Anne Garrels
Baccalaureate Address
When I was asked to speak at your Baccalaureate, I was both deeply honored and frankly terrified. A whole new meaning to shock and awe. Thanks to you my garden has no weeds, the house is cleansed of spider webs and dust bunnies. All those horrid tasks seemed much easier than providing wisdom in trying times.
When the e-mail came asking to me to be here, I was thrown back to the day I graduated and everything that’s happened since. First, for course, there’s that issue of email.
When I was working in Moscow in the late 70s, early 80s, I could depress the cradle of a rotary phone, pretend the line had been broken, as it often was, and know the office couldn’t reach me for at least another five hours, given how long it took to book a phone call. Of course it worked the other way too. When I desperately needed to talk to bosses or family, it took hours to get through. By the time I left, the phones were held together with duct tape ... the worse for being thrown against walls in frustration.
Now I ... you ... can be reached just about anywhere anytime and are expected to respond immediately. Nestled next to a goat at the top of the Hindu Kush mountains in the wilds of Afghanistan I was able to call home. We are now linked in the most remote of places by cell phone, sat phone, Internet, BlackBerrys, you name it. I am not sure this is all to the good. It turned out a poorly educated Iraqi militiaman, who made his living killing and terrorizing, had googled me before our interview. So much for any thoughts of passing myself off as an inoffensive Canadian.
When I got out of college, a computer took up a building, and I frankly don’t think it was a word I had ever actually uttered. Internet, even videotape, were the stuff of science fiction. Iran was a friend; North Korea a blip on the international scene. The Soviet Union seemed impregnable, as did The New York Times. Now the Web is changing everything, including journalism, and it’s unclear where that is heading.
The pace at which we all live is staggering. I can’t imagine what changes you will see by the time your kids reach your age.
But there are some things that are immutable — uncertainty, ambition, excitement, doing good and being generous as well as being sleazy or worse — and then there’s passion.
That’s the only thing I had coming out of college — a passion for things Russian but I wasn’t sure what to do with it. And there weren’t any jobs. The Soviet Union was largely closed off. The economy was in the dumps. It was not fun. My 20s weren’t the best years of my life. They were sometimes a downright struggle — making a living and figuring out what I truly wanted to do. But those years weren’t boring and they ultimately led the way to some great times.
I had no idea what I would do the day after graduation. I thought somehow, like St. Paul on the road to Damascus, the scales would fall from my eyes, that with diploma in hand I would suddenly be wiser.
Instead, Harvard diploma in hand, I returned to live at home in England, and had to go to secretarial school to get a job. Instead of knocking ’em dead with my intellectual prowess, I ended up as a poster woman for secretaries — my face plastered on the London Tube as “speed-writing girl of the month.” Shorthand and an electric typewriter became my passport to a job. I tried on various identities — banking, publishing, chief Xerox-er, floor-cleaner (probably my best skill). After 69 interviews ... yup ... I eventually got a temporary job back in the States at ABC as a researcher. Someone then got sick. I filled in as an assistant to an assistant to an assistant. With time, though, my passion — Russia — finally paid off. One day someone said “Hey you, you speak Russian, we’ll send you to Russia as a correspondent.” I was cheap. TV wasn’t getting anything from their non-Russian-speaking correspondents there. My boss figured he had nothing to lose. As unlikely a scenario as this sounds, it’s not that unusual. Being in the right place at the right time has paid off for many of my friends. Getting to that place can mean eating a lot of humble pie.
I naturally jumped at the opportunity but that first night in Moscow I realized I was in way, way over my head. I wept with fear of failure ... and a lot else ... but then realized the KGB could hear me because the apartment was bugged. So I had to go outside into the freezing cold and sob my way to sanity out there.
It wasn’t a smooth or easy transition but it worked out. I learned what my strengths are, being a witness, from remarkable human rights activists and other Soviets trying to keep their dignity in a repressive society. I learned about the world, and it made me see home with totally different eyes.
