All across the world, there are wars, the violence of state against state, but also violence of the state against the people, violence of people against each other, against women and children, against people who are simply different. There are shocking and horrific acts of terrorism.
There is famine and disease which we could stop if we only had the will.
There is the shocking act of violence against our planet, violence that we may have committed in ignorance in the past but that today we commit with full knowledge of the implications of our neglect.
As individuals, it is tempting to disengage, to lead our daily lives and ignore the things that seem beyond our powers, to withdraw from participation in public life, to stop holding our leaders accountable. But, that would be wrong.
John F. Kennedy once said that if we make the peaceful means of revolution impossible, then the violent means of revolution are inevitable. I put it to you that despite the chaos of our world, there is also hope. The Internet makes possible universal communications and it makes possible universal access to all knowledge. These are the peaceful means of revolution, but only if we embrace them.
Education is how we can transform our society. We must educate our children. We must educate our rulers. We must educate ourselves.
John Adams wrote that the American revolution was only possible because our founders were men and women of learning, people who knew history. He said that “ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind.” He said that a democracy cannot work if the citizenry is not an informed citizenry. He said we should “tenderly and kindly cherish ... the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. Let every order and degree among the people rouse their attention and animate their resolution.”
In India, that brave and long struggle for swaraj that led to the birth of a new nation—a struggle that led to that tryst with destiny—a struggle that inspired all the world to action—that struggle was also based on an informed citizenry. Gandhi-ji was invoking Justice Ranade when he said we must educate ourselves so as to warn our rulers.
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