Standing at a Crossroad
by Beth Orchard, IPS Student, Social Justice
Swami Vivekananda spoke at the first Parliament of the World’s Religions on Sept 11, 1893. His speech spoke to his hope for a world of inclusivity and harmony between people of all faiths. He reached out to his audience at that time to ask that they consider within themselves a spirit led by God to love one another as He sees us–a community of brothers and sisters.
Juxtapose that with September 11, 2001. That was a day everything changed. The impact of the planes hitting the Twin Towers reverberated the world over and 9 years later we are still reeling from this catastrophe.
Jitish Kallat designed an artistic expression of what began on that day as a search for peace and reconciliation. Using the color codes designed by the Federal Government’s terrorist alert system, Jitish imposes them upon the peaceful words of Swami Vivekananda. If you were to stand in the middle of the Woman’s Board Grand Staircase, you could look up from all sides and read the words as they ran from one stair to another, each word coded in a different color.
As I stood in the center of the staircase, I found myself feeling the weight of the decades since Swami’s speech. I see the words ‘bigotry’ and ‘fanaticism’ in bold colors alongside ‘welcome,’ ‘toleration’ and ‘hope.’ It was as if Swami Vivekananda resided in that very room where he spoke so many decades ago to implore us to look at the current context in which we live.
I was reminded of the ‘Eightfold Noble Path’ and the Buddhist tenants laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. We are asked to seek wisdom through Right View and ethical conduct by Right Speech. According to Buddhists, Right Speech is a moral discipline. It is a way of honoring others through speaking only truth to and about them, as well as seeking within ourselves to speak only what is necessary.
As I pondered this image of speaking and consider the United States Constitution of the Right to Free Speech, I imagined the founding fathers filled with hope that we may be able to speak our minds and engage one another in dialogue.
Jitish Kallat combines both of these elements in his piece, so that when I stood in the middle of the staircase and felt the weight of history’s words, I began to understand the depth of their meaning. While we have so many rights freely available to us, Jitish calls us to consider their purpose. Is it to only afford some of us these freedoms or are they free for all who come here?
Interfaith dialogue was as present in 1893 as it is in 2010, standing in the midst of a piece of art that transcends words to invoke a divine calling we all need to hear– to love one another as God loves us, to engage one another in honest dialogue and to embrace our differences. We must all work together to re-envision the events of 9/11 as a catalyst for building bridges of cooperation, not walls of division. Our forefathers and our brothers and sisters here and around the world hold out hope that this day will come. A time when we can all stand on the grand staircase and imagine a time when we were divided yet overcame the struggle. With God as the source of our wisdom and strength, I honestly believe this is possible.