Kevin Bales’ book Disposable People has opened my eyes to the slavery present around the world. In addition to providing information and details about slavery in multiple countries, Bales gives reasons as to why slavery is being practiced in such modern times. He believes that slavery flourishes in the world today because of the global increase in population, agricultural technology, and greed. People fighting to end slavery would find difficulty in targeting these three areas. Fortunately, the book also provides a three step plan for readers wanting to make a difference, complete with an organization to join and a website where people can donate money. This plan, as helpful as it sounds, makes me wonder if there are other ways for students to try to end slavery as informed members of a college community.
Bales believes that one of the most important ways to combat slavery is to raise awareness about the issue. One of the best ways for college students to raise awareness about a specific issue is to create a student led organization or group designed to target the problem. Creating an organization against slavery would be fairly easy to accomplish on a college campus because people generally believe that slavery is immoral and unethical. Student organizations are also financially supported by the college. These organizations would have enough power to teach people about slavery and raise money for support.
Almost all colleges around the nation have organizations that attempt to bring awareness to specific local and global problems. Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice grants its students access to forty organizations that target issues ranging from poverty to cancer. Georgetown provides some of the top organizations nationwide but it does not have a student organization designed to combat slavery. Not many colleges do. The issues they combat are important, but it is time to add another one to the list. Creating an organization to fight against slavery at one college has the potential to spread to other colleges and the communities around them. An organization like this is an excellent way for students to take a stand against slavery.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Raising awareness is fundamental in starting a movement to combat slavery, although I don't believe awareness alone is enough to fire people up enough to actually start a movement. I learned about social movements in Comparative Politics and the factors that attribute to their level of success. Of course a movement against slavery would have to be reformative, operating within the established rules, thus being non-violent. The goals need to be clear and realistically defined. We can't just decide to end all slavery at once; we have to have smaller goals that will eventually help us achieve our ultimate goal. Also, there has to be some strategy in the leadership of the organization that could mobilize the masses. People's emotions must be triggered, whether it be through inspiration, as we saw in the recent turnout of voters for Obama, or in the case of slavery more likely outrage. If we could start a group that followed these basic steps, I feel it would be much more likely to actually make some sort of impact.
To Allison's comment, I have to agree. I feel like awareness is a great start to helping with the complete abolishment of slavery. The problem is how far does awareness go? If awareness was enough to initiate something to such an extreme as slavery in these countries, many issues would be resolved already. There are many issues in the world that people know about but individually do not have the power to change. The idea is to get a group large enough to combine individual power and make something happen, but this rarely happens. I think that there has to be something more than just a spread of awareness, since the awareness would have to be spread to people of political power in order for a real change to occur.
Obviously creating a group is a good idea. I highly doubt anyone would be opposed to raising awareness about slavery. However, creating, organizing, and running such a group is much easier said than done. First people have to actually take the initiative and get something started. Then officers need to be elected, people who are willing to do what is required. Next a meeting time has to be set up and campus awareness raised in hopes that people actually show. And all of this is before any real progress is made. Funding the group is also a long a drawn out process through the Allocations board and there is no guarantee that enough money will be rewarded. In our age of instant gratification this would be a time consuming process requiring patience and perseverance, two qualities rapidly disappearing in today's society. We want things to poof into existence but that simply doesn't happen.
The real question isn't should a group be formed, it's who has the time and commitment willing to make something happen? We all have our excuses, but if we can change the life of sex slaves in Thailand or child slaves in India, isn't the effort worth it?
I think that Thomas's blog addressing a fundamental concern that should be in the forefront of all communities. The act of slavery strips one from their basic human existence. Just by initiating the ideas and potential for our community to take a stance against something so immoral is a start. I agree with Allison's notes on establishing an appropriate approach and strategy to initiating such reform. It angers me though to see such pessimism in the later blogs. If our campus has enough drive to create clubs and greek houses that entail all such attributes of the "consuming process" to create these groups it seems repulsive that our campus would not be able to commit to such a valiant cause. It is this kind of negativity that impedes our society from effectively making a change.
I have to agree with you Cat. I feel that making people aware of the modern day slavery is such a great start and is nothing to be pessimistic about. As we have seen in class, this book has affected each of us enough to want to do something, even if it is just mentioning it to our friends. The trick would be to create an awareness project that also embraces those things that triggered our involvement, which I don't think would be as hard as people are making it seem. If students feel strongly enough, then they will be determined to do something about it. Also, what a great place to start awareness at a college or university. Like the post said things are shared between colleges and are spread among the students. This past semester, Darius goes West came to our campus. They have taken a sickness that many people our own age are diagnosed with and tried to do something about it by traveling from campus to campus across the U.S. They have raised a substantial amount of money to continue researching for this cause. Maybe I am being to unrealistic, but I believe that if constructed in the right way an awareness project could make a big difference!
I agree that creating awareness on campus is a great starting point. However, the problem with forming organizations and awareness groups is finding a person or a group of people committed enough to continue this awareness after the initial campaigned start. That is what I find to be the most difficult part in organizing and creating new awareness groups on campus. Sadly, many of us get tackled down with our "everyday" life issues and lost sight of our initial goals. Also, finding people to continue to keep the organizations alive after many students graduate is also hard. Though I feel that since the topic of modern day slavery is much more important, we should at least try to create awareness on campus. Maybe our class can be that organization that can bring that change?
Post a Comment