I miss Cedric Cecil so much!
The fact that each of the three times I have gone online to write about Cecil the Lion, I have first called him Cedric and then gone to check and then changed it to Cecil, largely makes my point for me.
It’s a week later and I can’t even remember his name. How are you doing on that?
Nope, wrong again (after some more checking of the facts) – it was three weeks ago already? So why does it feel to me like it was just last week?
TIME TO CHANGE YOUR PROFILE PIC BACK
I was on Facebook yesterday and conducted a random survey and the third person to respond had a rainbow of colours covering their profile picture. Urgh! Get with the program person. I’m pretty sure the statute of limitations ran out on that one weeks ago. Time to follow the sheep back to the normal-coloured profile pic pen.
In fact, how many posts do I need to post on an issue to show that I am suitably outraged but not quite a fanatic? For how many days must I black out my profile pic or rainbow it up or have a picture of a lion that resembles Cecil (in that it’s a lion, but now lion activists are all up in paws because, ‘Are you saying we all look the same?’) before I can return to normal profile pic status?
Je Suis Cecil Lives Matter
Then things started to get really complicated. The #BlackLivesMatter movement in the States started using the Cecil the Lion campaign as a way of explaining the significance of #BlackLivesMatter over #AllLivesMatter.
“Because we understand how stupid it would be to be saying “All Animals Matter” right now, yeah?”
Some people reached back all the way to January to revive the Je Suis Charlie tag to hopefully build on some of the recognition momentum to be gained from such a powerful statement. No-one is known to have asked any of those people, “So you’re saying you’re a lion?”
BLESSED ARE THE SLACKTIVISTS
It was Malcolm Gladwell, back in 2010 who coined the term, ‘Slacktivist’. The idea of posting, forwarding or liking an article or picture on social media as a form of protest. Or at least the feeling of a form of protest.
Because, let’s be honest for a moment, when last did you think about the invisible children (Kony 2012, Uganda) or the missing girls (#BringBackOurGirls 2014, Nigeria)? Do you even remember what disease the Ice Bucket Challenge was trying to raise money for? (July 2014, ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease)
I could go on. The buzz of slacktivism is that it feels like we’ve made a difference. We get the sensation of having participated in something important and bigger than ourselves. And then a week from now we move on to the next thing and the cycle repeats again.
Who will tuck Cecil the Lion’s son into bed at night? The answer is no-one will. Because we don’t genuinely care and we have already moved on…
SURELY WE CAN DO BETTER
In the Bible, Jesus tells a story about two sons:
28 “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
29 “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
30 “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
31 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.
[Matthew 28]
Perhaps the time has come for us to be less involved in public proclamations of our “action” and to simply get involved locally in some area of service. What are the needs of a nearby community that you possess the skills to meet? Perhaps it is an hour a week commitment or maybe it’s taking a younger person under your wing and mentoring them? If we can get as creative offline as the campaign-producing people seem to be online, it won’t be long before we see small but profound changes happening all around us.
Ones that won’t be forgotten a week from now.