when I was around seven my toothless
brother and I on long boring taxi rides
in Syria would indulge in imperialistic
fantasies of how he wanted to take over
the country outside our windows my
parents would quickly crush these
Imperial conquests by warning you'll get
taken by secret service if they hear you
the walls everywhere we were told could
hear our revolutionary ideas and would
send us to prison whereas children here
had ghosts and the boogeyman are
equivalents were our governments fast
forward to 2010 when I first got here
someone told me if Harvard shut its
gates it could be its own country just
like the Vatican
as I've walked through this place every
day for the past four years I was struck
by how true this idea was I saw it
everywhere the Harvard nation I saw it
in the big and obvious things we had our
own version of the Statue of Liberty the
John Harvard statue our own embassies
the Harvard Clubs of Boston and London a
tax collection agency the Harvard Alumni
Association and an endowment larger than
more than half the world's countries
GDPs
we also had our own diplomatic passports
nowhere did I see this more clearly than
at u.s. immigration at Boston Logan
Airport whenever they saw I was coming
from the Middle East what were you doing
there why are you here why did God make
you from the Middle East but I made sure
I dressed like our overly proud Harvard
dads with Harvard hat Harvard shirt
Harvard shorts and Harvard underwear and
as soon as they saw I was a citizen of
Harvard oh you go to Harvard
surely you must not be a national
security threat welcome to America
and suddenly all the gates to the
American dream opened wide
I saw it everywhere this Harvard nation
but I saw it not just in the hard
structures but more importantly in its
invisible institutions the invisible
scaffolds around and undergirding the
hard institutions I saw it in the
quarreling columns of the Crimson
newspaper
it's kung-fu fights of ideas and lively
student debates with the potency to
propel policy changes by the next
morning's print I saw it in our
cluttered bulletin boards bustling with
life with announcements of student-led
conferences Broadway were these shows
and dorm room projects turned world's
next Facebook smothering each other for
our cursory glimpse a trivial detail
these cluttered boards that often
slipped notice but where some saw papers
I saw passions purpose creativity I saw
a heartbeat of civic communities
vivacity my parents countries were
places where institutional dysfunction
killed off this social dynamism in
vibrant productivity and so I felt
acutely here the value of civil society
and living breathing institutions my
time here would give me a working model
of a better world not only that but that
sense of empowerment to initiate change
you see with those spying walls still
lurking in my memory that constrained
the little Napoleon's in my brother in
me
you might imagine my shock when in one
of my first classes here I suddenly
found myself debating up president so
it's the 1990s our negotiations class
professor set the stage a war is about
to break out between Ecuador and Peru
how will you stop it I raised my hand to
respond wait Professor Shapiro stopping
tell the president what to do and in
walked the Ecuadorian president in
bringing the president to me and having
me speak to and question a shaper of
history and experience the value he saw
in my view Harvard would make me feel I
too could be him I too had the power to
shape history and not just be passively
shaped by it that sense of infinite
possibility we have as children to think
big and conquer great things was
returned to me here a less despotic
version of it but what seemed
intractable problems of the world became
opportunities for me for us to change
things you know when I first got here my
name was Sarah after Harvard it would
become hey Harvard with people stuffing
