“Just Writing”

Dr. Robin Kirk brought up many interesting and salient points in her discussion with our class, but I particularly enjoyed what she told us about the history of activism and campaign strategy. Learning that the fundamentals of campaign strategy originated with such a large scale, long lasting, and historically significant and successful campaign to end slavery really puts the act of campaigning and being an activist on a historical timeline that I had not really considered before. Learning about how the campaign to end slavery developed a strategy, that continues to be used and successful today, by trial and error makes me think about how every activist action and movement is rooted in a deep history of activism that should be understood, utilized, and more on the forefront of activism than it seems to be now. It is too easy to forget that activist history and act as many movements independent from others who are campaigning for something different.

Another aspect of Dr. Kirk’s talk that I found salient to our most recent class discussions and readings is when she was discussing her career path. In the face of humanitarian injustice, she mentioned that she was frustrated with “just writing”. As a journalist she saw and wrote about many issues in South America, but felt that writing about these issues to a limited audience was not as effective as she wanted to be. After having just read Oil on Water by Helon Habila, I think I understood why she felt that “just writing” wasn’t enough. While I think that both the journalist depicted in the novel and Helon Habila himself are activists, I felt that the book represented a more effective activism than the journalists in the book could muster. While journalism has the potential to be very global and effective, the problem arises when a journalist is writing to a limited audience and an audience who might not then create change. For the journalists in Oil on Water they were writing to Nigerians who are living with these pipelines and their pollution in their own country, while the foreign oil companies work to make sure that on an international level the harms they are creating are largely ignored. Journalism seems to be dependent on the audience it can reach, and what the audience chooses to do with the information they read about. This dependence on others for even the possibility of change is why I can see how Dr. Kirk was frustrated with “just writing”.