Get Up, Stand Up!

Last week, I had the fortune of volunteering at the CNN/Rock the Vote Presidential Forum at Faneuil Hall. I was amazed by the fervor with which young people were going nuts for their respective candidate, cheering and screaming.

I felt proud of the disproportionate amount of Tufts students and alumni who were part of the various crowds, but I wondered why our school had so many people there. People kept giving me the same explanation, "Well, Tufts is such an activist campus." I did not have the heart to tell them how wrong they really were, because Tufts has lots of students involved in politics, but true activists are few and far between.

Yes, Tufts has tons of students who do internships in government, volunteer on campaigns, take lots of political science classes, serve in student government, and are political news junkies. But these are not the activists. The passion these students have is for the process, the potential fame, and even the overly-broad, nauseating term "public service." I call these students the "pre-politicians." They do have views on a lot of issues, but they frame them in terms of elections and party affiliations. They are not preparing to change the world, but rather to work in the system. That is not activism. Activism requires challenging the system and saying that the system is not working.

Community service is not activism either. Going to a soup kitchen, raising money for a "good cause," and increasing awareness are all extremely worthy activities, but just because they involve working with "the people" does not make them activism. They are all band-aids that do nothing to fix a problem in society. Activism requires looking at the root causes of societal issues and trying to make a difference, instead of merely treating the effects.

So who are the activists? They are the ones that the general Tufts population sees as radical: The Coalition for Social Justice and Nonviolence, the Tufts Coalition Against War in Iraq, the Student Labor Action Movement, Water Watch, even the Tufts Right to Arms. For some reason, all of these groups are considered outside the mainstream, but they are doing exactly what politically active college students should be doing: identifying problems in society and trying to affect change. You can be a conservative activist, a liberal activist, or even an activist who fits nowhere in any political spectrum. All that is required is the desire to change something, or even to prevent change.

Certainly, it is possible to be both a pre-politician and an activist. In fact, some of my favorite politicians started out as activists and continue to be so. However, what scares me is the number of students I meet who will mobilize around any issue, as long as it gets them into the political arena.

It makes a lot of sense to become a pre-politician. I am not saying that it is a bad thing to be. The career opportunities in politics are far more lucrative than those in activism. I used to think that I wanted to go into politics. In fact, I declared my major in political science before Thanksgiving of my freshman year, intent on being the next Charles Schumer. But I soon realized a general insipidness amongst many of my classmates.

Like me, they loved to argue, to debate, and to study government. But I wanted to use my knowledge of government to make changes, to achieve desired policy goals and, (gasp), to help people. Somehow, the pre-politicians lose sight that helping people is the ultimate goal of government. This makes me worried about the present and future of American politics -- it indicates that political aspects have grown so grandiose that policy goals are being ignored.

However, there is hope. The massive mobilization of youth around presidential candidate Howard Dean indicates that maybe, just maybe, our generation is looking beyond polish and "electability" and actually supporting someone who believes in what they believe in. On-campus, the arrival of Emerge, (an activist group focusing on equality based on sexual orientation), and Vox, (an activist group looking to protect reproductive rights), along with the rejuvenation of SLAM, give me hope for the future activists here at Tufts.

Activism should be the norm here on campus. Controversy should be encouraged, although in a respectful matter. We should not be afraid to disagree, or to fight for what we believe in, whatever it may be. So bring on the protests, the petitions, and the letter writing. People are afraid of it, but change is good.



Adam Pulver is a junior majoring in Political Science and Community Health. He can be reached at pulver@tuftsdaily.com.