On April 10, Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman will share her story of bravery, commitment and self-sacrifice with the Elizabethtown College campus.
When was the last time you thought that a cause was so worthy, so just, so immediate, that you would risk your life to support that cause? Do you know individuals who are so dedicated to a cause that they are willing to risk their lives to support it, to try to make a difference that would mean success?
These are big and important questions, which we, as Americans, in the greatest democracy and the richest economy in the world, don’t think much about. But there have been times, recently, when Americans like you risked their lives for such causes. Many students just like you demonstrated vociferously and passionately in the late 1960s and 1970s against what they believed was an unjust war waged by the United States in Vietnam. Maybe even the parents of some of the College’s students were involved. And some of those demonstrators, college students just like you, died at Kent State University in Ohio, demonstrating for what they believed were unjust policies on the part of the U.S. government. Many others — 50,000 to be exact — died in the Vietnam War, fighting to protect the freedoms we often take for granted. My own college roommate was killed in that war.
For the past three years, young people in a different part of the world have been demonstrating and risking their lives to gain freedom in the Middle East. Many have been killed. Many more have been painfully injured and the situation in Syria is still so raw, so emotional, that it is even hard to just read the news coming from that country.
Have you ever thought about who those people are? Who were the demonstrators at Kent State, who are the people in Tahrir Square in Egypt and what are they like? Why are they so passionate about their cause that they are willing to die for it?
In 2005, Paul and Judy Ware ’68 gave a grant to Etown so that the students and the leaders of the next generation could experience these passionate leaders firsthand. Not by live feed, not by professionally-produced media, but in the flesh, up close and personal. This is a powerful concept and the Wares deserve our gratitude for giving us, right here at Etown, the opportunity to hear, meet and talk to people who have helped change their own societies and the world.
The Ware Lecture series has brought to our campus winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, people whose contribution is so big, so courageous, that they have been honored and held up as examples for the other seven billion of us who inhabit this planet. These courageous people do not come to the United States often. They rarely come to college campuses and they rarely interact with students directly. In the past 12 months, throughout the United States, there have been only 10 programs similar to this one. We have a remarkable opportunity here at Etown to attend this event.
On April 10, Tawakkol Karman will come to our campus to show us what is exceptional in terms of dedication to a cause.
Karman was one of the earliest leaders of the freedom movement in Yemen in 2011. She was a student who was determined to use the only means she had to fight the corrupt, unjust regime in Yemen: her legs and her voice. She rallied small groups at first. Then those groups grew to thousands and then hundreds of thousands. A female voice in a male-dominated society energized the opposition with her simple dedication and passion. Her life was in danger every day.
The government could have easily shot her and made a martyr of her, but she persevered and moved the dictator out. At 32, she is the youngest person ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. You can see her, hear her and meet her, right here on this campus Thursday, April 10 and Friday, April 11. On Thursday, Karman will speak at the Leffler Chapel and Performance Center at 7:30 p.m. On Friday, she will discuss her experiences with students and faculty members at two classroom-like sessions.
Don’t miss these opportunities to experience the passion for one’s cause, to learn what it means to risk your life for what you believe. And then decide what you will be passionate about in your life, what you can do to make a difference for your country, your society, your family and your friends. Catch the passion when it comes to Etown and, if you dare, let it change your life.
