When Martin Luther King had a dream, he woke up and made it a reality. When Gandhi wanted peace, he got up and marched for it. When Mother Teresa saw the poor and sick in India, she created a missionary movement. When Japan called on the world for help, we clicked a button.
Humanity has evolved through these many years. Its history has been written by the hands of courage, the minds of perseverance and the actions of determination. It is this history that created the legacy on which modern society is built today; it gave us experience to learn from, success to aspire, and the foundation to be able to do and be anything and everything. Our predecessors were people of action; they fought for independence, they fought to save lives, they fought to protect nations. Yet, unfortunately, their spirit died with them. In today’s modern age, where the world is more interconnected than anyone could have imagined in the past, humanity seems to lack the will that built their history.
It is not that the world is heartless or ignorant; in fact it is quite the opposite. Thanks to the growing dependence on technology and its constant development, today’s society is more involved globally than to any generation of the past. But the fact of the matter is that this same technology has made us idle and complacent as a global unit. Take for instance March 9, 2011 — the day an earthquake shook Japan and then the media shook the world.
First there was breaking news — heart-wrenching footage of a severely ravaged nation. Then there were updates on Facebook and Twitter — images, news articles, links to YouTube videos. The world, it seemed, was grieving; it was coming to terms the unimaginable disaster and destruction that had happened. Such a tragedy in the past had brought to light some of the most efficient and most effective relief work; the world united in its efforts for the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir/Pakistan earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, and Haiti to name a few. But this time millions of people logged on to their Facebook and Twitter accounts and clicked “like” on the Pray for Japan page. They “liked” the pages asking for donations. They tweeted: #prayforjapan <3.
The solidarity inherent in these actions is admirable and uplifting to see in a world whose everyday vocabulary has developed to now include recession, debt, and terrorism, but the logic of this action is questionable. In a severely ravaged nation, where cities have become ruins, homes rubble and lives lost, does it make sense to “like” the act of praying for these people in strife on Facebook — an action which most may not be able to see in their circumstance — rather than physically praying for them? Is it better to click the button to “like” the page asking for donations for aid to Japan, or to actually click the button that allows you to give the donation itself? These actions may seem important, but at the end of the day they are actions limited to the boundaries of cyberspace, accessible to a limited number of people, and when the people who these “likes” and “tweets” are dedicated to cannot see them then these actions have no value
At the end of the day, people in strife need solid, tangible action to give them hope and the courage to face another day after experiencing the threat of danger they have. Facebook and Twitter are great phenomenona; they bring to the table the outlets that have the potential to inspire and create great movements. But clicking, liking and updating your status only goes so far; for the will of our past to be re-born. The world needs to learn that its not enough to simply “tweet” Pray for Japan. The needs to act on it too because actions have and always will speak louder than words. It is not enough to be that one person out of a million who is attending Pray for Japan on Facebook. It is not enough to put a heart next to Japan and log off. It is not enough to switch on our computers or mobile phones every time something goes wrong.
There is no doubt that the will to fight is in humanity; it never left. Egypt has it. Libya has it. Tunisia has it. But the world as a collective body has lost it when they joined cyberspace. However, we need to re-connect with the emotion and the fortitude that fights and protects. With a history of doers, it is sad to see a present of clicktivists.
