[Music]
hello everyone my name is Anna SteriPEN
and I know the speech is going to be
success and I might even break the
internet because I woke up today with my
right leg touching the floor first if
you didn’t notice I also stepped on this
carpet with my right leg first that is
because in Armenia the country where I
come from starting your day with the
right leg brings you luck I went through
a number of different other customary
routine Ori and superstition area
activities today to make sure that odds
are in my favor today and so I do all
these things because I believe in luck I
also believe in bad luck that is why you
will never see me sitting at the corner
of a table because in Armenian
superstition that brings you ten years
of unmarried life similarly when a
friend of mine steps on my foot I insist
that I step back on bears because
otherwise we might get into a fight so I
go about my day doing these activities
along the superstitions good and bad and
I don’t even notice how they shape my
actions and the way I have your world
but thankfully those are very harmless
activities and they’re very personal and
they range from me knocking on wood when
I hear something bad to me trying to
guess what my test is going to be based
on my coffee cup and while many people
will describe me as superstitious I
think that I am superstitious but I’m
also a little more than that
and I cannot define my identity by just
this one belief a French philosopher
Rene Descartes famously said I think
therefore I am
to him the question was more existential
he thought that if we doubt our own
existence the thought process itself
indicates the way exists I think
therefore I am
to me the quote is a bit different I
believe therefore I am also I think that
this believes and the way I perceive
them have shaped my identity in many
ways and because I’ve had so many
beliefs I tried to categorize them and
so I came up with three distinct
categories religion superstition as you
might’ve guessed and societal beliefs
so this question about identity being
defined by beliefs is very interesting
to me and when I said believe the first
thing that came to mind is religion
well there is pretty straight straight
forward for me I’m from Armenia and we
belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church
the religion was brought to us by two
apostles and that is why it’s called the
pasta look we’re the first nation who
accepted Christianity as their national
religion in 301 and we don’t like when
we’re being compared to the Orthodox or
Catholic Church because we’re distinct
institution where our own beliefs and so
95% of my population which is
approximately 2.8 million people believe
in the same thing that I do I listen the
religious real and religion normally
tells us to believe in good things but
however when we come across certain
situations in our life and especially in
case the societal beliefs it’s sometimes
really hard to differentiate between the
good and the bad when it’s a religion
you can always refer back to the
scripture
whether it’s Bible the Koran the Torah
and it it acts as a manual it gives you
the guidance when you have the doubt
between choosing what is good and bad
for societal beliefs it’s a little
different I wish there was something
from the Emperor’s Grove when you have
the angel popping on your right shoulder
the devil on your left shoulder they
have a little discussion debate and then
they decide and guide you through your
actions to what is good and bad but in
real life that doesn’t happen that way
so when we think about this reference
point each one of us constructor or
prone prism of what they want to see in
world to be good and bad we probably
will all agree that Santa Claus and to
affairs are good when it comes to
different ideologies it’s more
complicated than that so to help me
guides myself through the different
ideologies I use religion culture
superstition and mentality or at least I
used to
before coming to NYU Abu Dhabi for this
prism would help me understand is to
change myself in the world where I’d
have questions and as I grew up coming
from a minion society traveling to the
US of an exchange student and then
coming to my abou diaby
I started to have more and more
questions and sometimes this prism
wasn’t enough for me to answer them one
of these questions actually
linked to a childhood story of mine I
used to take walk to the Freedom Park
where there was a statue of mother
Armenia as you can see she was the hero
for me and she was standing overlooking
the city of Yerevan my hometown
she had the sword and the shield and she
was supposed to protect us and keep us
safe and in peace when I looked at
mother Armenia as a young girl I thought
that mother Armenia is who I want to be
I thought that I might even join the
army or become the president and maybe
then I can be able to protect my country
and to change and be the change that I
want to see in the country however when
I asked some of my classmates to vote
for me when I actually started running
for the president
they said that never do so and when I
asked why they said because you’re a
girl
the determined I didn’t have enough
qualification the gentleman I wasn’t fit
for the seat for the position but just
because I was a girl in their eyes I was
just not able to be the president in
general so I support me the other way I
decided to keep my ambitions at bay and
my hopes low and I decided that I will
conform to the roles of women in
Armenian society you see it’s really
tricky here because in Armenia women are
very much valued in the realm of the
family because they’re the building
