Dear OneUtah Readers:

The following is a speech I gave upon being recognized as a distinguished alumnus of the College of Humanities at the University of Utah. In the speech, I stress the importance of understanding and effectively addressing instances of injustice and genocide in today’s world. With a federal administration that has pursued unjust policies in the Middle East, and refuses to act to stop the ongoing genocide in Darfur, it is up to every one of us to, as Gandhi said, “be the change you wish to see in the world.” We have the power to make an enormous difference, if only we come to see the sufferings of people in places like Darfur as the sufferings of fellow members of our human family, and strive to remedy their situation.

I thank Cliff Lyon for the opportunity to contribute to this discussion, and for his accomplishments in advancing progressive discourse throughout the State of Utah.

Mayor Rocky Anderson
Salt Lake City, Utah

Speech:
I am honored to be with you today and very pleased to thank Dean Robert Newman for his tremendous, innovative, energetic leadership of the College of Humanities. The work being done by faculty, by administrators, by board members, and by contributors, is formative in the lives of so many who will be far better equipped because of their studies and interactions here to make this a healthier, safer, more just world.

My studies in the Humanities determined my path for everything else that has come after. My studies – particularly in ethics, political and religious philosophy, history, and literature – were not only influential; they were life-altering.

Most of what I have done, what I have pursued, and what I have accomplished has flowed from the most fundamental truths I discovered from those studies. I learned, first and foremost, that we are all responsible. I learned that we cannot foist our personal responsibility off onto supernatural figures, onto our parents, onto our political or military leaders, onto religious leaders, or onto anyone or anything else. Responsibility stops with each of us.

I learned that saying “I was just following orders” is not a way out of our responsibility. By saying that, we are simply saying, “I chose a certain course of conduct that conformed with what someone else said.” Following orders, simply complying, is still a choice. Perhaps the most important thing I learned in my studies was that we always have the power – the choice – to say “No.” No, I won’t slaughter men, women, and children, even if ordered to do so by Lt. William Calley. No, I won’t wiretap people without a warrant, even if ordered to do so by Alberto Gonzales. No, I won’t participate in the delivery of prisoners to countries where they will be brutally tortured, even if ordered to do so by Donald Rumsfeld.

To be responsible sounds like such a simple concept. But it is not. And the ramifications are enormous – empowering – and horrifying.

To respond is at the root of our responsibility. Perhaps the most disturbing truth is that there is no way out of our responsibility. As moral actors – as human beings – we cannot ever authentically maintain that we’ll just sit this one out. We may not act, and we may not even raise our voices against injustices or atrocities, but, as humans, we are always on the field, always suited up, always either helping or hurting, even by our silence or inaction.

I recall the times during my undergraduate years that the shock of personal responsibility settled into my consciousness. I was stunned. I realized that we’re always on one side or the other, even if we aren’t aware – and even if we just keep our mouths shut and refrain from acting.

The burden of being human – of being responsible – is something to celebrate as life-affirming. We can, and should, even enjoy it – and have some good humor along the way. We are, after all, as responsible for our own happiness and enjoyment of life as for anything.

When I lived in Germany after I bailed out of graduate school in Philosophy, I washed dishes with an older man. I asked him about what he was doing during World War II. He was emphatic in saying “I did not know about the killing of the Jews.”

Whether one believed him or not, does it really make any difference whether he knew? The Jews were still butchered, either way. If he didn’t know, he should have. If he knew and he failed to do anything about it, then he was fostering the status quo – in just the same way as someone who sits idly by while watching a child walk in front of an oncoming train fosters the endangerment of the child. Whenever there is misery, whenever there is injustice, whenever there is cruelty, there are always at least two paths from which to choose. One is to do something to stop the tragedy; the other is to do nothing, thereby aiding and abetting the commission of the tragedy.

Fundamental to our responsibility to act and to speak up is our responsibility to learn about wrongs that can be remedied. Our responsibility does not entail simply acting or refraining from acting if and when we happen to learn about a wrong being perpetrated. We must seek out the knowledge about what is occurring. To close our eyes so we don’t see an injustice being committed is to choose to allow it to continue.

I wish Orrin Hatch had learned about the responsibility to learn. Perhaps then, while serving for so many years in such a powerful office, where he could have taken action that would make a monumental difference, he would have read more about global warming than one work of fiction, a novel by Michael Crichton, which is to the science of climate change what Jurassic Park is to the history of dinosaurs.

I wish President Bush had learned about this responsibility. Perhaps then, before choosing to begin a tragic war, he would have been more competent in determining whether, in fact, Iraq posed a threat to the United States. Or, after discovering his astounding blunders about weapons of mass destruction, he would have acknowledged the mistakes and stopped prolonging the slaughter and destruction under the guise of one new rationale after another.

I wish the President, the Congress, the United Nations, the international community, and all of us as individuals, would have recognized our responsibilities to know and to act, and stopped the slaughter of two million Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge; the genocide, mass rapes, and ethnic cleansing for over two years in Bosnia; and the brutal hacking to death of 800,000 people in 100 days in Rwanda. If we didn’t know, we had a responsibility to know. People were dying, being raped, and tortured. If we turned a blind eye to it, then we are responsible for that blind eye. If we did know, and we didn’t take action, then we were also complicit. And, today, each of us, including myself, who have not done all we can to stop the current genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan are fostering that genocide. Our responsibility is to learn about it, then to act. Our responsibility is to really mean it when we say “Never again.”

As moral actors, we must all do so much better. We must find our voices to say “No” to the status quo. And, as members of the human family, we can all make such an enormous difference. In that power, we can rejoice.

So, thanks to the Humanities, I often don’t sleep very well. I am always conscious that I am never doing enough. And I subscribe to way too many magazines, in an effort to make sure I learn about things that will be added to my list of matters upon which I should act.

We can’t learn about it all, and we can’t do it all. But the point, I think, is to learn and do what we can. Visit an inmate. Help clothe or feed someone in need. And if it sounds as if I’m plagiarizing from St. Matthew, let me add that we can demand of our president and congressional representatives that they take effective action to intervene and stop the on-going genocide in Darfur.

We can also help the College of Humanities continue its crucial mission of teaching students to think critically, choose ethically, and honor their responsibilities as moral actors. So much is at stake.

And, in order to get through this serious business of being human, of being responsible, we can nourish and gain nourishment from our wonderful community in so many ways, not least of which is a bit of imbibing and partaking of intellectual hors d’eovers at the Humanities Happy Hour, another in a long line of fine traditions begun by Dean Robert Newman and Tim McGinnis.

Here’s to being human, being responsible, and rejoicing in it every chance we get.