Changing the world is tough, so here’s how to stop your campaign falling from vive la revolution to immediate dissolution.
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| 'Be the change you wish to see in the world,' Gandhi | Photograph David Kozlowski (Dallas Photo) |
1) Immerse yourself in the Internet
Get yourself a web site! For as little as a fiver (what’s that the price of one cinema ticket?) you can have your own domain name, the online hub for your revolution to flourish…besides who wants to go to see a movie on their own anyway? You don’t needs to parade the streets shout down a megaphone when you can amass activists from your computer chair in your boxers. The UK spends nearly one quarter of all our Internet time on social networking sites (Ofcom, 2010) so utilise it. Facebook following? Check. Tactfully tweeting? Tick. Ignore this and you may as well go back to your cave painting #Granddad.2) This is what I like to call the circle of trust…
All the youthful years of parents telling white lies have made modern day mankind a discernible bunch. So remember Robert De Niro passionate speech about ‘the circle of trust’ in Meet the Parents and know that once ‘the circle of trust’ is broken you’re out and there’s no coming back - that’s your situation, you are Greg Focker. Be honest with your message and don’t conceal anything, if you do it will create an overhanging shadow of suspicion and your campaign will topple over quicker than an inverted triangle.3) The grass is always greener - Positive petitioning
Long gone are the days when a melancholic man wielding a sorrowful symphony of words was enough to bring supporters to their cause. An overexposure to guilt-trip TV and the harrowing stories that accompany them have switched mute to our now desensitised receptors, so think positive protesting. Set positive goals and focus on the good that will come out of your efforts, rather than fixating on negativity. Next thing you know, your glass is no longer ‘nearly empty’ but ‘one-eight full’ and your newly acquired following will see that too.
4) Relentlessly chase after change
Naturally, giving up on your cause is the worst thing you can do. Change takes time and patience is the main virtue of it. Imagine if Martin Luther King Jr., gay rights activist Harvey Milk, militant Emmeline Pankhurst or even, as much as it gripes me to say it, Bob Geldoff threw in the towel. Without revolutionaries (maybe Geldoff’s stretching it a little) our world would be closer aligned to the Paleolithic times of the stone ages and increasingly ignorant as a result. Online activists Avaaz.org with a membership of over 14 million people worldwide campaign for their utopian dream. As the founder Ricken Patel purports there’s a need for us to ‘close the gap between the world we have and the world we want’.5) Get out there!
Set a date and take to the streets with your countless campaigners, the only way to achieve your goal will be through proactive action... you can’t make it all happen from your computer chair. Lobby your local and national government, target key locations with high footfall that are relevant to your point. The more civilians that are aware of your group and what it’s fighting the better for your cause, they may even join you...So now armed with an arsenal of advice take your silver-star beret, army of followers and go forth into the world young Che, go change the world.
