2015: The Year of the Offended and Valiant

A recent Avaaz.org inspired protest (Image: UpstreamJournal.org)

Part of the Christmas tradition is to watch plenty of family films. I'm sure during this festive season you've enjoyed the likes of Love Actually, The Holiday, Home Alone and The Polar Express. You may have also liked seeing the non-festive films you've not watched for many moons - one that I've not seen in ages and saw only the other day was Bruce Almighty.

The 2003 comedy fantasy film features protagonist Bruce, played by Jim Carrey who considered himself unlucky with his job as a reporter not going as he hoped when dreams of becoming lead news anchor dashed as the role is given to another colleague, his love life with partner played by Jennifer Aniston while seemingly healthy, Carrey's character felt his life was stagnated somewhat and cries to God for help. Then by chance God, played by Morgan Freeman offers Bruce his role which he then thrived of.

But with Bruce's power, which led to him grabbing his dream job as lead anchor and his love life initially at its peak of brilliance, came responsibility - the responsibility of listening to other people's wishes - the wishes of millions of people around the world. While this was portrayed in a more comical manner, Bruce, as God, to save time, responded to all dreams with 'YES' oblivious to the chaos that would ensue from then on, when in one instance, hundreds of lottery winners sharing a large sum meaning they'd lost money rather than gaining handsomely.

For those who haven't seen the film can rest assure that there was a happy ending but while the 101 minutes offered us genuine laughter, there were some important messages to this, relevant to my reflection of 2015 here. The messages in my eyes were 'be careful what you wish for' and 'imagine a world where all our dreams came true'.

These messages to me are important because during today's social media age, we are enticed by one-click campaigns. It is getting increasingly easy to create one and it's also easy to promote through Facebook or Twitter, and if it gathers momentum, then influential endorsement would push the campaign towards becoming a phenomenon - some would even provoke the British government to respond or debate.

We hear about, what is commonly called clicktivism, in the news constantly and the concept is unlikely to die down in a hurry. According to Change.org, as I write this, on this site alone, '130,333,377 people [are] taking action every day' which is a significant statistic. The campaigns on these types of sites vary. Sticking with Change.org, among those trending as I write this include 'Welsh government: Stop housing homeless teenagers in unsuitable bed and breakfast accommodation', '.@foreignoffice Please bring 6 British ex-soldiers held in India home for Christmas' and 'David Cameron MP: Justice for Chunky'. The support from these examples are huge attracting between tens of thousands and 400,000 people.

I can totally understand why there are so many campaigners out there. Many critics of these clicktivists can't seem to justify how many are offended by a score of things. But if you notice the trends set by the media, it's staggering how they have the power to freak people out. Newspapers talk of 'shock' and 'chaos' among politics and social affairs, while pressure groups who use social media to impose similar propaganda tactics as imposed pre Second World War, there is plenty of anger and discontent.

Even when television stations use shock tactics in a more innocent way, for example, Channel 4's It Was Alright in the... series, it still gathers a more negative rather than inspiring reaction from the targeted audience. We are fed and then therefore crave on offence and that is brought forward to those who vigorously campaign for what they think is 'right' - and then this is interpreted in a way that may, or may not fuel the original anger.

I don't consider myself to be a clicktivist, although I must admit to signing up to 3-4 over the past couple of years and I'm also on the mailing list for Change.org and Avaaz where my inbox is spammed by 'campaigns that may be of interest' - which somewhat bug me no end (though I read them so I can see what the current campaign trends are). But for this once, I want to put myself in a full time campaigner's shoes. What would it be like if all the campaigns I clicked for, turned to 'victories'? Would this mean I've cured world hunger? Would this stop every conflict? Would this prevent all dogs like Chunky from receiving any form of abuse? What if all the campaign 'victories' didn't stop any of these mentioned?

Helen Mirren supporting 'Je Suis Charlie Hebdo'

The sentiment of these campaigns are great and yes, they've been going on for some time but 2015 in particular, the number of these have reached its record levels. The #JeSuisCharlieHebdo, the #YouAintNoMuslimBruv, the 'Ban Donald Trump from entering the UK' campaigns are among those that have reached front page news both in the UK and abroad. Being valiant using hashtags is one thing but for the horrific things that happen and the bizarre things that are said by personalities, allowing ourselves to be offended is just going to create further rebellion and division between the campaigners and lawmakers, or motor-mouths like Katie Hopkins.

I do believe there needs to be a middle ground here - a sense of realism. We'd love to live in an environment where we don't need to campaign, where we don't need to be angry, where we don't need to launch a charity to combat world hunger. But I feel that clicking on our computer keyboards isn't going to answer our prayers. As we enter 2016, my wish is for the global community to put these inspiring wishes into action. In that way we can at least enter the next New Year's Eve 52 weeks from now with a long-term strategy - but we need both sides of whatever topical argument to reach common ground and work together.