but seriously…

Given the United States’ extensive international influence, every American citizen should be politically and socially aware.

Most things that American citizens vote on, support or protest against affect the international community in one way or another. It is safe to say that maintaining a state of personal awareness, and helping others to achieve such a state, specifically through activism, is one of the most effective ways to engender positive change on this planet.

However, while awareness is important, there are guidelines that should be followed when attempting to raise public awareness. Political activism and persuasion are two of the most powerful tools in any free citizen’s arsenal and, because of their effectiveness, must always be used with immaculate morality.

Just weeks ago, the morality of one strain of political activism was called into question at Vashon High School during a Guantanamo Bay Political Awareness Week hosted by the Vashon chapter of Amnesty International.

On Friday, Amnesty members stood inside a 6-foot by 8-foot “cell,” while the club’s adviser announced to the students in the lunchroom that it would take 15 signatures on a petition to close Guantanamo Bay to free them from their pseudo-captivity.

Senior Nathan Gilmour had a bone to pick with the group’s tactics.

“The second it started happening, I had a visceral reaction that what I was seeing was basely wrong somehow,” said Gilmour.

He later debated the issue with the student officers of Amnesty International, claiming that by using such dramatic theatrics, Amnesty was compelling people to sign the petition without properly informing them of the issue at hand.

“By using group tactics and what is basically mob psychology, Amnesty was getting blind signatures,” said Gilmour. “They were getting uninformed people to sign a piece of paper when they don’t even know what it says.”

Gilmour was not present for the first three days of the National Week of Student Action, when Amnesty provided brochures, chalked shocking statistics all around the school and read statements via the school intercom explaining why they were advocating the closure of Guantanamo Bay.

Though his absence weakens his argument, he has a valid point. Coercing support from students by asking them to do an immediate favor for a peer doesn’t seem like the objective of an awareness week.

I asked Amnesty adviser Harris Levinson what he thought of Gilmour’s complaints. He said he thought methods like those used on Friday were useful because he felt students would respond better to a performance protest than other, more passive means.

“We are going to appeal to the intellect and the emotion,” Levinson said. “We are going to provoke and dramatize because our constituency does not always gravitate towards reading or written material.”

He also said he thought Amnesty’s actions during the previous four days of the awareness week had educated enough students to justify tactics that appealed to student’s emotions.

“There are now many more students who now know where it is, what it is and have been educated about it,” Levinson said.

As a student who was present all week and witnessed the event in the lunchroom that Friday, I think Gilmour’s comments are disproportionate to the seriousness of the event. Levinson’s actions were not the ideal means of conveying the issue at hand, but to call them basely wrong is excessive.

Amnesty went to great pains throughout the week to inform and educate students, which speaks greatly to the group’s dedication to moral activism.

However, I do believe that Levinson’s jail cell somewhat devalued the message Amnesty was trying to project. It yielded many signatures, but the goal of activism should always be more than signatures.

If Guantanamo ever is closed through activism, it will not be by casual signatories interested in freeing their friends, but by informed youth who will take steps beyond a petition to further a cause they care about. Levinson’s actions were far from criminal, and Amnesty should be applauded for its spectacular efforts over the course of Political Awareness Week.

But when you’re trying to change the world, it’s important to remember exactly what your goals are.

— Joe Sutton-Holcomb is secretary for the Vashon Youth Council and a student at Vashon High School.