World of Education/World of Education.iso/world_w/wiesel.zip/WIESEL.TXT

Text File | 1992-05-23 | 30KB | 372 lines

                           ELIE WEISEL SPEAKS TO ALL OF US

       I believe this message is important to all of us.  I have prepared
       this message for public domain (which means it is not to be sold)
       but can be copied and passed on so that many others may see and
       hopefully act on what Professor Wiesel has said.  I would hope that
       educators will use this and pass it on to the  students in their
       classroom for discussion purposes.

       I would appreciate any comments on this program and I hope in some
       way we as educators can bring about a better education program for
       all and not just for some.

       Coming Soon - Newsletter and BBS on Alternative Health Methods
       If interested write or leave a message on CompuServe.

       Michael Ireton, 3727 Atlas Street, San Diego, CA  92111
       or leave a message on CompuServe - 76557,3067.

                    A KMI Educational Consultants Presentation


                           ELIE WIESEL

                                  Talks to All of Us



                                    Presented By

                                         KMI
                                     Educational
                                     Consultants



            A Nobel laureate asks graduates -- and the rest of us --
                   to think about what education really means


                HAVE YOU LEARNED THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON OF ALL




                             Presented in
                                  Parade Magazine
                                       May 24, 1992




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        Elie Wiesel, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, is
        currently Professor in the Humanities at Boston University.
        A native of Transylvania, he was captured by the Nazis at
        15 and imprisioned in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concen-
        tration camps, where nearly all his family died.  He is the
        author of some 30 books, including "Night" and his newest,
        "The Forgotten."  Speaking as an American citizen, a writer,
        a teacher and a witness to history, Wiesel has an urgent
        message for the graduates who will be entering the world in
        these uncertain times.



      The real tests are ahead of you.
      How you will deal with your own
      or others' hunger, homelessness,
      antagonism?

                                          Should you encounter temporary
                                          disappointments, I pray: Do not
                                          make someone else pay the price
                                          for your difficulties and pain.

      Knowledge belongs to everyone
      irrespective of race, color
      or creed.

  First, I would like to congratulate you.  For you and your parents, the

  day of your graduation should be marked by joy and celebration.  Your

  years of study and work have brought triumph, which rewards you, honors

  your teachers and brings pride to your families.


     And now you are ready to say farewell to your classmates and face

  both the privileges and obligations society will feel entitled to place

  upon you.

     How will you cope with them?


     May I share with you one of the principles that governs my life?

  It is the realization that what I receive I must pass on to others.

  The knowledge that I have acquired must not remain imprisoned in my

  brain.  I owe it to many men and women to do something with it.  I

  feel the need to pay back what was given to me.  Call it gratitude.


     Isn't this what education is all about?


     There is divine beauty in learning, just as there is human beauty

  in tolerance.  To learn means to accept the postulate that life did

  not begin at my birth.  Others have been here before me, and I walk in

  their footsteps.  The books I have read were composed by generations

  of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples.  I

  am the sum total of their experiences, their quests.  And so are you.



     You and I believe that knowledge belongs to everybody, irrespective

  or race, color or creed.  Plato does not address himself to one ethnic

  group alone, nor does Shakespeare appeal to one religion only.  The

  teachings of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. do not apply just

  Indians or African-Americans.  Like cognitive science, theoretical

  physics or algebra, the creations and philosophical ideas of the ages

  are part of our collective heritage and human memory.  We all learn

  from the same masters.


     In other words, education must, almost by definition, bring people

  together, bring generations together.


     Education has another consequence.


     My young friends, I feel it is my moral duty to warn you against

  an evil that could jeopardize this generation's extraordinary possi-

  bilities.  That evil is fanaticism.


     True education negates fanaticism.


     Literature and fanaticism do not go together.   Culture and fana-

  ticism are forever irreconcilable.  The fanatic is always against

  culture, because culture means freedom of spirit and imagination, and

  the fanatic fears someone else's imagination.  In fact, the fanatic

  who wishes to inspire fear is ultimately doomed to live in fear,

  always.  Fear of the stranger, fear of the other, fear of the other

  inside him or her.


     Fanaticism has many faces: racism, religious bigotry, ethnic hatred.

  What those faces have in common is an urge to replace words with

  violence, facts with propaganda, reason with blind impulses, hope with

  terror.


