fandomhigh | Social Activism- Monday- Period 1- Class #1

Hermione loved the start of a new class, and today was no exception. In fact, having two sessions a summer made it seem a lot like the very first day of a new school year twice in a matter of months. Add in the fact that they were in London and Hermione was a happy girl today.

"Hello everyone, and welcome to Social Activism. You can call me Miss Granger," she greeted them with a smile. And yes, she was still sticking with the Miss Granger thing. "If you're in this class, you're probably either here because of a paperwork error, or because you're interested in bringing about some kind of change in the world. Hopefully most of you are here for the second reason.

"To give you a little background on my experience here, when I was fourteen I started the Society for the Protection of Elfish Welfare, also known as S.P.E.W." She pronounced every letter separately and would get very upset if anyone called it 'Spew.' "There were house elves who worked as unpaid servants at my school and for some of the wizarding families that were being treated unfairly, and needed someone to stand up for them." No, they'd been fine on their own. "I tried to get the word out about the conditions in which they were working, organized clothing drives in order to free them, even fought for their rights back home while I was a student here." Please, please don't ask her how. "I think a lot of the time, people want to make a difference, but don't think they can or don't know where to start, especially when you're younger. But I managed to do some good-" Debatable. "-and I hope to be able to teach you how to be able to do the same." Truth. She was misguided in her cause, but she had a good system going. "Now, in this class we're going to learn about the different methods you can use in order to get things done, but first, I'd like to get to know who you are and what you're passionate about. So I'd like everyone to go around the room and tell me your name, year in school, and a cause you feel strongly about."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"People you've been made responsible for," Dolf said, glancing up from his hands. "I've known men who claimed they were leading people in a good cause, but didn't even look at the people twice if they were hungry, or unsure about the path."

And then they'd tried to sell them to slavers, which was a whole 'nother thing.

Oh. Okay, that made sense. Rinoa had been really confused and thinking weird things, like maybe people in his world owned other people or something.

"Leaders," she said. "And if you're going to be a leader, whether you chose to be one or not, then you'd better make sure all your followers are taken care of. That's what it means."

Squall had hated being in charge of Garden. But he'd done his best to protect the cadets all the same.

Meanwhile, it was starting to occur to Dolf that he wasn't being the greatest communicator today, if he couldn't even get this across right on the first go. "Yes," he said, in an attempt to keep doing better at that. "And you don't say you look to some God to do it for you. Or steer your followers wrong on purpose. That's my cause - that anyone who calls themselves a leader actually do what that means."

It was very broad, yes, but it was his thing.

Rinoa considered that. "Steering people wrong on purpose is just cruel," she said. "But leaders have to delegate. What's wrong with looking to gods for guidance, if they can help? Or aren't gods any good at that?"

Her world didn't see to hold much truck with gods. She had an idea they were something like Summons; helpful in a pinch, and then you relegated them back to whence they came, with your thanks.

"It's okay to ask Gods for guidance." Dolf had said his own prayers to Saint Nicholas a few times, after all. "But you can't rely on them to look after your people. The people I'm talking about liked to say, 'if our people are hungry, God will find a way to feed them'."

Rinoa was now raising a decided eyebrow at Dolf.

"Okay, are gods in the habit of popping down from the nether realms, handing out sandwiches, and disappearing again?" she asked. It was entirely possible; she had to rule that out, first. "Is there some kind of ritual for that? I'm not really up on this."

Because otherwise, this sounded kind of stupid.

(fleeing for a few hours for RL appts -- SP okay?)

Edited 2011-07-05 17:50 (UTC)

Dolf blinked in surprise, and in his befuddlement, something sort of approaching a laugh broke free of him. Congratulations, Rinoa, you'd actually gotten mister Mopey to smile about something, even if it was just for a second.

"No, no, they don't," he said, and flushed as he realised just how dumb laughing over that had been. She wouldn't know, would she, and he was hoping he hadn't embarrassed her. "He can give you a feeling of... hope, of being watched over, but he never stepped in. The people back then believed he could, though, even if none of them had seen it."

[[ of course! ]]

Right. These leaders kind of sounded like morons, then.

"Okay," Rinoa said, still wondering if this was all some kind of a practical joke. "So if I'm a leader, and people have all these faith in gods, but they're also starving, then ... I mean. Shouldn't I go find food? And if those gods pop out of the sky in three hours and make up a feast, that's wonderful. We'll just have all the food I found, you know, tomorrow? That way nobody's faith gets offended, but nobody starves while we're waiting for something that ... probably might not happen?"

"I said that," Dolf sighed, "But they just said, 'then maybe God sent you to feed them'. And later they tried to burn me, for saying the path was wrong."

And causing a bit of a fuss by shouting random things about God in the middle of highly pious medieval children, but to-may-toe, to-mah-to.

"I would have told them the gods sent you to tell them that the gods think they're all lazy and need to get their own food," Rinoa decided, folding her arms. "I like your approach better. Can I join your cause?"

Could they do that? There wasn't a rule against that, was there?

Dolf blinked again. "The more the better," he said, beginning to smile a little more. "Somebody needs to tell those in charge to take care every now and again."

Social Activism- Monday- Period 1- Class #1

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions