Sajjid Zahir Chinoy Final

Sajjid Zahir Chinoy’s speech was a rather remarkable one, like many commemorative speeches. It was given completely extemporaneouly, and given the quality of the speech, it can be assumed that he was very seasoned in speeches. He starts off his introduction very brief after thoroughly addressing both the audience and, most importantly, the University of Richmond’s Class of 1996.

He starts his speech out by creating a fantastic visual of his time and place. You feel as though you can picture the exact night that he is boarding the plane bound for the United States. The inflection in his voice varied dramatically and kept your attention. His pitch varied considerably when he needed to stress importance in certain topics of his speech. His addition of humor into his speech was just right. It kept the audiences attention, but didn’t go overboard.

He made a fantastic transition from his own thoughts of culture and how it applied to his life to cultural differences all over the world. He proceeded to describe different occasions when he spent time with various people he knew from the Unviersity of Richmond, experiencing major American holidays for the first time. To have the opportunity to share this with someone of a different culture was such a beautiful and moving experience. The differences didn’t matter between them and all the wars and conflicts in the world didn’t exist. He perfectly explained it when he said, “The commonality of the human bond far transcends these superficial differences.”

He makes fantastic contrast in his speech when he goes from emotionally moving and touching experiences in the United States to the slaughter of 300,000 in Bosnia in just a few years time. The reasons for the massive numbers were so petty. Simply because they were different. Nevermind the fact that they were all human beings, with the potential to learn and experience their differences like Sajjid Chinoy did.

He continues to describe the fighting between Hindus and Muslims in which 2,000 Indians were killed. He put it in perspective describing that they were fighting simply over a building. Something that could be built anywhere. But those lives could never be brought back.

And he explained how the only thing missing in his life-changing experience and the experiences of people in these war torn countries is that the people at the University of Richmond were accepting of their differences and embraced them. It would have been easy not to be sensitive to him.

In the end, he wraps up his speech by reiterating his initial question and provides the answer. He encourages the Class to take experiences such as his own out into the world to help make it a better place and to share their wisdom with the world. He ends by thanking the Class, I believe for both their attention during the speech, but also for the experiences of a lifetime and the lessons he learned from all of them. It is a fantastic extemporaeous speech, one of the best I’ve ever heard.