Editor’s Note: Prof. Kassam sent this note to his students on Nov. 6th, the day after the 2024 Presidential Election. It has been edited for style.
My Dear Students,
A number of you have come to see me today with tears of pain and frustration. The events of yesterday may not have gone the way we wished. I realize, like you, we are entering a period of uncertainty, instability and divisiveness. The challenges ahead of us seem insurmountable and exhausting given what we have already faced with COVID-19, violence around the globe and crimes being committed against the planet.
But remember who we are, we are scholars! We do not meet darkness with darkness. Because if we directly engage the darkness, we take on the very qualities of the hate that we oppose. Our role is always to infuse light. This is our nature, our creed and our mission. We are the antidote because we bring the light of insight through our scholarship and we share this understanding with everyone irrespective of their ideological, ethnic, religious or sexual orientation. This is what we do, we act with wisdom governed by knowledge and compassion. An intellectual not only has the capacity to reason, but also the capacity to imagine and empathize. This is how we are able to convince others who may not see what we see.
You may feel isolated, but you are not alone. I have often said to you that the happiest moment of my day is when I come to class to teach and engage you. Because together we co-create insight and knowledge. We are not alone; we have each other, and I have all of you!
Tomorrow we will continue to articulate a methodology of hope that is not only worthy of each other but also of our ancestors as well as our descendants. Remember what I taught you on the first day of class about what I learned from the Indigenous peoples of North America and Central Asia: within you are seven generations! If we place ourselves in the middle, at the fourth generation, then we reflect upon the past — to our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents; and with that hindsight, we envision the future — to our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren. That is seven generations. We give purpose to the continuum of life itself, because we have the ability to repair the past — therefore, change the present and create a new future. Embodied in us, are the seven generations because we are at once: reconciling the past, transforming the present and reimagining the future. As scholars, this is our calling, our task and our responsibility.
Be well and thrive,
Karim
– Karim-Aly S. Kassam, PhD
International Professor of Environmental & Indigenous Studies
Department of Natural Resources & the Environment, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences
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