crusade 復習
米国では、子供たちによるデモや抗議などの活動からの影響を受け、銃に関する法律が変わる方向にあります。
Gun laws may finally change, thanks to kids
Children have periodically played leading roles in social and political movements. With the Never Again movement, some of the students who survived the February shooting in Parkland, Florida, have organized effective social media campaigns in favor of greater gun control. So far the American public is paying attention. A look back at the broader history of child activism indicates that some major social change might actually be upon us.
In the early 20th century, the union organizer Mother Jones led a strike and then organized a few hundred child laborers on a march from Philadelphia to New York. Historians have considered the “children’s crusade of 1903” a milestone in the fight to abolish child labor. As soon as a year later, Pennsylvania toughened its child labor laws. Federal action came later, during the New Deal.
Children are effective messengers because they are difficult to convincingly attack. It’s easier to forgive their excesses and their mistakes, and they are not constrained by having full-time jobs. The very fact that children are doing something attracts news coverage. If even a child sees the need to speak out, we all should be listening; they of course have the greatest stake in America’s future.
取り上げる単語は"crusade" /kruːséɪd/です。『ジーニアス英和辞典』第４版（大修館）では、「十字軍、聖戦」「（…に賛成の、反対の、…するための）改革（擁護、撲滅）運動」とありました。LDOCEでは、"a determined attempt to change something because you think you are morally right"と定義されています。先日起きたフロリダ州での銃乱射事件や、相次ぐ米国内の銃による犯罪を受け、子供たちの涙ながらの訴えが功を奏し、今回の変更が実現されるのではないかと考えられます。(Akim)
