Whenever advancements have been made socially, there is pushback. Freedom, justice, democracy: these things are not definitively achieved – they must be constantly fought for. I have found myself wondering what’s best to do. My mind kept returning to the story of Moses. The religious implications are not important. He was born and placed in a basket, sent down the Nile and was found and raised by Pharaoh’s daughter.

I kept thinking about the person who made the basket.

This was in a tumultuous period of massive social unrest. The Israelites were being persecuted, hunted and killed. The community would have been desperately trying to survive, resist, find freedom and justice. I could imagine members of the community looking at this basket-maker and saying, “Why aren’t you protesting? Why aren’t you tweeting? Why are you just sitting there making baskets?” And yet that basket was made well enough that the child who was placed in it survived and became one of the most influential agents of social change.

We each have the potential to effect real positive social change. If the basketmaker hadn’t made it with absolute focus and commitment, human history would have been very different.

So I say, make your basket, or whatever it may be.-actor Giles Terera, speaking to Index on Censorship