378 years 5,000 acres of real estate the
entirety of Widener Library and 32 heads
of state all into my 5 foot 6 inch self
ridiculous as it is there's a strange
reality to it Arab American author Ren
de girar pictures inhabiting a new place
as running barefoot the skin of our feet
collecting sand and seeds and rocks and
grass until we had
whose shoes made of everything we picked
up as we ran and running through Harvard
Yard over the past four years the skin
of our feet collecting a world of
experiences we each become this place in
a strange way
each of us picking up bits of people and
history and ideas that change the way we
saw the world accumulations I hope we
will continue to wear on our souls and
leave a footprint of all the best we
took from Harvard Yard
on our new destinations and that's why I
am hopeful for the future I am hopeful
because of my dining hall dinners spent
marveling at friends who while their
countries waged bloody war against each
other are able to carry out civil
conversation and build generative
projects together I am hopeful because
of the founding mothers and founding
fathers of revolutionary ideas like
these being launched into the world who
will make of its institutions its
constitutions its hospitals its art
houses something better we hear a lot in
the news about an arab spring this
graduation is sending six thousand
revolutions into the world in the six
thousand revolutions graduating as part
of the class of 2014 if we take those
revolutions those great ideas sparked
behind Chipotle burritos and Starbucks
coffee cups in our version of Tahrir
Square Harvard Square out with us into
the real world into the real Tahrir
squares and make something of them
revolutions not in arms but in minds
more powerful and permanent and
pervasive for this isn't a Ukrainian
revolution or an Arab Spring but a
global revolution
this is the Harvard spring of 2014 this
is the Harvard spring
[Applause]
{{
当我大约七岁的时候
，我和没牙的兄弟在叙利亚长时间无聊地乘坐出租车时
会沉迷于帝国主义
幻想，幻想他想如何
在我们窗外接管这个国家
如果他们听到你的秘密服务，
我们被告知的任何地方的墙壁都可以
听到我们的革命思想
并将我们送进监狱，而这里的孩子
有鬼魂，而妖怪则
等同于我们的政府快
进到 2010 年，当我第一次来到这里时，
有人告诉我，如果哈佛
关上大门 它可能是它自己的国家
就像梵蒂冈
过去四年里我每天都走过
这个地方 我被这个想法的真实性震惊了
显而易见的事情 我们有我们
自己的自由女神像
约翰哈佛雕像 我们自己的大使馆
波士顿和伦敦的哈佛俱乐部
税收征管机构 Harva rd
校友会和一个
超过世界一半以上国家
GDP 的捐赠基金，
我们也有自己的外交
护照，我在美国最清楚地看到了这
一点。
每当他们看到我来自中东时就在波士顿洛根机场移民
你在那里做什么你
为什么在这里为什么上帝让
你来自中东但我确保
我穿得像我们过于骄傲的哈佛
爸爸戴着哈佛帽子哈佛衬衫
哈佛短裤和哈佛内衣
，他们一看到我是哈佛公民，
哦，你去哈佛，
你肯定不会成为国家
安全威胁欢迎来到美国
，突然间所有通往美国梦的大门都
敞开了，
我到处都看到了 哈佛国家，
但我不仅在坚硬的结构中看到它，
更重要的是在它的
无形机构中
看到它，在坚硬的机构周围和
支撑着它的无形脚手架我在深红色报纸的争吵专栏中看到
它是思想的功夫斗争和生动的
学生辩论
凭借在第二天
早上的印刷品之前推动政策变化的效力，我在
杂乱无章的公告板上看到了它
学生主导的
会议 百老汇 是这些表演
和宿舍项目变成了世界
下一个 Facebook 为
我们粗略的一瞥而相互扼杀 一个琐碎的细节
这些杂乱的板子经常被
忽视，但在一些地方看到了论文
我看到了激情 目的 创造力 我看到
了心跳 公民社区
活力 我父母的国家是
机构功能障碍
扼杀了这种
充满活力的生产力的社会活力的地方，所以我
在这里敏锐地感受到公民社会
和活生生的机构的价值 我
在这里的时间会给我
一个更美好世界的工作模式，不仅如此 但是那种
启动改变的授权感
你看到那些间谍墙仍然
潜伏在我的记忆中，它限制
了我兄弟心中的小拿破仑
你可能会想象我的震惊，
当我在这里的第一堂课时，我突然
发现自己在辩论总统，所以
这是 1990 年代，我们的谈判班
教授搭建了一场战争即将爆发
的舞台 在厄瓜多尔和秘鲁之间爆发
你将如何阻止它我举手
回应等待夏皮罗教授停止
告诉总统该做什么然后
走进厄瓜多尔总统
将总统带到我身边并让
我与历史的塑造者交谈并质疑
体验他
在我看来的价值 哈佛会让我觉得我
也可以成为他 我也有能力
塑造历史，而不仅仅是被动地被历史塑造
小时候我们有无限的可能性去思考
和征服伟大 东西在
这里被归还给了我一个不那么专制的
版本，但是
世界上似乎棘手的问题变成
了我们改变
事物的机会，当我第一次来到这里时，你知道我的
名字是哈佛之后的莎拉，它会
变成嘿哈佛，人满为患
378 年 5000 英亩的房地产
整个 Widener 图书馆和 32 位
国家元首都进入了我 5 英尺 6 英寸的自我
荒谬，因为它有一个奇怪的
现实 Ara b 美国作家 Ren
de girar 将居住在一个新地方的画面描绘
为赤脚奔跑 我们脚上的皮肤
收集沙子、种子、岩石和
草，直到我们拥有
了我们
在过去四年里跑过哈佛院时捡到的所有东西的鞋子 岁月
我们脚上的皮肤 收集经验的世界
我们每个人都以一种奇怪的方式变成了这个地方
我们每个人都拾取了一些人、
历史和想法，这些改变了我们看待世界的方式
积累我希望我们
将继续穿上我们的 灵魂，并
在我们的新目的地留下我们从哈佛校园获得的所有最好的足迹，这就是为什么
我对未来充满希望我充满希望，
因为我的食堂晚餐都在
惊叹于朋友们，而他们的
国家彼此之间发动了血腥的战争
能够进行民间
对话并共同构建生成
项目我充满希望，因为
像这样的革命思想的开国元勋和开国
元勋 e 被发射到世界上
谁将使它的机构 它的
宪法 它的医院 它的
艺术馆 更好的东西 我们
在新闻中听到很多关于阿拉伯之春的消息 这次
毕业正在向世界发送六千次
革命 在毕业的六千
次革命中
2014 届毕业生如果我们接受那些
革命，那些伟大的想法
在我们的解放
广场哈佛广场版本的 Chipotle 墨西哥卷饼和星巴克咖啡杯背后引发的那些伟大的想法与我们一起
进入现实世界进入真正的解放
广场，并让它们成为
革命而不是武装 但在头脑中
更强大、更持久、更
普遍，因为这不是乌克兰
革命或阿拉伯之春，而是
全球革命
这是 2014 年哈佛之春 这
是哈佛之春
[掌声]