Guest column:Return of student activism combats sympathy fatigue

By Julia Lukomnik     3/20/08 7:00pm

What is your reaction when faced with a problem? How about 10,000 problems? The Internet and general trade patterns have made the world a much more accessible place over the last 20 years, not only bringing us closer to our fellow man but also bringing us closer to his problems. Look at the front page of a newspaper and you're bound to read about worker exploitation in China, suicide bombing in Iraq, sex trafficking in Eastern Europe or, more recently, genocide in Sudan. It is absolutely overwhelming, and the constant barrage of negative imagery that persists can have detrimental effects, especially on the most idealistic. This condition is called sympathy fatigue.Sympathy fatigue is much like apathy and occurs when a person feels the weight of so many problems that they stop taking any sort of action to combat the problems. We might also call it getting jaded.

And while this problem was once considered an older person's issue, it's now affecting people of all ages, especially the idyllic college student. While there are no numbers on this issue as of yet, it doesn't take an exact science to see it.

Students avoid joining social justice clubs and organizations, feeling that they can make no change or that the change they can make is insignificant. Students avoid reading the newspaper - save the sports and arts sections - because it's just too depressing. Students avoid leaving the safety of their campuses for fear of the poverty they may encounter.

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While these characteristics of sympathy fatigue exist in all age groups, their presence in the collegiate segment of the population is especially frightening. College students have historically been at the front lines of social reform, and if sympathy fatigue fully takes hold, all of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam movements of our day will be dead before they begin.

It is absolutely imperative to fight sympathy fatigue if we hope to change the world for the better. We must hold onto the beliefs that one person can change the world and that changing one person's world is more than a success. We must continue to take action because, regardless of how small, it is 1,000 percent more effective than inaction.

Rice has an opportunity to participate in that action and, once again, be on the front lines of social activism. On March 22, the Rice chapter of Amnesty International will host Jam for Sudan, a benefit concert for the victims of violence and displacement in Darfur, the Western region of Sudan. According to the international chapter of Amnesty International, over 400,000 people have been murdered and over 2.5 million civilians have been displaced. The papers show images of soldiers throwing children into fire pits, print stories of eight-year-old girls being raped and report almost every type of brutal murder known to man. And while all this has caused much political outrage and social pressure on a global scale, the actions being taken by American students to end the genocide in Darfur have diminished.

So often do we as a society look at the "greater good" that we forget the importance of the smaller good, those actions that might only affect one or two individuals. Jam for Sudan seeks to raise money that can remove people from refugee camps and set them up with a home and a job. And the $5,000 that Jam for Sudan can raise can also provide necessary medical attention to the victims of ambush by the Janjaweed, the state-sponsored soldiers massacring the people of Darfur.

Not everyone may be up for organizing or attending this kind of concert and addressing an important issue like this. Some people may be so worn out by the barrage of horrors in the world that they cannot fathom undertaking a task in which they might fail or have only minimal impact. But social justice projects are still possible, and victims of sympathy fatigue can still create change by supporting them. On March 22, fight the genocide in Darfur and sympathy fatigue; support Jam for Sudan.

Julia Lukomnik is a Baker College sophomore.

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