When Thought Turns into Action
Hostage takings, vandalism and attempted assault sound like charges on a rap sheet for a hardened criminal. But they're the collective crimes of people who've been laid off recently.
Workers in the French factories for 3M and Sony — enraged about the size of severance packages for laid-off workers — held their bosses captive last month. The captured CEOs actually ended up bargaining with the kidnappers, while the police — not wanting to incense the workers even more — promptly responded by doing ...nothing.
Just last week, workers at a Caterpillar plant in France held their bosses captive as well. They, too, were looking for better treatment for laid-off coworkers. In another incident, workers at the French luxury retail company PPR surrounded their CEO's car and blocked roads so he couldn't escape. This time police did intervene and escorted François-Henri Pinault to safety.
Across the Channel in the United Kingdom, people are outraged with the multimillion dollar pension package given to former Royal Bank of Scotland CEO Fred Goodwin. One group was so upset that it vandalized Sir Goodwin's house and car.
An ominous e-mail from the vandals threatened more attacks:
We are angry that rich people, like him, are paying themselves a huge amount of money, and living in luxury, while ordinary people are made unemployed, destitute and homeless. This is a crime. Bank bosses should be jailed. This is just the beginning.
Joining in the spirit of protest, as many as 5,000 protesters gathering in London's financial district on the first day of the G-20 summit, expressing discontent over the financial crisis, climate change and war. Several demonstrators threw projectiles and forced their way into an RBS branch through broken windows.
Bert Klandermans, a professor of applied social psychology at Amsterdam's Free University, offers a psychological explanation for why some people are expressing their frustration in this way.
Anger is an emotion that spurs collective action ... [It's] an emotion that results from feeling that somebody is responsible for something, and could have acted differently ... [For many] the bankers did it wrong, and they did it wrong because they were greedy. That's what makes people angry.
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Hope 4 Change!
Hope for Change Zambia is a young people led non governmental organization for young people. It is a young growing organization originating from the hope for change students from the University of Zambia. Our preliminary goal is to enhance motivation in young people to explore their full potential towards national development through education, community development and advocacy. We have identified ourselves as activists of social, economical, environmental and political change. To achieve this, we have set our core objective to change the mind sets of the young people by reaching to them Directly; in their school place, area of residence, play grounds and parks, conferences and workshops and reaching them indirectly through the media, teachers, parents and friends. We believe that young people are core component of society whose belonging should be cherished and appreciated as individual assets of members of society. That given young people chance to explore their full potential; to build them acknowledge that they have and can create choices in life asserting awareness the implications of those choices, allowing them to make informed decision freely, to take action based on those decisions and accept the responsibilities for the consequence of those actions. That supporting and creating enabling conditions under which young people act on their own behalf and on their own term, rather than at the direction of others, that this be the true meaning of empowering young people. To give them freedom to participate and express freely and fully in both, national and global development would double the increase in attaining the worlds challenges faced today. By this we offer to volunteer to work for voluntary and network with voluntaries to take the massage across; using talents and gifts, skills and will as our inner driving force; and donations and support grunts, fundraising and entrepreneurship as our external vehicle to empower the young people. We have also identified a range of functions that we can perform in addressing social justice. This includes us becoming; conveners, organizers, association agents, constituency builders, listeners, policy promoters, and knowledge circulator. While these observations tells the world how much the 21st centaury youthful mind is beginning to think about the future, the lessons to learn about specific strategies that can make a difference on the ground to both young and old, educated and uneducated are interconnected roles that ‘Hope for Change’ will play in advancing exploration of full youth potential…
Firstly, big props for your
Firstly, big props for your action. Thought is what everything is begotten from and when that thought is as prolific and empowering as yours, the sky's the limit. Amazing things can uplift this world. Revolutionaries evoking justice and peace are the root to the new world of Equality and Unity of nations. So please, speaking in behalf of all young people willing to bring the change, never give up your goals. I strongly believe you shall succeed in WHATEVER YOU SET YOUR MINDS TO.
Sleet.
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