Beating inaction

To act upon a situation, a demand or even upon a good impulse often calls for being proactive and progressive. It means taking the risk, accepting the initiative and exercising the effort that the act requires, when it is far easier to maintain the status quo than to begin a course of action. Thus, inaction is perhaps the obvious behavioural pattern of all humankind. Sadly, it is also the biggest contributor to all human and communal failure.

As Haile Selassie said, “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”

Beating inaction therefore is a tough call and requires much courage and fortitude. It is for this reason that getting into action, whether to meet a requirement or simply to attend to the call of duty, is usually honoured in its breach than in its adherence.

Yet beating inaction can set the ball rolling towards advancement as it did in the case of a young, coloured woman way back in an era where segregation was the norm. This woman was asked to relinquish her seat in the coloured section of the bus she was travelling in to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled.

Angered by the injustice, she refused to give her seat away and swung into action with her protests. Thanks to the woman, Rosa Parks, who beat inaction and rose to claim her rights as a citizen, discrimination based on colour was eventually abolished and a fair society with equal rights to all citizens became a reality.

This is just one instance where beating inaction resulted in changing the course of history. Had Rosa Parks not sprung into action unlike many of her indolent contemporaries, colour discrimination would probably still be a prevalent practice.

Much of society’s progress has always been the result of those who beat inaction. Conversely, stagnation and continued injustice to society is the result of human apathy to act on time.