongue of youth their age — they developed a movement name and a hashtag: #NeverAgain. They spoke at rallies and vigils, they built networks of support amongst U.S. students.
All this, while attending many of the 17 funerals for their slain peers and teachers.
Some of their brightest lights became front-page names — and, it appears, they will stay there for a while.
Consider Emma Gonzalez, whose voice blazed with righteous fire as she called out political inaction on gun violence. Or David Hogg, a 17-year-old student journalist who interviewed his peers even as they hid out from the gunman.
And they are magnificent and wild, in the way of youth that has seized onto the power of its promise. Some pledged they would not return to classes until a gun-control bill had been passed; until then, they plan to organize instead.
On Wednesday, they shone in a town hall hosted by CNN, where they confronted figures including Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch. They did not sit quietly, or hold back.
Just look at how, over and over again, 17-year-old survivor Cameron Kasky pressed Rubio to renounce accepting donations from the NRA. (In the course of his political career, Rubio has received more than US$3.3 million from the group.)
“In the name of 17 people, you cannot ask the NRA to keep their money out of your campaign?” Kasky asked.
Somewhere in the middle of trying several ways to answer the question, Rubio admitted that he would not. The crowd jeered, and Kasky stood firm. He had done what he went there to do: he’d called a politician to account.
Even as the teens rose, the U.S. political machine tried to grind them down. Some are now trying to silence their voices — and not only the conspiracy fans peddling the ridiculous hoax that the kids are so-called “crisis actors.”
There is also a legion of grown-ups who should know better. Such as the Fox News host who, during the CNN event, griped on Twitter: “What would you do if your child lectured and ridiculed a U.S. senator on national television?”
Yeah, well, that’s an easy question to answer. If any child of mine was so driven by passion and compassion to confront an elected official, to look power in the eye and call out for justice, I would cry tears of pride forever.
What else do we hope for our children, if not for them to inherit the world?
And to think, these teens are part of a generation that is regularly smeared as too soft, too disengaged, too absorbed in their phones. (Perhaps that explains some of the surprise that they should demand to lead, and not just follow.)
In what the MSD youth built after horror, the truth is finally known. These young people endured what no one should endure and stand strong. In their shared trauma, they found a mission to sustain and bind them, a banner to unfurl.
They have not yet learned that they cannot change the world — and for them, I hope they never will.
melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca
Melissa Martin
Reporter-at-large (currently on leave)
Melissa Martin reports and opines for the Winnipeg Free Press.