Learn advocacy from US high schoolers
Malaysia’s anti-corruption fight needs the might of people power.
THE mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Feb 14 this year, where 17 students and teachers died, shocked the United States and the world. It is the third deadliest school shooting in US history, after Virginia Tech in 2007 (33 deaths) and Sandy Hooks in 2012 (28 deaths).
But something happened after the incident. Students from the school, many of them still traumatised by the massacre allegedly perpetrated by an ex-student, spoke to the media and demanded action.
The usual reactions after such tragedy are normally predictable. Any calls for gun control would be rubbished by the powerful members, supporters and lobbyists of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA). The Second Amendment, which states that the US protects the rights of its people to keep and bear arms is cited as an excuse.
Many Americans have had enough. Unless and until there is stricter gun control in the US, such incidents will occur again and again.
This is not about a lone wolf who earlier posted a comment wanting “to be a professional school shooter”.
It is about easy access to guns. Nikolas Cruz, the alleged shooter is hardly 19. Yet he had carried an AR-15 rifle in his duffel bag before starting his rampage. He had six other rifles, including an AK-47, which he had bought legally after passing the necessary background checks.
It is bewildering how anyone his age can have access to so many weapons. But in the US, thanks to many legislators succumbing to the NRA’s powerful lobbying, there are thousands like him, boys and even girls of schooling age, possessing assault weapons.
But the Parkland shooting has led to something different. Tragedy turned into advocacy. The students are standing up and pressing for action.
A week later, at a town hall session hosted by broadcaster CNN, Senator for Florida, Marco Rubio, faced the students, parents and other community members. A student asked Rubio point blank if he would ever take money from the NRA.
It was a wake-up call for the senator and his fellow legislators.
Americans have begun to come together, with #NeverAgain as their rallying cry. A social movement is born. This time, it is spearheaded by high school students. They are on national news advocating the Cause. And people are listening.
Last week – Wednesday was exactly a month after the shooting – tens of thousands of students all over America staged walkouts, each lasting 17 minutes (in memory of the 17 people killed) as a sign of protest and solidarity.
They carried placards with messages like “Never Again”, “Am I Next?” and “Enough Is Enough”.
Gun politics in America is about to change. Legislators who are cowed into submission by NRA and their stooges are now thinking twice about defying the calls of the young. In some states where Republicans are in control, for the first time in decades, there is talk about limiting gun access.
What has never been achieved by almost
Advocacy matters. It is people power at its best. Nothing beats such a movement. From Mahatma Gandhi to Nelson Mandela, from Martin Luther King to Vaclav Havel, the great voices of restraint and reason always speak louder than action.
all presidents, legislators and gun control advocates now looks possible because of the high school students.
Advocacy matters. It is people power at its best. Nothing beats such a movement. From Mahatma Gandhi to Nelson Mandela, from Martin Luther King to Vaclav Havel, the great voices of restraint and reason always speak louder than action.
Take the case of sexual harassment. It has been going on for years in the workplace, in the entertainment industry and elsewhere. It takes courageous women to speak up, at their own peril, to highlight the issue. Some of the most powerful men have been shamed for their misdeeds.
Time magazine named women who spoke out against their sexual harassers as its Person of the Year for 2017.
The #MeToo Campaign is gaining traction the world over.
But it is from the American high school students that we should learn a lesson or two about advocacy.
Students have been at the forefront of protests since time immemorial. Student power matters in demanding for the end of Vietnam War.
Students in Malaysia had their own struggle fighting the government they viewed as corrupt and unjust back in the 1970s. Some of those student leaders are our national leaders today.
Perhaps it is true the radicals of yesteryears are the conservatives of today. But the fire in their bellies for a just and fair cause shouldn’t diminish. They should continue to propagate the ideals they fought for back then.
And we have many crusades that need advocacy on the part of the masses. Corruption is one.
Learn from the Indonesians. People power has changed how corruption is now being fought in the eyes of the populace. The Malaysian Anti- Corruption Commission must not be allowed to fight alone.
It needs us.