I was one of those teenagers who was always trying to say something about himself without really knowing what it was.By the clothes I wore, the music I listened to and by the stench of stale fag smoke I dragged behind me late into lessons like dull grey and yellow badge of honour. While most teenagers got on with figuring out who they were quietly, I played out the whole process in ripped jeans and misappropriated movie quotes for the whole world to ignore.
The pride of my wardrobe was a red Che Guevara t-shirt (bought, incidentally, in Topman): you know the stencilled one, where he’s looking off into the distance all proud and serious, a bit like Mufasa in The Lion King when he’s trying to tell Simba about everything the light touches. My knowledge of Che Guevara was limited to knowing he was, for some reason, someone somebody with my vague sense of social idealism could connect with.
And then it happened. My handsome, bearded friend Callum - who knew about all sorts of things - asked me squarely, in front of the beautiful Victoria Gare, whom I longed for at the time’ as a whining dog in a passing car longs for the beach, "what exactly do you even know about that bloke on your shirt, Sam?"
Though it was a hurtful and sneaky way of winning the girl I had earmarked for marriage, Callum had done me a huge favour. I went out indignantly and learnt everything I could about the Cuban revolution, climaxing two years later when I went there for my gap year. Even as I stared over Che Guevara’s grave in Santa Clara, thousands of miles from home and two years later I wondered: am I still just trying to prove the bastard wrong...?
Fast-forward five years. What university has taught me about rebellion is what reading relentlessly about Che should have: that being a rebel is about doing, acting and getting involved.
Not smoking spliffs in the rain in some woods just to defy the people charged with giving you an education.
Not going around writing ‘Know Your Enemy’, ‘Fuck You I Won’t Do You Tell Me’ or ‘Take The Power Back’ in black marker pen on school gates and public walls.
Not always being late, or thinking everything was lame, and certainly not listening to Slipknot loud enough to annoy everyone (oh yes…).
The best bits of university for me (besides all the sex and free money) has been getting involved: in societies, institutions like the student paper, individual projects you can start and find support for if you ask for it. The rebels I know have used this final hurrah of childhood to put on their own plays, start their own clubs, contribute art and writing where it’s asked for, join in raising money for RAG week and helped the scared new recruits in Freshers' Week get settled in.
Che Guevara guided eight men through the Siesta Maestro mountain range, survived the fascist onslaught and set up a Guerrilla Radio station high in the mountains. He communicated with the locals by tapping into their mainstream interest in radio, won them over, liberated their country.
Despite the teenage day dreams, I now know I’ll never come close to doing any of that. But it feels good at least to take heed of Che’s proactive approach to the world, do more then just complain and loaf, and write incidental bollock like this for you, every week.
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