Whenever I look at the Instagram icon on my phone, I feel a sense of dread. Do I want to open the app and see what new horrors Israel has unleashed? Or do I want to stew in my own comforting ignorance?
On my home page daily is Bisan Owda, a photojournalist documenting the Palestinian genocide for over a year. With every video comes a detailed, bone-chilling clip from her surroundings — hospitals reduced to rubble, tents overflowing with rain carrying ash and sewage, and worst of all, children smiling in the face of unimaginable loss. Next to Owda’s vlogs on my feed are the aid requests from the millions of displaced Gazans. Some are tantalizingly close to their fundraising goals; others have only a few hundred dollars raised. With every comment and reshare I can do on my own end; I feel a sense of futility growing. I don’t have the money to donate — I’m a college student. But when millions of people think that same thing, our individual bystanding — caused by our own personal circumstances and lack of resource — becomes community-wide learned helplessness and malignance.
But at what point can you say that your likes, comments and post engagement are the best you can do? At what point do you become complacent in the suffering of millions because you could have done more?
Although an ocean away, the companies who manufacture the bombs that have razed Palestine live in our backyards. Our college tuition goes toward the production and manufacturing of this vile weaponry. When our online lives so easily draw us back into inane memes and TikToks, it’s easy to forget that what we do influences our world. Boosting fundraisers is crucial and can help save families, but let’s be serious: your activism has to extend to the physical world, too. When student organizations announce a protest or a walk-out, I’m sure you think, “Good for them, but I’ve got class.”
Good for you, maybe, that you actually have class, but keep in mind there are no operating universities or schools in Gaza. Millions of children have already lost an entire year of schooling, and the effects of trauma on learning can never fully be accounted for. While reposting our campus’ SJP chapter’s announcement for the sit-in is all well and good, why not skip the class and attend? Do your homework at the protest. A lowered attendance grade or some extra hours of catch-up studying is worth participating in a collective movement opposing a genocide.
We know, vaguely, that protests work, but we were never taught just how long they need to last to be effective. In the 1960s, anti-war protests lasted almost a decade before the U.S. suspended the draft and ended combat operations in Vietnam. It took 14 years after the first student uprising for Nelson Mandela to be elected president of South Africa, ending apartheid. If we want the world to become a better place, we must put in the effort, but more importantly, we must stay consistent.
For us to truly see meaningful change in our lifetimes, we need to go beyond the ease of hitting a few buttons on our screen — but maybe we can start with the right buttons. If you haven’t already, start following the student organizations on campus that speak to the issues you care about and attend their meetings. Join their Discords and meet like-minded people.
In addition to getting involved with your community about the issues you care about, you can still do some simple but helpful online acts. For a daily click, Arab.org donates ad revenue to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. If you have a few dollars to spare, consider contributing to eSims for Gaza, who provide electronic sim cards for displaced Palestinians without Wi-Fi or cell network. If anything, remember that you have the potential to start change in the world. When maintaining solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for liberation is so important, losing hope is the worst thing you can do. Just don’t make clicking these links the only activism you do. There may not be a perfect standard for activism, but it’s never going to start and end on your phone. So go out there and sit on the grass — and do something for the issues you care about instead of pretending Instagram likes suffice.