     For a while we might have believed that fanaticism was on the

  decline.  It is not.  Quite the contrary, it is on the rise in our

  cities, in our country and in our world.


     In Western Europe -- in Germany and France, Belgium and Austria --

  we are seeing a resurgence of yesterday's demons of fascism and in-

  tolerance.  In Eastern Europe, ethnic factions are rekindling old

  conflicts.  In the Middle East, deeply held hatreds seem ever on the

  verge of sparking more raging conflagrations.  "It's us against them"

  has been taken as an essential truth.  Strangers are being greeted

  with animosity almost everywhere.


     Let us look at our own country.  As this last decade of a millen-

  nium, runs to its dazzling dénouement, we seem ever more divided.

  Can't all our citizens -- white Americans and African-Americans,

  Hispanics and Asians, Jews and Christians, Jews and Moslems, young and

  old -- live together, work together and face together their common

  challenges?  Must they -- must we -- constantly subject ourselves to

  useless social tensions and dangerous ideological conflicts that could

  turn joy into dust and creation into ashes?


     We face many difficulties and must find answers to thorny questions

  if our nation is to flourish:  What has happened to our economy?  What

  went wrong with elementary and secondary education?  Why are so many

  youngsters seduced by crime?  By Drugs?  By Hate?  Why is there so

  much bloodshed in so many quarters?


     The answers to these questions do not lie with the clichés, sense-

  less stereotypes and absurd accusations that are being used to justify

  religious or ethnic hatred.  Evil forces are at work -- some, to my

  embarrassment, unleashed by my fellow teachers -- and something must

  be done to heal the effect of their poisonous theories.


     In the New York City neighborhood of Crown Heights last year, a

  black child was killed when a car driven by a Hasidic Jew went out of

  control and jumped the curb.  Already strained tensions between the

  black and Hasidic communities exploded.  A young Hasidic man was

  killed, and a black man was arrested for the murder.  For days and

  weeks, the streets were filled with scenes of violence and hatred.

  The incidents left deep scars.


     We must ask ourselves if we, as a nation, want to be reduced to

  addressing our problems with violent actions.  Will we allow street

  wars at home to succeed armed conflicts abroad?


     As a Jew, I have witnessed the consequences of anti-Semitism, which

  is one of the oldest group-prejudices in history.  We Jews have been

  accused of many sins.  Now we are perceived as the group that wields

  more power than any other.  I have heard good people say this --

  decent people, intelligent people.  Don't they know that not all Jews

  have power?  That not all those that have power are Jewish?  Haven't

  they ever heard of poor Jews who are unable to make ends meet?  Who

  live on welfare?


     African-Americans have been subjected to centuries of racism.

  Today, some blame the victims for the problems of our country.  Don't

  they know that most African-Americans are hardworking, good citizens?

  That the tragedy that occurred in Los Angeles, born of injustice, is

  just that, a tragedy?  That important parts of American culture --

  from music to language to literature to fashion -- have been created

  by African-Americans.


     I insist:  All collective judgments are wrong.  Only racists make

  them.  And racism is stupid, just as it is ugly.  Its aim is to de-

  stroy, to pervert, to distort innocence in human beings and their

  quest for human equality.


     Racism is misleading.  There are good people and bad people in

  every community.  No human race is superior; no religious faith is

  inferior.  We all come from somewhere, and we all wonder where we are

  going.


     I know:  You have been tested during your years in school, more

  than once.  But the real tests are still ahead of you.  How will you

  deal with your own or other people's hunger, homelessness, sexual or

  gender discrimination, and community antagonisms?


     The world outside is not waiting to welcome you with open arms.

  The economic climate is bad; the psychological one is worse.  You

  wonder, will you find jobs?  Allies?  Friends?  I pray to our Father

  in heaven to answer "yes" to all these questons.


     But should you encounter temporary disappointments, I also pray: Do

  not make someone else pay the price for your pain.  Do not see in

  someone else a scapegoat for your difficulties.  Only a fanatic does

  that -- not you, for you have learned to reject fanaticism.  You know

  that fanaticism leads to hatred, and hatred is both destructive and

  self-destructive.


     I speak to you as a teacher and a student -- one is both, always.

  I also speak to you as a witness.


     I speak to you, for I do not want my past to become your future.


                                 The End