Humankind’s Shared Humanity as Touchstone for The Future

Harvard 2025 Graduation Speech: Chinese Student Yurong Jiang on Humanity and Shared Future ….  https://youtu.be/6hoIEBv486E …

30 May 2025 …. At Harvard University’s 2025 graduation ceremony, Chinese graduate Yurong Jiang [delivered] a powerful message on global unity. Emphasizing that “humanity is a community with a shared future,” she reminds us that even those labeled as enemies are still human beings. Her words call for empathy, understanding, and a rethinking of division in our world.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES – APRIL 22: Views of Harvard University, an Ivy League University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. Harvard University sued the Trump administration on Monday after the federal government said it was freezing $2.2 billion in grants and sought what university officials described as ‘unprecedented and improper’ control over the Ivy League institution. ‘The consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting,’ Harvard President Alan Garber said in a message Monday announcing the lawsuit. Last week, the Trump administration announced that it was freezing federal funding after the school refused to accept demands that the administration has said aim to address antisemitism on campus. Among the government’s demands were an audit of student body views and a ban on international students who are “hostile to the American values and institutions.” In Monday’s suit, the university argued that the funding freeze is not related to the administration’s antisemitism concerns. (Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The first Chinese woman selected student speaker at a Harvard graduation has sparked heated discussion on both Chinese and American social media.

A conservative X account criticised Harvard for choosing a graduation speaker who is “a representative of a CCP-funded and monitored non-government organisation”, alleging that her father works for a non-government organisation that “serves as a quasi-diplomatic agent for the [party]”…………….Harvard Magazine – 5.29.2025

Yurong “Luanna” Jiang, M.P.A. ’25, Graduate English Address: “Our Humanity” ….. A laundry machine fiasco inspires a reflection on international development

https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2025/05/harvard-commencement-2025-student-speech-yurong-luanna-jiang

Last summer, when I was doing my internship in Mongolia, I got a call from two classmates in Tanzania. They had a very urgent question: how to use their washing machine — because all the labels were in Chinese, and Google kept translating a big button as “Spinning Ghost Mode.”

There we were: an Indian and a Thai calling me, a Chinese in Mongolia, to decipher a washer in Tanzania. And we all study together here at Harvard.

That moment reminds me of something I used to believe when I was a kid: that the world was becoming a small village. I remember being told we would be the first generation to end hunger and poverty for humankind.

My program at Harvard is International Development. It was built on this exact beautiful vision that humanity rises and falls as one.

When I met my 77 classmates from 34 countries, the countries I knew only as colorful shapes on a map turned into real people – with laughter, dreams, and the perseverance to survive the long winter in Cambridge. We danced through each other’s traditions, and carried the weight of each other’s worlds. Global challenges suddenly felt personal.

If there’s a woman anywhere in the world who can’t afford a period pad, it makes me poorer. If a girl skips school out of fear of harassment, that threatens my dignity. If a little boy dies in a war that he didn’t start and never understood, part of me dies with him.

But today, that promise of a connected world is giving way to division, fear, and conflict. We’re starting to believe that people who think differently, vote differently, or pray differently—whether they’re across the ocean or sitting right next to us — are not just wrong. We mistakenly see them as evil.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

What I’ve gained most from Harvard isn’t just calculus and regression analysis. It’s to sit with discomfort. Listen deeply. And stay soft in hard times.

If we still believe in a shared future, let us not forget: those we label as enemies—they, too, are human. In seeing their humanity, we find our own. In the end, we don’t rise by proving each other wrong. We rise by refusing to let one another go.

So, Class of 2025, when the world feels stuck in Spinning Ghost Mode, just remember: As we leave this campus, we carry everyone we’ve met — across wealth and poverty, cities and villages, faith and doubt. They speak different languages, dream different dreams, and yet—they’ve all become part of us. You may disagree with them, but hold onto them, as we are bound by something deeper than belief: our shared humanity.

Congratulations, Class of 2025!

       &&&&&&&&&

A NOTE: This item was sent to me by Mayura Boteju a friend in USA. The pictorial illusrations are my impositions …………. Michael Roberts.                                                                     

CAMBRIDGE, MA – JANUARY 25- Harvard students take part in a demonstration in support of Palestinians on the steps of the Widener Library in Harvard Yard. school. Returning students are still assessing how the departure of Harvard President Claudine Gay and the conflict between Israel and Gaza, have affected the understanding of free expression and academic responsibility on campus. (Photo by Josh Reynolds for for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS – MAY 27: People watch as the Harvard Glee Club and Harvard University Band perform during a concert at Harvard Yard on May 27, 2025 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. U.S. President Donald Trump intensified his fight with Harvard University, the nation’s oldest and one of the world’s wealthiest universities, with his administration asking federal agencies on Tuesday, to cancel contracts with Harvard, valued at approximately $100 million. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

A FURTHER NOTE = AN EMIL COMMENT from ERROL FERNANDO in Melbourne, 3 June 2025