Questions 24–32. Refer to the following passage.
The following passage is a draft.
(1) One of the more intriguing events of the Middle Ages is the Children’s Crusade, a label that conjures a vision of an army of adolescents or “pueri” trekking its way from England to the Holy Land in an Indiana Jones-like quest to reclaim revered Christian sites and icons from the Muslims. (2) Truth be told, this foray was anything but a ‘crusade’ and nothing close to successful because a true Crusade required Papal support and approval, something the Children’s Crusade apparently lacked. (3) Also, the word “pueri,” Latin for young boys, is a malapropism since it wrongly connotes the male gender when the term is believed by one scholar to refer to an entire impoverished social class that might have included “puelle” (girls) and even the aged and the infirm. (4) Though several thousand adolescents, spurred by religious fervor, embarked for the Holy Land, it is little surprise that the Children’s Crusade was an unmitigated disaster, most of its participants dying of hunger, drowned at sea, or sold into slavery.
(5) The example of the Children’s Crusade, however, begs the question: to what degree can protests by youth be effective? (6) Certainly, there is no shortage of socially conscious youthful voices. (7) Pakistani-born Malala Yousafzai who spoke out as a teenager against the Taliban’s restriction of education of females and survived a vindictive attempt on her life. (8) Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg whose fervent advocacy in raising consciousness of the perils of climate change led her to address the United Nations. (9) And David Hogg, a American teenager who survived the Stoneman-Douglass High School shooting that took the lives of seventeen students and staff members, becoming a forceful advocate for gun control and school safety. (10) Each of these adolescents has chosen to challenge a world audience to address a vexing social problem.
(11) For example, both African American and white students played pivotal roles in the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement. (12) They engaged in boycotts and lunch-counter sit-ins and participated in protests and dangerous voter registration initiatives. (13) Concurrently, college students burned draft cards in defiance of the Selective Service Act and paraded across America chanting slogans and carrying signs protesting U.S. involvement in Vietnam. (14) And the inspirational image of a solitary young protester brazenly defying a line of tanks during the 1989 protest in Tianenmen Square remains one of the most iconic images in the history of political protest.
(15) As American Revolutionary activist Thomas Paine observed in The American Crisis, “’Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (16) These teenage activists may be young, but they are rooted in conviction; they may be precocious, but they are not foolhardy. (17) Rather, they personify the lyric of a popular protest song of the ’70s: “We can change the world. Rearrange the world. It’s dying…”. (18) And their voices are the instruments of hope and regeneration. Sources Consulted: Behrmann, Savannah.
“9 things to know about climate change activist Greta Thunberg.” USA Today. Sept 18, 2019. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/ politics/2019/09/18/greta-thunberg-6-things-knowclimate-change-activist/2358463001/. “David Hogg.” https://www.vox.com/policyand-politics/2018/2/15/17016136/ majority-stoneman-douglas-parkland-david-hogg. “Malala Yousafzai.” https://www.britannica.com/ biography/Malala-Yousafzai. “The Children’s Crusade.” https://www.britannica.com/ event/Childrens-Crusade.