I'm not an activist.
Simple as that, I am a human being with interests and passions but NONE of those make me an activist.
I'm a conscientious objector at times, a permissive jerk at others, but overall I am a Citizen that wants life to be good for me, my fellow Citizens and most definitely for my son.
I am passionate about various things, tolerance being a very strong subject. Civil liberties and the right of people to defend what they believe in, WHETHER OR NOT I agree with those beliefs.
But I am not an activist.
I will not sit down and write endless diatribes against GMOs, Healthcare, animal rights, or anything of that sort, for; while I care about these issues, sitting behind a desk and writing like I am an expert about them will not change a single thing.
I can talk to my "activist" friends about issues, I can hold my ground and sometimes sway their opinion about things (some friends are less informed than others to be honest) but that DOES NOT make me an activist.
I will though, take a stand against people that deliberately thwart the rights of others, even if they believe these are the right thing to do.
Recently in my country an assassination occurred, it wasn't just murder, that implies chance. No, this turtle and nature Activist (capital A) was assassinated after trying in vain to save turtles, turtle nests and the nesting grounds from poachers. He even used twitter to ask the police to be present and TRY and do something about it.
Now, a million different "activists" jumped at this outrage, they starting crying and yelling, asking for change, but these same people are what I call 'facebook-activists' they will click on "like buttons", scream their outrage in ALL CAPS while never changing their status-quo ONE iota. They will rarely challenge the system in any way that will make things inconvenient for them.
Boycotting the eating of turtle meat or eggs is EASY if you have never in your life even contemplated doing something of the sort.
Asking poachers to stop through facebook is easy, heck they probably don't even have phones, so who cares?
Taking a stand, asking for change should not stop at a status message, it should NEVER pend on having someone die to request this. It's in all of us to make said change, by acting in accordance with our words.
Did I ever think about having turtle meat? NO, as I don't know, but I want to know WHY there is a market for this, why poachers are making a profit and HOW we can change THAT root cause.
The eating of the meat is only a symptom of a bigger cancer, one that no one dares approach, so, let's stop it with treating the symptoms, and look at the decaying smoldering mass of bodies our societies have become and loose the "Screen anonymity" let's make sure each voice has a face and a name to it. We walk the streets and never really see those around us; as if WE don't exist.
Let's make a stand and let's ensure that we all know who WE are...
