Adam Jung has a bottle of Mountain Dew, tattered jeans patched with scraps of an American flag and two unbelievably bloodshot eyes. The eyes are understandable enough; he spent the night on the pavement in the "Freedom Cage", the fenced-in area where sanctioned protests here at the Democratic National Convention are supposed to take place. There was also a crisis of sorts this morning: the eggs grilling on the portable stove angered the authorities, who promptly banned gas-fuelled cooking (prompting jokes that perhaps thinking would be banned next). But not much seems to phase the scruffy Mr Jung, and it did not take long for him to devise a solution that would keep his troops well-fed: a solar-powered stove. Better for the environment, too. "If they say no, we're going to tell them they can't ban the Sun," he said. Such is the existence of a young political activist in a world where activism is sometimes a dirty word. Mr Jung, 28, who grew up on a farm in Missouri and does not affiliate himself to either political party, is an organiser for the nationwide youth group Tent State University, which has planned a week's worth of actions in Denver mostly to protest against the Iraq war. Dozens of other groups have come too, hoping to use the Democratic convention - and the swell of media covering it - as a forum for promoting their cause, putting on a spot of political theatre, or both. Activists with the Backbone Campaign travelled in a box van from Seattle armed with giant puppets of George W Bush, the president; Dick Cheney, the vice president; and Donald Rumsfeld, the former defence secretary (all three are dressed in prison suits and are part of the so-called "Chain Gang"). The anti-war group Code Pink, whose name is a sarcastic play on the US government's colour-coded terror alert system, planned to have its members spell out a peace message on the ground with their bodies - it was unclear whether they would be clothed - which would then be photographed from the air. The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, took a more sober approach: in a patch of grass in the park serving as Tent State's open-air "campus", they created an art installation of dozens of black military boots, each belonging to a Colorado serviceman killed in Iraq, and everyday shoes, each from an Iraqi civilian who also died in the war. David Mann likewise came out in opposition to the war, but with a unique perspective: after having fought in it. He is a member of the Denver chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War, a nationwide organisation planning to stage an anti-war march in the city today. A self-described "army brat" whose father spent 20 years in the military, he joined the army straight out of high school. He finished basic training two days after the September 11 attacks and in 2003 was sent to Kuwait and Iraq as a specialist, trained in fixing radios. He did a second tour in Iraq in 2005. He now believes the war is immoral and wrong, and his presence here is a message to the Democratic Party to end it, and end it now. "If it wasn't for the war, I wouldn't be doing this," said Mr Mann, 26. "I'd probably just be another Joe Student. Previous to this, there really wasn't a galvanising social issue for American youth." Indeed, Mr Mann's generation grew up without being steeped in the kind of social activism that defined the 1960s, when blacks were fighting for equal rights and the Vietnam War was escalating. "This generation is just learning," Mr Mann said. He and other young activists acknowledged, though, the difficulties of rousing a largely complacent generation out of its comfort zone. Mr Mann said the largest group on campus at his university was for ski and snowboard enthusiasts. And when he took part in a recent anti-war action here, he passed a swell of fans headed to a baseball game. "Have fun at the game, there's a war going on," he told them. David Stewart, 26, a drafter in Denver, wants to help end hunger and defeat poverty. He opposes oil drilling for environmental reasons and supports other social causes. But he concedes his is a kind of armchair activism that does not even satisfy him. Activism is "like checking your e-mail, sitting in your nice comfy chair", Mr Stewart said, admitting that he dropped by an earlier Tent State event primarily to get tickets to a Rage Against the Machine concert. "I don't know how many petitions I signed last year, with no energy given. We don't have any 'we the people' and 'get together and really change the system' anymore." Mr Jung, the Tent State organiser, suggests that is changing and activism is on its way back, particularly among an even younger set. "The only thing they've known their entire adult life is war," he said of 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds. "They're coming of age, and this is not the world they want." If today's activism offers some new methods, and a new generation of leaders, there is a definite nod to the old. One of the groups demonstrating here is the Recreate 68 Alliance, a band of local activists whose name refers to the tumultuous year in American history that brought great social and political change. Tent State also was holding classes all week on how to organise and mobilise. Mr Jung sat in a small circle on the grass for one session on Monday on the tactics of non-violent protest, appropriate enough on the eve of tomorrow's 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have A Dream" speech and the massive civil rights demonstration in Washington. "I think you're starting to see activism and opposing the war, it's not just accepted, it's expected," Mr Jung said. "What we're trying to do is make it cool," he said. "That's the one thing you can look to in the '60s. If you weren't an activist, you were a square. You had to at least be making a statement." There is just one thing he and his fellow activists are left to wonder: how much anyone here in Denver, or the world of politics, is listening. eniedowski@thenational.ae
