I was sitting in my Government 49 class last week when Professor Baldez asked which of the present students had been part of a protest. As I watched a small handful of students raise their hands while the rest of us glanced around awkwardly, I became ashamed of our generation's passivity, and began to wonder what had happened to the burning passion and dedication of so many of our parents.
I remember reading a New York Times op-ed last year in which Thomas Friedman referred to our generation of college students as "Generation Q." We are "the Quiet Americans, in the best sense of that term, quietly pursuing [our] idealism, at home and abroad," Friedman said. We are also known to some as the "Facebook generation." Students are eager to join the myriad of activist groups on Facebook and show their support for human rights on their profiles, but their actual contribution to structural change is somewhat dubious. While students today enjoy declaring their approval of a candidate or cause with a sticker or a click of a mouse, we rarely gather en masse to do something substantive about the issues we claim to care about.
Although I'm saddened by the loss of the activism of the 1960's, I believe that demonstrations lost their appeal for a reason: While the civil rights movement was a fairly clear-cut issue for most involved, our generation has begun to question the blurred line between good and bad, making today's challenges increasingly complex. As the Israel-Gaza situation continues to escalate, I find it hard to choose which side to blame (or protest) because both sides are carrying out atrocious deeds.
Furthermore, demonstrations and protest movements have become increasingly connected to violence and anarchic behavior. Indeed, protesters have gained a bad reputation since the '60's, and are often viewed as angry youths looking for an excuse to throw rocks at cops; the appeal of being part of an exciting counter-movement is often greater than the desire to promote humanitarian change.
Nevertheless, the need for activism and protest movements is as great today as it was 40 years ago, and deciding not to advocate for justice just because there is more than one side to each issue is a lazy, entitled and sheltered form of decision making. There are also plenty of relatively clear-cut issues: We should all be concerned that global warming is threatening the entire human population, and that genocidal warfare is still going on in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. So why, then, are we at home, surfing Facebook? Because our generation is vastly different from that of the '60's, we need to redefine the act of protesting, and also reappropriate activism from bratty little kids just looking to fight.
In Oakland, Calif., a protest movement emerged in response to the recent controversial shooting of Oscar Grant by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer. The ongoing protests clearly show that the way demonstrations are being led and organized is changing. Technology became a prime weapon in the investigation, as a young woman had recorded the incident on her camera phone and uploaded it to YouTube. Moreover, new strategies are being used to gain both media coverage and strong reactions: In the protest, young members of the community lie on the ground, with their hands behind their backs, saying, "I am Oscar Grant," in a non-violent yet evocative manner.
This behavior, unlike violent or single-minded protesting, shows hints of the kind of modern-day activism that students need to embrace. Yes, at Dartmouth there is a large movement promoting donations and fundraising for NGOs, but this kind of charity is a one-way delivery route that, while beneficial in its own right, doesn't create lasting improvement. Passive charity doesn't change attitudes and doesn't emerge out of passion and idealism, both of which are needed in the pursuit of tangible, structural change.
Looking at history, we see that university students have always been the vanguard of change. In Iran, student protesters were a decisive force in toppling the monarchy, and in China, a student demonstration in Tiananmen Square contributed to the democratic revolution. More recently and locally, Dartmouth students led a successful divestment campaign, protesting the investment of Dartmouth endowment dollars in companies that supported the genocidal regime in Darfur. We at the College may not topple a regime like students in Iran or China, but we need to realize our potential strength as a united student force. At the risk of sounding too clich, I really do think we need to "think globally and act more locally."
