Events over the last few days are strong in­di­ca­tors that ac­tivism is alive, well and grow­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go. This was un­der­scored by three events last week­end in which hun­dreds of cit­i­zens par­tic­i­pat­ed. On Sat­ur­day, Save the Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en Flower Day drew at­ten­tion to the di­lap­i­dat­ed con­di­tion of the city's most cel­e­brat­ed-and ne­glect­ed-his­tor­i­cal build­ings. The fol­low­ing day, dog lovers gath­ered at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah to show their dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the planned procla­ma­tion of the Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act, while a short dis­tance away, at King George V Park, hun­dreds took part in the Akiel Cham­bers Jus­tice for Chil­dren March. These dis­plays of par­tic­i­pa­to­ry democ­ra­cy are healthy signs that the coun­try is achiev­ing a new lev­el of po­lit­i­cal ma­tu­ri­ty and that cit­i­zens are no longer con­tent to ex­ist with­in the con­fines of-and at the mer­cy of-elec­toral pol­i­tics. In­creas­ing num­bers of cit­i­zens are aware of their pow­er to bring about so­cial and po­lit­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion and are pre­pared to dri­ve that change. Of course, this ac­tivism is not lim­it­ed to T&T. In fact, what is hap­pen­ing lo­cal­ly is in­spired to some ex­tent by the world­wide Oc­cu­py Move­ment against so­cial and eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ty, as well as the Arab Spring, which has sparked a wave of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic awak­en­ing in the Mid­dle East.

Ac­tivism has ex­ist­ed in one form or an­oth­er in this coun­try for decades. Ral­lies, block­ades, street demon­stra­tions and oc­cu­pa­tions are a fa­mil­iar sight. But now there is a greater mo­men­tum to these ac­tiv­i­ties and, very of­ten, they yield re­sults. Up to a few years ago, politi­cians tend­ed to ig­nore or dis­miss move­ments for change but they now pay a heavy po­lit­i­cal price if they do. Boost­ed by rapid­ly de­vel­op­ing so­cial net­work­ing sites, in­stant mes­sag­ing and oth­er dig­i­tal op­tions, there are seem­ing­ly end­less chan­nels now avail­able for rais­ing pub­lic aware­ness and sup­port. In fact, dig­i­tal ac­tivism is now the most pow­er­ful way to ef­fect so­cial and po­lit­i­cal change and it has been used quite suc­cess­ful­ly in this coun­try al­ready. The Patrick Man­ning-led Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) learned that the hard way in 2010 when it paid lit­tle more than lip ser­vice to the an­ti-smelter move­ment and pub­lic out­cries over cor­rup­tion. The for­mer gov­ern­ment suf­fered a crush­ing de­feat in the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion, hold­ing on to just 12 par­lia­men­tary seats. How­ev­er, while the PNM and their po­lit­i­cal ri­vals in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship might want to put par­ti­san spins on this new trend of ac­tivism, which so di­rect­ly af­fects their po­lit­i­cal for­tunes, that is on­ly one el­e­ment of this move­ment for change. There is a larg­er pub­lic-in­ter­est per­spec­tive in­volved. As last week­end's events demon­strat­ed, peo­ple with dif­fer­ing po­lit­i­cal views are find­ing com­mon ground on a range of so­cial, eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal caus­es.

There are chal­lenges, how­ev­er. In­di­vid­u­als and groups with self­ish, de­struc­tive agen­das of­ten pig­gy-back on and tar­nish move­ments for change. Al­so, if not prop­er­ly man­aged, there is the ever-present threat of law­less­ness which can quick­ly es­ca­late in­to vi­o­lence. In ad­di­tion, not every pub­lic demon­stra­tion is for a worth­while cause. For ex­am­ple, dur­ing the re­cent spate of fiery pro- tests where roads were blocked with heaps of burn­ing de­bris, many il­le­gal acts were com­mit­ted. True ac­tivism is in the in­ter­est of the wider pub­lic good. That def­i­nite­ly was not the case a few days ago when there was a law­less and row­dy dis­play by hordes of un­ruly in­di­vid­u­als who con­verged on a me­dia house in an at­tempt to block the ar­rest of a talk show host. Mob rule is the dark side of democ­ra­cy. But the ac­tivism that pro­motes pos­i­tive change and puts the spot­light on worth­while na­tion­al is­sues is to be com­mend­ed and en­cour­aged. Hats off to cit­i­zens who are mak­ing them­selves agents of pos­i­tive change, stand­ing up, speak­ing out and cam­paign­ing for progress and trans­for­ma­tion.