Overnight activists: the syndrome sweeping Samo

Nadine MelamedOpinion EditorSamo students, before many of you become such zealous, over-night activists, take a step back and pause.In light of recent Facebook video links, status updates, tweets and whatever other cyber-connections the wide world has to offer about Ugandian dictator Joseph Kony, I have come to wonder how many of my peers actually know about the details of this two- Republic of Congo.Instead of solid plans, I’ve noticed innumerable Samo students calling to “Stop Kony” or “End Kony’s rule”; all good intentions, but not truly productive. Such things as the movement against Kony’s regime of terror are typically fueled by emotional, subjective stimuli. When dealing with something so delicate yet powerful, the average person tends to become less logical and instinctively resorts to exaggeration. Within seconds, one taps into one’s fast paced stream of emotions and begins repeating lines one heard from Invisible Children assemblies. Suddenly, one becomes an activist, as if one had always preached for Kony’s demise.Admittedly, no one can completely separate oneself from emotion, but looking at an issue objectively can help assess the situation clearly and find solutions for the problem most effectively. The candle that burns the brightest burns out the fastest—don’t just jump into something and go. Learn a bit more about the issue and create a game plan to tackle it.This relates especially to all of you that have watched the recent Invisible Children “Kony 2012” documentary on You tube, from where you might recognize the narrator claiming that the overall problem is that “99 per cent of the planet doesn’t know who [Kony] is. If they knew, Kony would have been stopped long ago.”I’m sorry to inform you that injustices are happening every minute, every hour, every day, in all countries. All over the world, women are getting raped, children are being kidnapped, young girls are being forced into prostitution and people are being mindlessly murdered, even in America. Though educating people may help, in retrospect, it’s quite a task to get the approximately 313, 224, 300 Americans or even more so, the 7,002,031,125 individuals in the world, to care enough to be active in a solution. It is not just the American society that has become immune to severe human injustice, but a majority of other countries as well. If people weren’t, they wouldn’t stand idly by as those in need of help in their own countries were affected.Good intentions are one thing, but reality is, unfortunately, quite another. Yes, power does come in numbers, but strength comes from the mind. Come up with  concrete plans that will catch this evasive, war monger.I applaud all of you in the Invisible Children club who make an active effort to improve the situations in the previously listed African war zones. And for everyone else, I’m so pleased to see you angered about such an important crime against humanity. But just be aware that watching a 30 minute video does not make you an expert, or an avid activist for that matter. Now that the assemblies and the “Kony 2012” video have somewhat educated you, put your passion to work, pick up a book, get further educated on the topic and perhaps, find a long overdue solution.nmelamed@thesamohi.com