Rage against the Machine were big in 1992. ‘Killing in the name’ was their biggest underground hit. We, intelligent young people, the future of our nation, jumped up and down to it at parties. We listened to the song, we listened to the singer and we shouted: ‘fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!’. We followed him, our leader, our icon, and did what he told us to do.

There is a difference between freedom and living under new rule.The Summer of Love was only lovely for those interested in protesting against the Vietnam war, participating in endless sit-ins, smoking pot and engaging in free sex. Hippies weren’t very tolerant, not towards people with a different opinion, and certainly not towards people with a different sexual orientation (free sex basically meant free heterosexual sex).

Punk wasn’t very tolerant. Do-It-Yourself no matter how limited your technical abilities quickly evolved into a dogmatic template of one-chord up-tempo rock songs. When The Clash tried to break free and experiment with Rockabilly, Reggae, Rap, Honky-Tonk, Gospel and a gazillion of other styles they lost half of their original fan base. We like people who stay with the group and obey the unwritten rules of the group. We don’t like outsiders.

We do like sloganeering. We like to dance, shout and act as one. We, the people, are victims of fascism by design. There is no stronger desire than the desire to belong to like-minded people.