The tragedy of an activist

His is a struggle larger than life

It’s been a while since I have written anything. I’ve mostly stayed away from a lot of “debates” and even likeminded people. It’s been a necessary part of my recovery and my journey to become “normal” once again. It has been, however, supremely useless and here I am again.

As someone who once had the overly optimistic dreams of changing the world instantly, I can attest to the fact that broken dreams are supremely painful. Nevertheless, we fail so we can learn and become better at whatever we do and here I am sharing my experience with activism. It’s more of a comment on the style of activism informed by personal experiences than a personal story of how to surmount implausible odds and be victorious.

It has been a part of my psyche for as long as I can remember that it’s the success that matters and not the tries themselves. It’s a harsh value, and I keep it within me so I can keep trying to do things that I would otherwise give up on. I had the same value when I started working as a social change activist when I was very young, impressionable and without a clear goal. Inspired by stories with “morals”, fed to the children in youth magazines in Urdu, at the age of 10, I started an actual, literal, clean-up campaign in my neighbourhood. It was met with success. For a week.

I had not, at that time, realised that life isn’t a story and that change isn’t something that works like a charm. You can’t instantly change people’s habits and characters that have been developed over years and modified by their experiences, going back at least three generations. I also did not know that there are no “one-man” changes and for every social change, while there is one person on the cover, one person whose name is synonymous with the change itself, that there are scores of other people who contributed to it, bit by bit. That that “poster child” isn’t the only one responsible and that the “heroes” in movies were actually more people than just one. A final thing that I did not know, being a child, was that changes aren’t some one-shot processes. They aren’t “sudden”. They still need time to take effect and gradually, over time, become permanent. So woe betide the ten-year-old, who thought he could suddenly clean up, literally, a small colony, all by himself and have it stick.

That they cannot know if they are the “poster child” until after the change and even then, they can’t know for how long they will remain “the hero”. This is something that every activist dreams of and being human, they are not beyond “taking” the credit from others. Even then, nobody knows how long your PR firm’s influence is going to last. I say let’s not worry about that at all.

It took me many years, hundreds of books, several thousand hours of introspection and analyses of a great many revolutions and movements to realise those points.

They were my guiding light, every time I took up an issue. They helped me make decisions about my activism that were beneficial. No longer was I alone in my endeavours. I worked with teams of people. No longer was I enforcing views on people and expecting them to change instantly. Instead, I would give talks, plant little seeds and expect them to grow into trees of change that I wanted to see in the world. No longer did I expect the “microwaveable” change that I had expecting once before. I knew that activism was more like farming than microwaving something.

Things have gone a bit better since then. The projects I had started when I was 18 have, over time, become much more than 30 people stuck in a classroom. They have become larger than what I am, myself. And I am proud of that. Which brings me to the first tragedy of the activist. That they cannot know if they are the “poster child” until after the change and even then, they can’t know for how long they will remain “the hero”. This is something that every activist dreams of and being human, they are not beyond “taking” the credit from others. Even then, nobody knows how long your PR firm’s influence is going to last. I say let’s not worry about that at all. Do the work, and hope that the change that you wanted perseveres, not your name, because after all, you’re just another human being. What difference would it make?

But I’m not done yet. Life has a way of reminding you that there is always stuff to learn. In the course of my life, I have realised one more thing. It’s a result of that nagging feeling, even after seeing the change I wanted take root and become a plant, well on its way to become a strong tree. I have realised that that nagging feeling is a result of something very mundane: society itself. The reason it took a long time to change people was because of the extensive level of social conditioning, the “norms” and “values” handed down over generations, the behaviours people had observed in their life, in their surroundings and in their parents, friends, relatives, etc. And in judging them I had forgotten that I too was a part of that same society. That I still am a part of that “Ancien Régime“, so to speak, that I had been speaking out again. This has led to a grim realisation that I don’t find comforting, but nevertheless true: I will be the last representative of the social ills I am going against.

Life has a way of reminding you that there is always stuff to learn. In the course of my life, I have realised one more thing. It’s a result of that nagging feeling, even after seeing the change I wanted take root and become a plant, well on its way to become a strong tree. I have realised that that nagging feeling is a result of something very mundane: society itself.

It surprises me that I had not noticed that already, but I chalk it up to the human arrogance. How could “I” be like the normal human beings that need guidance? “I” am certainly better than them, because I realised something was wrong and worked to stop it. Be as it may, if there had not been those social ills around me, there would have not been the need of a social activist, to try and plant the seeds of change against that. This point really hit home when I was reading the history of the United States. The slaves were emancipated in Civil War, yet that did not end the systemic racism.

At that point, there were people opposing the emancipation, but even the supporters were supportive with various degrees and just the emancipation was the compromise that was reached. It took a century before people were receptive to the idea of civil rights on a governmental level. We, in hindsight, might find that weird. Wouldn’t it have made sense to emancipate and give civil rights at the same time? What we lack is the context. We have grown up in a society that actively frowns upon, or tries to frown upon racism and any mention of something slightly racist can get you fired and ostracised. But it took almost a century and a half to get to that point. To the point when society at least tries to accept the change. And where were the writers of the Emancipation Proclamation or the Bill that ratified it into law when the Civil Rights Movement was at its peak? Dead. They were dead. Just like most of the people who had experienced the pre-and immediately post-emancipation world, including the activists. It wasn’t until that “Ancien Régime” disappeared that the ground was ready for the new modes.

And so it leads me to the second, and biggest tragedy of the activist, one that no PR firm can save him or her from: they will not be a part of the utopia they are striving for. Just like their peers now, they are a part of the solution that the society dreamed up against the problem. But they must perish, just like those opposing the change, before the utopia must be complete. And that’s the saddest thing of all.