Students examine role of courage in Egyptian uprising

“Go out and raise hell” may seem like unlikely parting advice from a Stanford professor, but it is how consulting professor in human biology William Abrams concluded his winter quarter sophomore Introductory Seminar, “Injustice, Advocacy and Courage: The Path of Everyday Heroes.”

Students in the class grappled with the idea of courage throughout the course of the quarter, considering figures from Obama to a man who killed a doctor who performed abortions to protest the practice.

“The idea was to consider courage and how people do things that are courageous,” Abrams said. “It goes beyond bravery…It’s the notion of a person taking a stand, extending themselves, putting themselves at risk and doing that because of a belief that something is right.”

Studying real-life situations was critical to this exploration of courage. Professor Abrams saw value in having students personally connect with the people involved in the topics they were studying.

A few weeks into the quarter, an opportunity arose for students to do exactly that when protests broke out in Egypt on Jan. 25. Young Egyptians called for the fall of then-President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, practicing nonviolent resistance, sometimes at great personal costs.

Abrams assigned a presentation in which all the students in the seminar would work together to explore how Egyptians demonstrated courage.

“You don’t have to study this in a history book,” Abrams said. “You don’t have to read about it in a newspaper; you can get in direct contact with the people involved.”

The IntroSem students interviewed Egyptian students at Stanford and conducted a live Skype interview with an Egyptian protestor who claimed he was pelted with tear gas in the initial days of the uprising.

“What we had in mind was to build a better Egypt…to stand up for our rights,” he said when asked what motivated his group to risk protesting.

Though some demonstrations of courage, such as braving physical attack, are easy to identify, the presenters delved into more complex questions, asking if the use of social media, for example, was courageous.

“A lot of times, maybe from the media, you get only one side of courage, and it’s kind of one-dimensional,” said Karl Kumodzi ’14. “This class reexamined courage from a lot of different viewpoints.”

Others’ questions included the role of the ambiguous concept of “courage,” courage as a catalyst and the idea of a broken “fear barrier.”

“Our aim was not to answer these questions so much as to raise them,” said Tyrone McGraw ‘11.

The point of the project, however, was not simply intellectual hypothesizing. The students were able to construct for themselves a tangible example of courage.

“The students looked at what their counterparts, kids the same age, were doing in Egypt and… why was that courageous? Would they do things similar here? Would they speak out? Would they put themselves at risk?” Abrams said.

The students were responsive to this goal, finding inspiration in the acts of the protestors they studied. Many students were struck by the variety of forms courage could take.

Although this is the first year this seminar has been taught, some of Abrams’ past students have started projects such as FACE AIDS and the Global Health Corps, as well as a cell phone network in Africa that enabled physicians in rural areas to communicate with hospitals.

“I want students to dare to do things… whether it’s challenge a corrupt dictator or challenge an unjust policy or improve the health care system, we want people to be daring, and that’s what I mean by raising hell,” he said.