Margaret Mead and successful persistence

1. Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas answered an innocuous question in a blatantly anti-semitic, anti-Israel manner [1]. Soon after, she resigned; and retired [2].

2. Yahoo displayed separate weather homepages for West and East Jerusalem [3], thus assigning the weather a gratuitously political significance. Soon after, it reverted to a single Jerusalem weather homepage [4].

3. CNN’s Senior Editor of Mideast Affairs Octavia Nasr publicly professed her respect for the recently dead Lebanese Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah – an extremist sheikh and the spiritual father of Hizbollah [5]. Soon after, CNN sacked Nasr [6].

4. British Ambassador to Lebanon Frances Guy blogged her adultation for Fadlallah, on the official Foreign Office blog [7]. Soon after, Guy replaced the said blog post by one professing trenchant contrition [8].

5. The Daily Telegraph used a January 2009 photo to illustrate a story about mid June 2010 Gaza. Soon after, it replaced it with a recent photo [9].

Margaret Mead (1901-78) (pictured) was an America cultural anthropologist [10]. She was responsible for several memorable quotations [11, 12]. Perhaps the most famous one is ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has’. How true. When the odds appear overwhelming, a few people acting persistently to change what they believe is unjust and wrong, can achieve the seemingly unachievable.