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'Do
You Not See the Heart in the Stars?'
By Kevin M. Cahill, M.D.
It
is a privilege to be asked to share in this memorial service at Pace
University, but also, and just as important, to be present at your time
of renewal. These emotions-grief approaching despair, and overwhelming,
abiding hope-are not contradictory or mutually exclusive. Particularly
for the young, hope for a better future, contradictory or mutually,
is a fundamental part of your being. It is why you study at a university.
To learn, to expand your minds, so that you can contribute to others
and maybe, just maybe, make a more sane world for your children and
their children.
Today, it is both your solidarity with the dead and the injured, combined
with your determination and commitment to begin a new era, that offer
the finest tribute to the memory of those we honour. To you who have
lost loved ones, and to you who are physically or mentally scarred by
this trauma, do not be afraid, do not underestimate your capacity to
heal and to grow, for you can, and you simply must go on, and we all
must learn from this disaster.
My own perspective on tragedy is somewhat unusual. Every day most physicians
deal with human tragedy, for pain and death are a part of medical life.
But usually these are individual events, and few physicians are prepared
for enormous catastrophes. But for over forty years I have had the good
fortune to work in troubled parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
I began my career in tropical medicine in the slums of Calcutta and
first saw widespread starvation there. Later, I worked as a doctor in
refugee camps in Somalia and the southern Sudan, and lived with disease
and death on a massive scale. I have been caught behind the lines in
conflicts and seen senseless slaughter in Beirut and Managua and all
across the scarred landscape of modern Africa.
My perspective on human tragedy, therefore, is tempered by such experiences
and may offer a necessary balance, as we Americans ponder the terrorist
acts that destroyed the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon,
killed thousands of innocent people and disrupted life around the world.
Because I deal with epidemic diseases, and the potentials of bio-terrorism,
I have been at the emergency command post and down at the ground-zero
site. No words-at least I do not have words-can describe the rubble
there, with fused body parts strewn across a landscape we knew so well.
We had been spared such scenes in the United States. Geography isolated
us from recent conflicts; the First and Second World Wars passed our
land by, but we must remember that the spectre of death and destruction
is well known in almost every other part of the world. We must not forget
that London and Stalingrad, Dresden and Hiroshima, Dubrovnik and Grozny
have all been almost obliterated and yet, with courage and hard work,
with help from friends and former enemies, they came back to life as
cities and societies. In our sorrow today, as we honour our thousands
dead and missing, we must also remember that a million people were hacked
to death a few years ago in Rwanda.
I worked in Somalia when hundreds of thousands of innocent women and
children starved to death. Every one of those dead had a father and
mother, sister or a brother, child or a lover.
Somehow, keeping that perspective has always helped me to carry on,
to try to help others to heal. I firmly believe we are all part of one
world. We in America have been the most fortunate, and we have every
right to defend our way of life. But we would indulge in an obscene
and dangerous deception if we think this is the only tragedy to befall
mankind. Those are not, I hope, unfeeling words on a day when one rightly
expects sympathy. But healing will take more than mere expressions of
sympathy.
It will begin-as your University proudly does every day-by
mixing the wisdom and efforts of all cultures, races and religions in
an endless struggle to find better ways to root out hatreds and end
the cycles of violence, part of which exploded right here in your neighbourhood
on September 11th.
It is important that the world outside of this nation also understand
that America is a nation of caring and compassion. If we are perceived
as only a military power that will seek our vengeance, then violence
and retribution will inevitably continue. For many years I have been,
as my wife sometimes suggests, obsessed with the idea that health and
humanitarian affairs ought to be central in our foreign policy, not
peripheral afterthoughts. We have failed, as a great nation, to let
the outside world understand the goodness of our people, to be as proud
of America's heart in the stars as we are of our undoubted strength.
The solutions that America uses in responding to the terrible terrorist
acts we have endured must reflect, as President Bush has indicated,
our resolve and our power to punish and destroy those who tried to end
our way of life. But, as any physician knows, a surgical excision is
but a tool in therapy. The first obligation is to define the root causes
of a disease and know how it evolves before devising a rational therapy.
Even in mental illness, one must try to understand the bases of disturbed
thoughts if one is to penetrate those terrible dark areas of paranoia
and hatred. I pray that our national response will be based on all the
unique qualities that make America great. The world must see the heart
of America as we have seen it here in New York in the last few days.
This memorial service will end with the lighting of candles-the flame
has long been a symbol of the search for knowledge and truth. You, in
your university years, are the new generation that must carry on that
search, and you now know that here in New York you are no longer alone.
You have lived through an incredible period that binds us together.
It is important that you go forth in confidence, and in love, using
the power of the mind and the heart rather than the tools of revenge
and violence. I wish you well in this difficult endeavour.
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In a small
examining room in my medical office, there is a drawing of an
American flag done by the distinguished artist Louis Le Brocquy.
Many years ago, he was sitting on the porch of our home and, looking
at our flag, suddenly said, "Do you not see the heart in the stars?"
I show you this image because in a way I think it captures what I
feel today. America has demonstrated its heart in remarkable ways in
the past fortnight. We all know the stories of those who rescued the
disabled and then went back into the burning buildings to save their
fellow workers. We know of the heroic work of police and
firefighters, and one has only to see, as I just did, the people in
the command centre and down at the ground-zero site to know that
America has a very big heart indeed. There are lines of good people
donating their blood and their money and their time as volunteers.
We've had a tireless mayor lead this city out of chaos and encourage
life to return to normal. America demonstrated a heart that we may
have always known was there, but, as is our fashion, was too rarely
seen.
-Kevin Cahill
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