A challenge, a choice to make
Jan 20, 2009
Pressing students to look within themselves and live their convictions, noted scholar and author Cornel West delivered the keynote address on Sunday for the "100 Years of Progressive Islam: Honoring the Life of Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, 1909-2009" conference at Ohio University. The University of Princeton professor drew a standing-room only crowd for his talk, which was co-sponsored by the Department of African American Studies and the College of Arts and Sciences. A selection of photos and quotes pulled from West's talk follows. -- Compiled by Monica Chapman and Kerry Kong
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"Hope has to do with a level of commitment -- intellectual, moral social and spiritual -- that says I will stay in motion.... I'm going to continually enact that love, that justice, that reflection, that sacrifice by example... That's the legacy of Mahmoud Mohamed Taha."
-- Photo above shows Taha's daughter with West
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"(Taha) doesn't have to wait and hear the language of Brother Martin (Luther King Jr.) that says, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' He's already lived that life. The turning of the soul has already taken place so that his deep education goes hand in hand with a way of life, a mode of being in the world. It may seem far removed from the precious students here at Ohio University, but I hope not." | |
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"It's so easy to get so blinded by the flags of narrow forms of patriotism and nationalism that we lose sight of the universality of the human family." |
"The question becomes are you spiritually, politically and morally prepared to confront the catastrophic in such a way that the best of who you are emerges rather than the worst?"
-- Photo above shows West with Ohio University President Roderick J. McDavis
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