One of the things I often used to hear was, "petitions are no use, no-one takes any notice of them." That may have been the case once, but how things have changed. Petitions have become a powerful tool for people concerned about a particular issue. The proliferation of petition sites online, such as change.org, 38degrees.org.uk, avaaz.org, sumofus.org, care2.com has enabled groups and individuals to make a difference by harnessing the power of people worldwide. Organisations which existed before the internet, such as Greenpeace.org, Amnesty.org.uk and Shelter.org.uk, have used online petitions to great effect also.
So, why do they work so well? Basically it's all about publicity. With an online community the news about an issue can go global in minutes, and as fast as the news spreads, so the petitions signatories can respond equally quickly. The use of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter make it easy for a petition to be shared with a huge number of people - very much a ripple effect as each person sharing it casts the ripples further from the source. The power of petitions has been recognised by charities and pressure groups, but is also widely used by individuals raising an issue that they feel strongly about.
In the UK there is a government petition scheme which any UK citizen can initiate. Once the petition has 10,000 signatories it will be reviewed by the government Petitions Committee and a response issued. If the petition has more than 100,000 signatories it will be debated in Parliament. The biggest problem with the UK gov't scheme is that its petitions can only be signed by UK citizens, so it is of no practical use against global issues or multi-nation corporations.
That petitions do work has been seen by some spectacular climb downs over recent years. That they don't work every time is also true - some politicians seem to make an art form of ignoring them! But it is the case that without them we would have a lot less of a voice, and many injustices would not be corrected. Shaming LEGO into announcing it will not renew its links with oil company SHELL is just one of the many issues which petitioners have influenced vis the internet, another is the ban on the sale of Monsanto's Round Up in the Netherlands. Petitions for the protection of whales, tuna, rain forests and palm oil, and many other issues have had partial or total success.
One of the most useful aspects of petitions is that they raise awareness among people who would not normally have heard of an issue. The manipulation of news stories via the mainstream media means that often the stories which raise the most public support are never read in the newspapers. Why? Perhaps vested interests. Perhaps not thought to be of sufficient interest. Perhaps media owners oppose that viewpoint. Whatever the reason, there is no doubt that petitions give a voice and a strength to ordinary people everywhere in the world. Long may that continue!
