Aly Jeddy '93 received a standing ovation after delivering his valedictory address in which he urged his classmates to be idealists and use their Dartmouth education to make their voices heard in the world.
"The plight of those in despair will never change if we continue to hide our lack or courage behind the garb of being realists," said Jeddy, an engineering and economics double major from Pakistan.
Citing the Tiananmen Square massacre and the current conflicts in Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti, Jeddy echoed Dartmouth's motto, saying that such instances of human despair produce "voices crying out in the wilderness."
"In the emaciated eyes of Somalia we have gazed, not merely at the plight of the famine-stricken, but also at the magnitude of the catastrophe that we, as humans, are entirely capable of causing if we cease to care about this planet and our fellow humans," Jeddy said. "Theirs too have been voices, barely audible in the wilderness, yearning to be heard."
Jeddy asked his classmates to consider the obligations that come with a Dartmouth degree to help those who do not have the same educational opportunities and he urged graduates to use their liberal arts education to make a difference in the world.
"By the shear accidents of our birth, we are under obligation to ensure that when our voices cry out in the wilderness they are voices not of forlorn travelers bogged down with mundane concerns of wealth, fame or self-interest, but rather that they are voices that articulate visions of a more beautiful planet, a more caring humanity and a more compassionate social order," Jeddy said.
In an interview before his speech, Jeddy, who earned 10 academic citations at Dartmouth, said he plans to work for a consulting firm in San Francisco for two years, attend Harvard Law School and then return to Pakistan to pursue public interest law, Jeddy said .
Despite the human despair that exists today, Jeddy said the past provides us a reason to be optimistic for the future.
"Has it not been the case that for every Adolf Hitler we have seen a Mohandas Gandhi? Has it not been the case that for every Tiananmen Square of aggression that stayed, a Berlin Wall fell?"
According to Jeddy, his heroes include former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and Mohandas Gandhi, two idealists and champions of civil rights
"I, today, contend merely that the Gandhis of tomorrow will emerge only if we choose to be them. I, today, contend merely that the Berlin Walls of tomorrow will fall only if we, with intellectual and ideological bulldozers, take it upon ourselves to raze them to the ground," Jeddy said before being interrupted by applause.
