MPH Student Urges Graduates at University Commencement to "Defend the Defenseless"
MPH candidate Arese Carrington was chosen to deliver the Graduate English Address at Harvard University Commencement on Thursday, June 8. The following is her speech:
As
we go through life, we witness different things. I have witnessed war
and peace. Of all the things that I have witnessed, the most compelling
is the power of love that knows no boundaries. The most disheartening
is the power of hate that builds all boundaries.
As a child I saw my family torn apart during the civil war in my native country Nigeria. My mother and father, fearful of being caught by the advancing rebel army, divided their seven children--my father, escaping the war-torn zone with four of my siblings, my mother remaining behind with the youngest three, including me. They hoped at the worst, one-half of the family would survive to carry on. Each decision was equally dangerous, and we did not know when, if ever, we would be reunited. The night of the separation, my father had parting words for us. To my mother he said, "Be brave and tune in to the radio daily to keep abreast of the war."
He turned to me and said, "Look after your younger siblings. They are defenseless. You must defend the defenseless."
He had charged me with a duty. I could not afford to worry or think of myself. I had been given a responsibility and would be accountable to my father.
For nine agonizing months, we did not know whether they were alive or dead. Then on my mother's birthday, as we listened to the radio, we heard my father make a birthday request for her. Despite miles of war separating us, love was powerful enough to cross all those boundaries. We were given a ray of hope and joy. But that same evening, I watched over our fence as hate allowed an innocent civilian to be gunned down by soldiers because of his ethnicity.
My family and Nigeria survived that war as the country has survived many trials since then. Pursuing an academic degree at Harvard, in this relatively sheltered intellectual environment, we may easily feel removed from the realities of the world we have temporarily left behind. However heartily we may sing of Fair Harvard, let us never forget that there is a world out there that is anything but fair.
Had I wanted to escape, even for an academic year, the problems I every day faced as a medical doctor in Nigeria, I should have chosen another school in this university rather than the School of Public Health. There I have studied the many scourges that threaten the welfare of much of the developing world. I have also learned some of the ways to help in the remedying of them. Public health is a public good, so for it to be effective, we must have a conscience for social justice. I have learned how important it is to marshal the resources needed to finance public health programs. The United Nations and its member governments will bear most of the burden.
But I would not like to see any of you who this day will receive your graduate degrees deprived of the opportunity to contribute to the 21st-century goal of permanently dismounting three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse--war, pestilence, and hunger.
Our Harvard degree is a powerful weapon that we can use to make a difference by ensuring the principle of social justice is maintained. Graduates from all the different schools have a role to play. We each have a responsibility and will be held accountable.
To our siblings who graduate from the Business and Law Schools. As you assume your leadership roles on Wall Street and in corporate America you can relieve the guilt those large starting salaries are likely to instill in you. Contribute generously to organizations working in the deprived areas of the world. Since your offerings will be tax deductible, you can do good while doing well. But I also look to our siblings, the graduates of the Divinity School. Offer prayers that the class of 2000 may raise a standard of social consciousness to which all succeeding classes of the Third Millennium may repair.
I am now an American citizen, however I cannot ignore the plight of
the land I left behind. The significance of the words of my late father
encompasses so much. His words ring in my ears, "You must defend
the defenseless."
