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GlobeMed Senior Speeches (3 of 3) - Maya Cohen

by Ashley Hagaman on March 11, 2010

My name is Maya Cohen, and I am a member of the Barnard/Columbia chapter. On our first night here, Raj Panjabi told us "to make change we must master two languages-the language of power and the language of love." Although I am far from fluent, I am going to try to speak both of these languages tonight, and I'll start with the language of love.  

I'll begin by telling you about one of my most cherished Globemed moments. It happened at 9:32 on a dreary Saturday morning over winter break, and arrived in the form of an email with the subject line, "REVELATION" (all in capitals) from one of my chapter's new Co-Presidents, the wonderful Liza Plafsky. The email opened like this, 

"I just wanted to tell you that I've been reading a lot of stuff from the national office and I'm realizing that GlobeMed is the best thing ever.  I'm SO fricken happy I've gotten as involved as I have... I really think it has been and will continue to be pretty much the most defining aspect of my undergrad experience."  

There was more, but I will get to that later.  

Over the past two years GlobeMed has shown me how to uncover the ways in which I am connected to places deemed "wildernesses" by the rest of my society, places where, as the poet Eduardo Galeano writes, people live 

Who don't speak languages, but dialects.

Who don't have religions, but superstitions.

Who don't create art, but handicrafts.

Who don't have culture, but folklore.

Who do not have names, but numbers. 

It showed me through partnership with an incredible community on the other side of the world that these numbers are humans with human rights, and that with the proper tools, we can work together to build a more equitable world. Helping us figure out what these tools are, and then showing us that we have them at our fingertips, is the most valuable gift that GlobeMed gives to its students.  

In her proposal for our first joint project, the Executive Director of Gulu Women's Economic Development and Globalization (yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is GWEDG for short), Angwech Pamela Judith, wrote, "In northern Uganda, poverty strikes like bush fire," a heart-wrenchingly perfect metaphor for the power and devastation of structural violence. Before becoming a part of Globemed, I looked out over a burning world, and looking down at my own small bucket of water, felt that I would have to wait many years in order to gain the power to marshal the deluge needed to put out the flames and see our scorched world to return to life.  

I don't feel that way anymore. 

First, I realize that I am not alone. Over the past two years, I have found myself shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of students and community activists. It has been an incredible privilege to stand alongside of you, working together to build a more equitable world.  

Second, I have come to realize how infectious the GlobeMed vision of activism is. I have seen the look on a student's face when I explain our model and a lightbulb goes off over their heads: "Yes," I can see them say, "That makes sense. Realizing human rights through cross-cultural human connection. That will work." As I have witnessed these epiphanies, watched as students become part of the globemed network and begin to live and breath its language and ideals, I have begun to imagine 2030 and see the hundreds of arms with buckets in hand. When I do this, I realize that we are slowly but surely building a veritable monsoon.  

As I read the rest of Liza's email on that Saturday morning in January, I recognized my experience and my dreams for our chapter and network in her words. Her email continued,  

"I don't know how to explain it, but now that I've had time to sit down and really read all the materials and really think about GlobeMed, its mission, and how it's going about accomplishing it, I've realized how amazing it really is. There's so much positive work to be done, and we're already heading in such the right direction by being involved with GlobeMed.  I just wanted to share all this with you because I know how much GlobeMed means to you.  

I have said many times to many people that GlobeMed has been one of the most defining experiences of my college career. But to see my experience mirrored in the words of one of my chapter's next leaders was a validation of my hopes not only for Liza and my chapter but for the whole network. The truly mind-boggling thing is that GlobeMed came to mean so much to me because it first meant so much to a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens whose passion has had a ripple effect through the lives of everyone sitting in this room tonight, and hundreds of people who cannot be here but to whom we are deeply and personally connected.  

Furthermore, in giving us this model by which to effect change, they have infected us with the knowledge that change is readily achievable, and therefore we have the responsibility to enact it. In my experience, once you've begun to lead, to envision, to act, it's like learning to read. In the same way that none of us can look at words now and not read them, we also can't look at injustice and not read the possible solutions. We understand the ways in which we are all intricately connected, and that, human to human, we need each other, and we can be what each other needs. This ultimately is the language of ubuntu, the language of love, and its message is the one we speak in our activism, our community, and our passion for this movement. So lets take a moment to look around, and acknowledge the ridiculous amount of Globemed love in this room right now.  

Now hold onto that love, and let's start talking the language of power. 

The core belief of our movement is that health is a human right, and all of us fight at home and alongside our partner to enact this right. We do that through our partnerships, through education, and through the language of interconnectedness and human love. However, it has become increasingly clear to me that relying on the language of love is not enough. If our goal is moving beyond compassion to effective action, we need to start coupling our grassroots work with an engagement with the political and economic mechanisms of power that establish and therefore have the capacity to re-engineer the frameworks that create structural violence. Rights are inherently political concepts, and, as an organization fighting for human rights, we cannot in good conscience avoid confronting this fact. Therefore we need to start a real dialogue about the role of political action in our network and our movement. I know for myself that I have been hesitant to push the boundaries of my activism into these daunting, divisive and often abstract fields. But if we stop at discussing and studying structural violence without seriously considering how to engage the bastions of power, political and otherwise, that enact that violence, we are stopping short of fulfilling our mission.  

I know this is a conversation that is raging at the national office, and when I was ranting these thoughts to Victor earlier today, he wisely reminded me that political action can be an incredibly divisive and polarizing issue. Victor's points are definitely legitimate, and I am not calling for us to start storming capital hill.  

Again, going back to Raj's comments, we need speak both the language of power and the language of love to truly enact change. We need to work together to identify platforms that we can and should be acting on to fulfill and strengthen our mission. Though we are a grassroots movement, we need to engage with the structures on top while maintaining our roots on the ground. Our challenge as an organization and as individual citizens is to now find a language of power to match our language of love, allowing us to fight with an even stronger voice for a just and equal world.  

So to my incredible chapter from which I draw my strength and inspiration, I just want to say thank-you for all of your dedication, passion and brilliance. You inspire me every day to keep dreaming, planning, and working for a better world. Most of all, thank-you, Stacy Chu, for being the best Co-President anyone could ask for. There is no way our chapter would have survived and thrived as it has without you. To all of the friends I have made and have yet to make sitting here tonight, I am in awe of you and cannot wait to hear about the amazing work you accomplish individually and together. Finally, to the National Office, for more support, guidance, and inspiration than I could ever thank you for. You are a ridiculously awesome group of people.  

With tons of globemed love, thanks everyone. You are truly amazing.

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