US Corzine to grads: Don’t fall to ‘bystander syndrome’
By Richard F. Murray, The Record Breeze
NEw JERSEY, May 27, 2005 — Evoking the ongoing genocide in Africa’s Sudan, U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), on Saturday exhorted graduating Camden County College students to avoid a form of social apathy he called the “bystander syndrome.”
“Before my two days in Iraq (recently), I visited Sudanese refugees in Chad on the border of Darfur, Sudan, and saw the evil face of genocide,” Corzine said in a commencement address before 1,358 graduates and their families, gathered under a broad tent on the college’s Blackwood campus.
To the class of 2005 – the largest graduating class in the college’s history – Corzine said he saw firsthand the evidence of “the unspeakable suffering inflicted on millions – with civilians in the western Sudan subjected to a coordinated campaign of rape, murder, and displacement sponsored by their own government.”
The lawmaker emphasized that “I’m not here to ask you to dedicate yourself to Africa, but I am here to say that when confronted with a Darfur, none of us can be silent.”
“I am here to oppose the bystander syndrome,” he continued, defining that condition as “the insidious social disorder where people tune out their surroundings and act like spectators in their own communities and in their own world.”
He said most Americans are unaware of the slaughter in the Sudan, and acknowledged that he himself had never heard of Darfur until the current crisis, which reportedly has claimed the lives of 180,000 people and displaced 2 million more.
“People’s lack of knowledge about Darfur is not the great cause of our inaction; the cause is a form of voluntary paralysis, a lack of urgency in the corridors of power in Washington and Africa, but I believe citizens can stand together and demand a different course,” said Corzine, the front-runner in New Jersey’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, slated for June 7.
Corzine had joined other legislators in pushing the Darfur Accountability Act through the U.S. Senate. The bill called for a military no-fly zone over Darfur and sanctions against the Sudanese government. Earlier this month, however, the measure died in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Corzine contended its demise is owed to pressure from the Bush administration.
He repeatedly called on students to combine personal ambition and a “sense of the common good.” Such an attitude is necessary, he said, to defeat “the sense that nothing can be done for our schools, or the mean urban streets, or to combat global warming.
“Because from the beginning, America has not been about individuals acting alone and only for themselves, but about individuals choosing to come together to form a more perfect union, a commonwealth of ideals that unites us, and progress not just for some, but for all,” Corzine said.
The national legislator made no direct reference to his bid to become New Jersey’s next governor, except to joke that he had something in common with the graduates. “I, too, am looking for a new job,” he said.
He did, however, say that “in our state” selfishness has boiled over as corruption, and has thus effectively “levied a tax against working families struggling to afford the costs of living.”
New Jersey’s sate government must be reformed, he said, adding that “it must serve our citizens, not exploit them. It must set and meet high standards of honesty and strive to advance prosperity and fairness for all.”
In an earlier address, College President Phyllis Della Vecchia told the students that not only are they part of the biggest graduating class in CCC history, but “you may also be the smartest.” She said the class of 2005 had in the aggregate earned $2 million worth of scholarships.
Also during the ceremonies, the college bestowed the Distinguished Public Service Award upon Camden County Freeholder Jeffrey I. Nash for his many efforts toward upgrading college facilities.