Helon Habila’s novel Oil on Water added many nuanced layers to our growing definition of what is activism and who are activists. While there were many people and groups in this novel who I would consider environmental activists, the role of the journalist played most central. The journalists are presented as environmental activists and human rights activists through their ability to witness and write about the damage they see being inflicted on the environment and subsequently the people that live within that environment. While I do without a doubt say that journalists can be activists through their use of journalism, and the access they are granted by virtue of being journalists is vital to the acquisition and spread of knowledge, it was hard to read about the journalists, Zaq and Rufus, often standing by as witnesses when they could take direct action, such as when the soldier was pouring gasoline on the old man and Michael. It is tempting to want to call activism direct action, while journalism can often be very passive, especially as journalists merely witness and later write, instead of stopping an action to the best of their abilities.
The role of activism as both an active and a passive action is an interesting one to consider. At the beginning of the course when defining activism, it was tempting to only define it as active actions, where goals and results are clear things to reach for. As my definition of activism grows and changes the role and importance of a passive type of activism becomes more clear, but also seems more important in the long run of creating change. For journalism especially, the ability to pass on information, to witness as activists and write about what is going on in the world is the first and fundamental step to creating a movement that could gather and create change. Without knowledge and information, people can’t know that there is an issue to take action against.
Habila, H. (2010). Oil on Water New York, USA: W.W. Norton & Company.
