Siyayilanda – we are fetching our future.

It’s #HopeTuesday, and time for a brief object lesson.

Few cultures in our lifetimes have struggled harder against oppression than the South Africans. First it was Apartheid, and more recently it’s been a government that seems hell-bent and determined on redefining what corruption means.

Johnny Clegg was a white kid in Johannesburg in the ’70s. There he heard these strange, wonderful sounds drifting over the walls and fell in love with the music of the townships. There he learned the Zulu guitar style and eventually wound up making history when, along with Sipho Mchunu, he founded Juluka. Juluka was integrated – three blacks and three whites – and was therefore thoroughly illegal. But the call to justice was greater than their fear of the government, and together Mchunu and Clegg taught us the ways in which music breeds hope.

As bad as it sometimes seems in the US today, the truth is we don’t know the first thing about dire socio-politics compared to what others around the world face on a daily basis.

If Johnny Clegg and Sipho Mchunu could summon the courage to make illegal music, spreading hope and joy to all within earshot, what can’t you do?