The Oberlin Review
<< Front page Commentary October 13, 2007

Editorial: Lessons in Activism From Years Gone By

It is normal for us to view the past nostalgically as we watch each upcoming class get less radical and more homogenous, while thinking back fondly upon a time when we were first-years and those seniors were going to change the world, or at least wedge their wrenches into the appropriate capitalist gears. At that time, it seemed that there was revolution afoot and that we were going to bring about change — whatever the cost. Looking around now with our jaded viewpoints, it seems that everyone is more content, or maybe just more diluted. The narrowness of everyone’s pants seems to be very important and the intensity of dejection in our glances is a bone of contention. So maybe, just maybe, our nostalgia hasn’t clouded our minds with a fantastical better time, but we are, in fact, remembering a reality.

Looking back in the archives reveals pages of the Review riddled with pictures of students picketing and rallying for their causes. In the spring of 1986, students slept in a shantytown they constructed around the president’s office in the Cox Administration Building in order to protest apartheid and encourage the College’s divestment from corporations associated with South Africa. In 1990, a number of students gathered on President Starr’s lawn to protest, among other issues, what they saw as an insensitive vision for the future of Oberlin. Six students were arrested for the protest, driving students and faculty to additional protests. The list goes on and on. It was seemingly an angrier time.

Professors and faculty tell us that in the ’80s and ’90s, protests abounded here on campus and the name of the College resonated as a bastion of social activism. There are still protests, but they seem fewer and further between. Media bombards us daily, the atrocities of the world reaching out to us on computer screens and newspapers, yet we are dulled to these stimuli. Oberlin is still known as a radical place, but few turned out to the September 15th anti-war rally, or to the gathering in Tappan Square for peace in Burma last Saturday. Perhaps we have become keen to the futility of protests. Is this cynicism a product of our post-modernity? Are we post-protest? If so, what are we doing instead? Going out and doing things? Or are we doing the easiest thing — accepting?

For some of us, activism is a central part of our lives here at Oberlin and is likely to be so for the rest of our lives. For the majority, though, with our fast-paced lives awash in all those important distractions, we forget about the world that doesn’t immediately surround us. Listening to the speakers at the Jena Six walkout was reminiscent of a time when there was more activism on this campus. The protestors spoke out against racial inequality under the law — a necessary reminder that we have all too many worthy causes to fight for. Just because we are living comfortably doesn’t mean that others are. We must see beyond ourselves.

The world is screwed up. There are many reasons to be angry. This means that there are many reasons to get up and fight the innumerable injustices that are ever-present but to which we are often all too unreceptive. One could reasonably argue that the world is even more unjust and violent than in the ’80s and ’90s and it is only getting worse. Unfortunately, as a school, it seems we have passed the crest when it comes to activism. If anything, we should be more politically and socially active than ever, yet we have been lulled into an existence of comfort. We live in a consumerist culture in which we wear our dissent on our backs and our revolution involves a credit card. Just recently there was a story in the New York Times about the application of Che Guevara’s face on dubious products, most notably a bikini. But revolution through fashion was never too meaningful anyway. Real change comes from actions.

From our cushy position as college students, we are in an apt place to bring about the change the world desperately needs. The privilege of a good liberal arts education not only empowers us as movers and shakers, but it also obliges us to act. Call it social responsibility, call it the right thing to do, or don’t call it anything at all. Just get out there and do something.

Editorials are the responsibility of the Review editorial board – the Editors-in-Chief, Managing Editor, Production Manager and Commentary Editor – and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Review staff.

 
 
   

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