when I was around seven my toothless
brother and I on long boring taxi rides
in Syria would indulge in imperialistic
fantasies of how he wanted to take over
the country outside our windows my
parents would quickly crush these
Imperial conquests by warning you'll get
taken by secret service if they hear you
the walls everywhere we were told could
hear our revolutionary ideas and would
send us to prison whereas children here
had ghosts and the boogeyman are
equivalents were our governments fast
forward to 2010 when I first got here
someone told me if Harvard shut its
gates it could be its own country just
like the Vatican
as I've walked through this place every
day for the past four years I was struck
by how true this idea was I saw it
everywhere the Harvard nation I saw it
in the big and obvious things we had our
own version of the Statue of Liberty the
John Harvard statue our own embassies
the Harvard Clubs of Boston and London a
tax collection agency the Harvard Alumni
Association and an endowment larger than
more than half the world's countries
GDPs
we also had our own diplomatic passports
nowhere did I see this more clearly then
at u.s. immigration at Boston Logan
Airport whenever they saw I was coming
from the Middle East what were you doing
there
why are you here why did God make you
from the Middle East but I made sure I
dressed like our overly proud Harvard
dads with Harvard hat Harvard shirt
Harvard shorts and Harvard underwear and
as soon as they saw I was a citizen of
Harvard oh you go to Harvard surely you
must not be a national security threat
welcome to America
and suddenly all the gates to the
American dream opened wide
I saw it everywhere this Harvard nation
but I saw it not just in the hard
structures but more importantly in its
invisible institutions the invisible
scaffolds around and undergirding the
hard institutions I saw it in the
quarreling columns of the Crimson
newspaper
it's kung-fu fights of ideas and lively
student debates with the potency to
propel policy changes by the next
morning's print I saw it in our
cluttered bulletin boards bustling with
life with announcements of student-led
conferences Broadway worthy shows and
dorm room projects turned world's next
Facebook smothering each other for our
cursory glimpse a trivial detail these
cluttered boards that often slip notice
but where some saw papers I saw passions
purpose creativity I saw a heartbeat of
civic communities vivacity my parents
countries were places where
institutional dysfunction killed off
this social dynamism and vibrant
productivity and so I felt acutely here
the value of civil society and living
breathing institutions my time here
would give me a working model of a
better world not only that but that
sense of empowerment to initiate change
you see with those spying walls still
lurking in my memory that constrained
the little Napoleon's in my brother and
me
you might imagine my shock when in one
of my first classes here I suddenly
found myself debating up president so
it's the 1990s our negotiations class
professor set the stage a war is about
to break out between Ecuador and Peru
how will you stop it I raised my hand to
respond wait
Professor Shapiro stop me tell the
president what to do
and in walked the Ecuadorian president
in bringing the president to me and
having me speak to and question a shaper
of history and experience the value he
saw in my view Harvard would make me
feel I too could be him I too had the
power to shape history and not just be
passively shaped by it that sense of
infinite possibility we have as children
to think big and conquer great things
was returned to me here a less despotic
version of it but what seemed
intractable problems of the world became
opportunities for me for us to change
things you know when I first got here my
name was Sarah after Harvard it would
become hey Harvard with people stuffing
378 years 5,000 acres of real estate the
entirety of Widener Library and 32 heads
of state all into my five foot six inch
self ridiculous as it is there's a
strange reality to it Arab American
author Ren de girar pictures inhabiting
a new place as running barefoot the skin
of our feet collecting sand and seeds
and rocks and grass until we
shoes shoes made of everything we picked
up as we ran and running through Harvard
Yard over the past four years the skin
of our feet collecting a world of
experiences we each become this place in
a strange way each of us picking up bits
of people and history and ideas that
change the way we saw the world
accumulations I hope we will continue to
wear on our souls and leave a footprint
of all the best we took from Harvard
Yard on our new destinations and that's
why I am hopeful for the future I'm
hopeful because of my dining hall
dinners spent marveling at friends who
while their countries waged bloody war
against each other are able to carry out
civil conversation and build generative
projects together I am hopeful because
of the founding mothers and founding
fathers of revolutionary ideas like
these being launched into the world who
will make of its institutions its
constitutions its hospitals its art
houses something better we hear a lot in
the news about an arab spring this
graduation is sending six thousand
revolutions into the world in the six
thousand revolutions graduating as part
of the class of 2014 if we take those
revolutions those great ideas sparked
behind Chipotle burritos and Starbucks
coffee cups in our version of Tahrir
Square Harvard Square out with us into
the real world into the real Tahrir
squares and make something of them
revolutions not in arms but in minds
more powerful and permanent and
pervasive for this isn't a Ukrainian
revolution or an Arab Spring but a
global revolution
this is the Harvard spring of 2014 this
is the Harvard spring