Last week, students at The University of Alabama and many people across America celebrated Veterans Day. On this day we remembered the sacrifice made by all those in our armed forces to defend our liberty and our sovereignty. As someone whose father served in Kandahar, Afghanistan for 15 month, Veterans Day is always a red letter day for me with the Army National Guard. It also serves in my mind as a reminder of the importance of sacrifice and why it is so important that our community and our nation should take civics and civic engagement more seriously.
If you look at what political and social discourse has become in this nation, it’s enough to make you want to rip your hair out and scream. Those who take civic action in the United States do so in ways that either treat the symptoms of the social and economic problems in this nation without actually solving the problem itself, or they debate the issues till they’re blue in the face without actually taking action to solve the problem.
It has become nothing more than a string of empty words and promises by those whose position in society depends on problems and the people turning to them to solve these problems. The only time now, it seems, that people can come together behind policy is when it hurts their rivals as opposed to helping the people. In Annapolis, Md., just days after electing a Republican mayor, a predominantly Democratic city council said they will revisit legislation that will strip the position of mayor of any real power.
You would think that this kind of corruption and incompetency would receive a backlash from the electorate. However, the truth is that the majority of the nation suffers from a severe case of apathy, not caring about the problems in this country so long as the problems don’t affect them directly, or an equally severe and annoying case of hegemony, desiring change but feeling that they are incapable of leading such change and as such wait on others to act in their stead. What has happened to us? There was once a time when, while others around the world debated enlightenment ideology, our people were leading a revolution to make our ideals a reality. While others only dreamed of a better world, by our actions, we created a new world.
There are still ways for students to affect policy. Just this past week, the Student Government Association released applications for students interested in joining a UA Lobby Board, a student initiative which would allow students to actually lobby in Montgomery and in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the University and its students. There are also political organizations, such as the Roosevelt Institute, which, as opposed to playing a partisan game, actually allow students to write public policy and advocate for reforms they would like to see in the state of Alabama and within the nation itself.
The students and citizens of the United States must awaken to the truth that the only way the change they hope for will ever take effect is by taking action and leading the initiative themselves. To quote President Ronald Reagan, “We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.”
Kyle Jones is a sophomore majoring in political science and Spanish. His column runs biweekly on Tuesdays.
