Civic Involvement Series - II. Social Change and World Citizenship

Hello everyone,

In this blog, I want to mention one of the most important things for society. I t is social change. Have you ever heard of this concept? or Have you have any idea about the reasons and effects of social change?

Before discussing social change, I think that it will be more effective to describe what is social change. Social change is an important changes in the social structure. So what are the factors causing the social change? Do societies need change because they are bored? Of course no. Social change is related with ecological changes, population, migration, new production techniques, technological change, cultural change, political processes, social transformation, modernization, organizational reform and revolution, mass communication, and the impact of natural disasters and causes of social change are collective behavior, cultural diffusion, technological innovation, social movements, inequality, population and war. Also, there are lots of theories of social change but I will not mention these theories.

As you can estimate, it needs time and most importantly, it needs many people who are citizens of the world. So what is a world citizen? In short, we can say that it is the person who makes an effort to solve the problems he sees around him. If you want to learn more about this topic, you can watch Hugh Evans' Tedx talk. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODLg_00f9BE) The world citizen, that is, the conscious individual or individuals, takes action by recognizing the problems around them, and this movement can sometimes lead to a change in some structures, thoughts, economy or politics in society. In short, it leads to social change.

I think the biggest example of social change is the period called "Apartheid", which resulted from the oppression of African blacks by whites. The African people, who revolted as a result of the education of blacks and negative discrimination against whites, caused the regime to change. This uprising was started with a few black people sensitive to the problems around him, and the situation has come to unpredictable places. Thanks to these uprisings, they defended their rights in many areas, especially in education, and regained them. Unfortunately, these riots lasted for years and many black people lost their lives. In addition, one of the reasons for the positive outcome of this period was thanks to the contributions of people we call world citizens. Many world citizens, especially Gandhi, went to Africa to support this movement in order to support the black people. They caused a change in society's policies regarding blacks, In short, their movements became the cause of social change.

As I come to the end of my article, I would like to mention once again that the citizens of the world who are sensitive to the events around them will cause social change. I also agree that these changes will take a long time and accordingly, it will take a long time to get used to their results. This is because I believe that people have a process of getting used to all change, good or bad.

Stay safe,

Sena Ölçer