Speech prepared by Simonetta A. Rodriguez, for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's 22nd annual celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., February 16, 1996.
Good morning. I am a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, in the Information Technology group of the department.
This morning I would like to draw your attention to a curious fact.
We are all human beings.
We all know this, of course. I draw your attention to this mundane fact, while asking each of us to reflect on whether we know this fact in our hearts, as well as in our heads. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. tried to draw our attention to this fact, I believe it is the most salient aspect of his message.
We are one species.
As scientists, we know this. As educated adults, we know this. Our children know this. But do we truly accept this fact, in our hearts? Do we accept its implications?
It means that we are all cousins. All of us are cousins. Look at all the other people at your table, say hello to your cousins.
It means that Africa is our home. All of us. Africa is our home, the mother-land, the place where we formed. The womb. Do we honor our home, do we hold it precious in our hearts?
The answer may be, in many cases, no. I contend that in one sense this is understandable, even if it is sad. Because if humanity has a collective development process, and I believe it does, then we are, as a sentient species, at the stage of adolescence.
In adolescence, we do not honor our mother, indeed, we are often ashamed of her, and annoyed by everything that she does. It is part of the maturation process, to reject that from which we sprang, before learning to honor that source, the first springboard.
Mother Africa. Mother Earth. Mother Nature. Mother can not protect us any longer. We must step up to the responsibilities of species adulthood, to our collective responsibility for ourselves, for each other, and for our home.
Mother's oceans and mountains no longer serve as protective barriers, protecting us from each other. We fiddle with the very core of Mother's designs: we smash her atoms to see what is in them, we dice and snip her DNA, we throw around things in mind-boggling quantities, into her air, water, and soil.
I see this as similar to the situation when a teenager first gets behind the wheel of a car, legal to drive, with gas in the tank, foot on the accelerator pedal, hands wrapped firmly around that steering wheel. Maturity will be the teen's only possible savior at this point.
When we are mature, collectively, as a sentient species, we will grasp that the essential oneness of the human species, is its beauty and its power.
We are "the leaves of one tree, and the fruits of one branch." (*)
Our rich variety and diversity, in the face of our oneness, can not be, any longer, a source for hatred or violence.
No one plants a garden, such that all the leaves and all the blossoms, are the same size, and color, and shape, and scent. If we do plant for such a result, we call it a crop, not a garden! No one goes out of their way to see a crop, even if it is a crop of roses. A hundred acre crop of roses, who cares! A hundred acre rose garden, with flowers of every color, well, we will drive for hundreds of miles to see that, for it is beautiful.
We must look upon every human gathering as an opportunity to partake of the beauty in our diversity, in the face of our oneness. We must find ourselves restless and dissatisfied, when we are forced to be surrounded by people who look and think exactly like us.
Let me point out that we are one in another way, which emphasizes our relationship to Mother, the Earth.
With every breath, we inhale chunks of each other!
Think about it, we must breathe, eat, and drink, the same recycling set of atoms and molecules on our "pale blue dot," as Carl Sagan calls the Earth. Here on the dot, without any doubt, I am breathing in, some of the very atoms and molecules, that formed part of another person's life. Not only am I related to every other living human being, the stuff of my body, is the stuff of all human beings of the past.
Science makes it clear: by breeding, b-r-e-e-d-i-n-g, and breathing, b-r-e-a-t-h-i-n-g, (*) the oneness of humanity, indeed, the connectedness of all life, is indisputable. Our task, our challenge, our hope, our future, is to accept this in our hearts, and instill its effects in our behavior.
Thank you very much.
(*) Notes:
First: quotation from Bahá'u'llah.
Second: concept borrowed from Nathan Rutstein, speaking in Ithaca, NY in 1994.