Our leaders talk to us mechanically, showing fine self-preservation instincts. They seem to be milling in the dark, clinging to tarnished phrases from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution without seeming to realize that both of these documents were the response of courageous and indignant men who were furious at the injustice and the oppression they saw and experienced.
That fury of idealism, those passions seem to be missing from American political life today. We as a country are lucky, for we still have options, just as Washington, Adams, and Jefferson had options. They were wealthy men who might have ducked the affair. But they moved to the only side they felt they could move to; the side of the persecuted. They chose to stand against the powerful, the rich and the unjust.
Today, our generation must take a stance and stand united-those who feel the pains of oppression as well as those who, because of a privileged position in this society, only see the oppression from afar. We must come together as a generation, come together to struggle against injustice and oppression, struggle together in a way which will mark a regeneration of the principles on which this country was formed. I hope that the young people who come together in such a struggle will be as various and diverse as our country is. Our legacy is too broad and too rich for any to believe that it doesn't belong to all of us. As long as we act the part of the living and hold it sacred by our deeds, it will not escape us. We must get together-poor and vulnerable black tenant farmers, Spanish speaking regnant youth, the young people of Appalachia, a region so long plundered of its wealth, wealth which has been stripped from the ground and carried elsewhere leaving those who did the work very little in return.
And in addition Indian youth and young native Alaskans are among the working youth of this country, the millions of men and women who are destined to give a half-country of their lives in labor to this nation, and who deserve more than they are now getting. Also the well-to-do and privileged youth of this country, so many of whom have their own troubles and fears and confusions. Whereas millions their age have virtually nothing they have everything-it seems, except a sense of who they really are and what they believe in. There are many young people in this country who are searching for ways to position themselves alongside those less fortunate.
They are the privileged in many ways, but the deprived in others. They have more, but they feel. I suspect, at loose ends. They are troubled by their own youthful sense of injustice, their Christian sense that it is simply not fair, or to use an expression that my father often used:
"It is not acceptable that a nation as rich as this, or as powerful as this continues to have so many serious social and economic injustices or inequalities."
And in the larger context of the world, those same young people, themselves so well off, may also sense how precarious their situation could be historically. After all, we as a nation make up 5% of the population of the earth, yet we consume 40% of its raw materials, and we are its wealthiest nation.
How long can such a state of affairs continue? How long can we keep ourselves insulated from the crying needs of people elsewhere as well as those right here among us?
The history of social struggle is a long one-I have already referred to the revolutionary origins of American society. But long before this country was founded, men and women fought against various tyrants and exploders and the same exploiters clothed themselves in sweet sounding pieties and talk of their rights and their privileges, as if they were somehow beyond question. And always those who dare to question or criticize the status quo are called bad names or ostracized or hunted down as criminals. The story is an old one and it goes back to the dawn of history.
Almost two thousand years ago there lived a man who risked everything, and ultimately his life because he was willing to defy power and principalities to defy the rich and powerful men and their military supporters who ran one of the world's earlier empires.
This man who risked all, loved the poor, tried to feed them and heal them and speak for them and work on their behalf and consule them and ultimately agitate against the wrong he knew afflicted them. He walked for long stretches, preaching, one might even say today, organizing. He was not afraid to condemn those he knew were wrong, however powerful or privileged they were. He allowed Himself anger and that judicious indignation that distinguishes mere observers, however well intentioned, from social and political activists who want to change the world as well as study it. His name was Jesus Christ. I would think one of the most significant moments in his life was when he appeared outraged in the temple at the excesses of the money lenders.
Somehow we who are young and live in this nation, 2000 years later must find a mixture of Christ's compassion and understanding, but also his clean anger, his willingness to commit his energies in a struggle on behalf of the downtrodden of this world.
"We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed," Thomas Jefferson wrote. Our commitments must be to action, and we cannot expect it to be easy action. It will take all our energy, all our compassion, all our strength. We will need determination and faith, for truly it is our mission on earth, Without those, we are lost, but with them the big payoff and final reward will dwarf the millions that the selfish have hoarded and heal the divisiveness and the wounds already seared. It is our duty together, and together we must begin. For as my father quoted Albert Camus:
"Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you don't help us, who else in the world can help us do this?"
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. '76 is a junior affiliated with Winthrop House.