Eventually TV and I weren’t a good match. I gradually hated the job I had yearned for. I was frustrated by the limits of TV coverage. I found NPR but it meant taking a 75 percent salary cut. It was the best move I ever made.
Starting out covering a very Cold War, I ended up covering hotter and hotter ones. I ended up becoming a war correspondent. If anyone had told me I would spend much of six years of my life in Iraq, I’d have asked what they were smoking. But I couldn’t let go. It was a bit like you claiming back Williams — when you faced the specter of racism here and many of you said, “No, that’s not what we are.”
I wanted to help claim back the dignity of my profession, which, including me, had not asked good questions in the run-up to the war. As I stayed in Iraq and watched events unfold, I wanted to explore the arrogance and ignorance which marked America’s conduct during the initial stages of the war. For all the blogs and partisan screeching there must be witnesses on the ground, collecting facts.
I watched as America’s reputation in the world plummeted. You inherit this legacy. It will be for you to ask good questions, help decide what kind of America we will be, how best we should navigate in these difficult times.
I have witnessed more depravity, cruelty, brutality than I ever anticipated or could have imagined possible. But in the midst of this I have found incredibly brave, principled people who risked their lives for the greater good — often ordinary people who, faced with evil, did extraordinary things.
All the young people around the world — people your age who became my assistants, translators in more than just language — they are my secret weapon. They have helped me uncover what has happening in their countries, and many of them also became part of my extended family.
I did not end up having my own children — not because I couldn’t but because I married the love of my life relatively late. My husband was older than I and already had children. He didn’t want more. It wasn’t an easy decision for me. Some friends said, “Hey, get knocked up, he’ll have to accept it,” but that wasn’t the way we dealt with things and that’s certainly not the way to start a marriage. Life is not what you expect it will be. Not having kids is one reason I ended up staying on the road for so long.
But I digress.
Along the way there were journalists I met and worked with who were willing to ferret out the truth, like Anna Politkovskaya in Russia who paid with her life. There were American military officers who learned by their experiences and dared challenge accepted wisdom. There were artists and curators in Russia asking questions about nationalism and the role of religion, for which they might face prison sentences. Globalization has its limits. There were aid workers and doctors ... wise diplomats and teachers ... thoughtful lawyers and bankers ... ordinary Iraqis who shunned sectarian violence and the deadly pressure to take sides.
War can be heady, intense, and addictive. As a young colleague at NPR recently said, “It is also a soul-sucking beast that can start to deform your spiritual and emotional world.” I stayed in Iraq too long — a warning against arrogance.
But don’t be so cautious that you never leave your comfort zone. Some of you may be like me — you don’t know what exactly it is you want to do. Others of you may be totally directed. Whatever. Take advantage of the terrible job market. Get off the treadmill to success you’ve been on to this point. Before you get caught up in a career track — before you start raising a family — see the world up close, try out some identities, live somewhere that is totally foreign ... whether somewhere at “home” or abroad. You have a huge amount to offer but others also have a huge amount they can show you. Out of your comfort zone you will meet people ... confront situations and ideas that will make you a richer and wiser person. Perhaps one of the most interesting assignments I have had occurred here at home. It involved covering Islam here in the States. I took the subway in New York to the end of the line and encountered a world of new immigrants from Pakistan and Yemen. I learned a huge amount from them about America in just a few days.
Don’t ever regret roads not tried, and now is the time to try them.
This is your last intimate time together before you finish packing up. Look at each other. This is an extraordinary community and one that will endure as you set out to join new ones. You can be ballast for each other in the times ahead. The alumni will be there for you. I guess I am now an honorary alum. I am ready to be of help. Being passionate about what you do is important, but ultimately it is family and friends who will provide the true joy.
In some school speech, by someone whose name I have long forgotten, there were three words that still echo — defend, continue, increase. These three simple words have gotten me through some tough times ... Defend ... Continue ... Increase.
I am going to be arrogant and invite myself to your 10th reunion. I want to know what you go through. I want to hear the great stories you will have to tell. I want to hear what YOU have witnessed.
June 6, 2009