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Let me begin by thanking President Wright for his stewardship of the heart of Dartmouth and so many members of his administration and the faculty and student bodies from the undergraduate campus and our professional schools for their efforts in crystallizing this event and events to come for all of us.
At 1 AM Greenwich Mean Time on December 26, 2004, the earth moved suddenly and violently. A great and powerful tidal wave spread swiftly across the Indian Ocean from Indonesia to Somalia. Glued to our TV sets and computer screens, we have all seen the images and pictures of horror and devastation that defy our description and numb our very consciousness. That wave has figuratively washed us here together as a Dartmouth community today.
At 7:10 AM Eastern Standard Time 2 days later on December 28, 2004, the tidal wave of 71 years of the life of Susan Sontag ebbed in New York City. One of the shining intellects of the 20th and 21st centuries, her probing and provocative voice fell silent then for the last time.
Why do I relate these two events? Because of pictures and images……a topic that intrigued her and about which she wrote many times. If she were here with us, she might ask a question that she asked in her last book "Regarding the Pain of Others".
What right do we in Hanover, NH have to look at these pictures of horror, of pain and suffering and death, of lives lost or disrupted forever? What right do we have?
Ms. Sontag penned that "there is a shame as well as a shock in looking at a close-up of a real horror. Perhaps the only people with the right to look at images of suffering of this extreme order are those who could do something to alleviate it…..or those of who could learn from it. The rest of us are voyeurs, whether or not we mean to be"
We do not gather here today as voyeurs. We all wish to do something to alleviate the suffering we have seen, but we must equally learn from it.
In fact, there is little that most of us can do today to directly alleviate this suffering. I, as a physician, must admit to my own shame in being here in New Hampshire today. The generous giving of money through the Dartmouth Tsunami Relief Fund is a worthy and necessary cause. I hope all of you will contribute substantially to this emergency effort. As André Comte-Sponville notes, generosity goes by many names. “Combined with courage, it turns out to be heroism. Joined by justice, it becomes equity. Coupled with compassion, it becomes benevolence. But its most beautiful name is its secret, an open secret that everyone knows: accompanied by gentleness, it is called kindness”.
But in our generosity now in response to this tidal wave, we must realize that we are making wrenching and agonizing choices. We should recognize that it is one of the world's "loud” emergencies that brings us together in the community effort. After the period of the acute disaster, history tells us that our efforts to continue to alleviate the suffering will, as a tidal wave, likely ebb. Will we gather again as a community in 6 months, 12 months or 5 years? Are we willing to gather and contribute to those other “quieter” emergencies that will continue to threaten so many individuals on our planet? A stewardship of all humanity should be the real heart of Dartmouth, as we all can contribute in so many ways throughout our entire lifetimes to the alleviation of the suffering of billions on this planet and to the root cause of all suffering and disease: social inequity and poverty.
To not become voyeurs, we must also learn from this tragic event. An institution like Dartmouth should have at its very heart a curriculum and extracurricular experiences that graduates generations of students whose lives are devoted to social justice and to the alleviation of suffering. Such a core in the very spirit of President John Sloan Dickey would be the single biggest contribution that Dartmouth could make to our world and one that would endure like the granite that surrounds us. Such an educational undertaking should not be just an academic exercise, but should be an atmosphere of personal transformation. The most important learning we can do…… is about ourselves…….. as an institution and as individuals.
Let me speak directly to the youngest members of our community, our students. The happenings of the last 11 days should be a transforming experience for you, a time when your innocence was lost. As I was transformed during my time in college by the images and pictures of ax handles and attack dogs unleashed in Selma, Alabama, so should you be transformed by the images and pictures you have seen from the Indian Ocean. In looking, you now have stepped irreversibly inside these pictures; innocence and detachment can be no more. As Garcia Lorca says in 'Weathervane'…'the things that are gone never return, all the world knows that". You cannot return to where you were on December 25, 2004. Each of you must seek the truth of this world in yourselves. Let me ask you all to do one thing today. Walk somewhere by yourself……. to some quiet spot on or nearby the campus, perhaps the river to remind you of the power of water. Stand in silence and in that silence seek and begin to learn the truth in yourselves. Mahatma Gandhi told us that:
"Silence is a great help to the seeker after truth. In the attitude of silence, the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after truth, and the soul requires inward restfulness to attain its full height".
Let me close with part of a poem by Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet and Nobelist whose work often expresses a sense of suffering and social obligation:
"Human beings suffer
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted or endured.
History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime,
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change.
Believe that a farther shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracle
And cures and healing well.
Call miracle self-healing,
The utter self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
And lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
It means once in a lifetime
That justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme."
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