A Note is Not Enough

We flew back from Washington between thunderstorms, watching cloud-to-cloud lightning near the horizon. I'd slept three hours a night for two nights in a row, but even so I leaned against the window and watched. This is how I felt all week -- like I was watching my life from a certain distance.

Distance tends to make people indifferent. Yet the suffering of others is never as remote as we wish it to be, never so far away that it does not affect us. A man named Maher Arar once lived a few miles from my hometown. A Canadian citizen, he was apprehended at JFK airport by federal agents and sent to Syria, where he was repeatedly beaten and abused. Whether labeled as torture or as "robust interrogation techniques," such acts remain a source of shame and a dangerous precedent for America. The "Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act," currently under consideration by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, would end the practice of extraordinary rendition. The Bush administration has sought to redefine torture and limit the scope of the Geneva Conventions. By attaching a signing statement to the Senate's anti-torture bill, the President claimed a right to executive powers beyond the reach of checks and balances, international law, and basic morality.

Maybe you know these things. Maybe you're outraged already. Yet outrage, although entirely justified and sometimes cathartic, is not the most productive of emotions. If our anger dissipates without action, nothing will have changed.

During the Presidential Scholars Program, we attended seminars on leadership and ethics, humanitarianism, and being a good neighbor in a global age. "To see what is right and not do it is want of courage," one lecturer told us. What clearer instruction could we have asked for? Perhaps we were expected to leave all that behind as soon as we arrived in Washington, a seemingly common trend these days. Perhaps we should have separated the youthful idealism of our application essays from the reality of what one can and cannot say for politeness' sake. This same sort of doublethink allows the administration to defend the right to torture, while maintaining that, as the president told me, "America doesn't torture people."

One boy said we didn't understand the solemnity of the moment and claimed our action was "like laughing at a funeral." Yes. To go to the White House, shake hands with the President, smile for the camera, and allow the knowledge of injustice to be hidden under a medal would be exactly like laughing at a funeral.

I thought about this trip for a long time. I knew we might meet the president, and I'm glad I was able to speak to him on behalf of so many who could not. Of course I did not represent every scholar present, but I'm proud of the fifty who signed our letter and the others who wanted to. I certainly never expected this level of media attention, and in many ways it has been a relief to return to my summer camp job. Yet even here, second-graders draw pictures of bombs in their nature journals and play "Iraq War" during free time.

No place is a haven apart from the world, and no place should be a hell beyond the world's knowledge and compassion. On the White House lawn, we heard the president tell us to treat other as we would like to be treated and to make choices we can live with for the rest of our lives. We urged him to do all in his power to end torture, renditions, and detentions without trial. I hope the president heard our request and will act on it. If he does not, I hope you will.