block of the family they’re the fire of
the family they’re nurturing the family
but outside of the family the role of a
woman is very limited and I thought
that’s how it’s supposed to be until I
came tell me Abu Dhabi my sophomore year
I studied rooming with a girl from the
US she was very different than me
she would wear clogs and leggings to
class and to me there was little
outrageous to print a perspective in
Armenia when a girl goes to a grocery
store to buy bread she puts full makeup
her wrong right clothes and she doesn’t
deflate and it’s very interesting for me
to see that people have different
beliefs than that also she would not
wake up in the morning with her right
leg touching the floor first so for the
longest time I thought she was going to
be the most unlucky person on earth but
our conversations and discussions that
deeper than that we used to argue about
many things one of them being rights I
believed in human rights
she believed in female rights I didn’t
really see the difference between the
two because ideally there shouldn’t be
any female rights are human rights women
argued about education should say that
girls education is very important to me
education for everyone was important and
I didn’t see how these two ideas both
being good had to be separated however I
was being very ignorant to the issue
that there are 64 million girls that do
not have access to education that’s the
entire population of France and that’s
actually 9 million more girls that are
out of school than boys I didn’t
understand that just because you’re a
woman the access to the human rights
sometimes is just not there and
different characteristic not only gender
whether it’s raised religion or the
color of skin ethnicity those things
that define us as a group can hold us
back from accessing these human rights
and when I understood that I being even
a wrench to some of these things I
questioned have I been ignorant towards
many other things like racism
Islamophobia what was the world I was
living in was this prism enough for me
to understand the world as I came in
touch with more people started sharing
my ideas went to different classes
travelled around the world
read up on different issues my prison
started growing and growing and growing
and at the end he became a kaleidoscope
of ideas the way that I identify myself
it’s not just superstition religion
culture mentality it’s an not an
exhaustive list even the one you see up
on there there are many ways I have been
learning to define myself and view the
world and so I feel that this issue of
beliefs is especially important today at
the wake of an unprecedented migration
you might think the jump from gender
equality superstition beliefs to
migration and yes to refugee crisis
might be a stretch but let me explain
there are 65 million refugees in the
world now that’s the entire population
of France plus 1 million and there many
people who are asylum seekers so for
them who haven’t the people who haven’t
even gotten
the status of a refugee the future isn’t
leaked even more bleak so when these
people are playing war coming to a
country with the people that have
different beliefs it’s sometimes really
hard for us to accept people who do not
confront to the same norms that we do
people who have a different religion
have a different view on the world and
who we identified the other when I’ve
been preparing to this speech I came to
learn that yes beliefs make us who we
are make us individuals but those
beliefs don’t really have to take us
apart instead we can discuss them we can
try to change them and we can try to
identify them as something that can even
bring us together so how I came about
thinking about beliefs as not being
something that is a per person and
identity but rather something that is
more societal and that we can work on as
a group is first by raising awareness so
awareness can be achieved in many ways
whether you decide to travel the world
have a dinner with the local person
there and then have a conversation with
them or you just sit in your room Google
News and you read up on the issue that
you care about there are many different
great ways that you can reach the
understanding of the issue that you
truly care about for me
I joined knowledge generation group at
NYU and it’s part of NYU solidarity with
refugees initiative and two weeks from
now we’re going to host the conference
with high school students and we’re
going to educate them and raise
awareness about the refugee issues we
want to raise empathy as well but not PD
because we don’t want to have them think
about the refugee crisis in a
patronizing way we want em to facilitate
the conversation and treat the people
that are going to come to 315 thousand
refugees as equals
another thing after you learn about the
issues is to actually doubt what you’ve
learned in the 21st century where there
are so much fake media and fake news you
have to keep questioning yourself and
not stop at a point where you think the
information that you got comforts you
you have to keep asking you have to keep
wondering and you have to keep doubting
yourself and understanding that you can
be tricked into thinking that getting up
every morning from your life right
like is going to bring the luck and at
the end of the day Renetta card also
doubted the existence and our
existential crisis has brought him to
the quote that you just saw earlier
after you realize that you can be
tricked and you realize the issue that
you care about you have to think about
the ways you can address it so there
comes action whether you decide to
volunteer whether you decide to donate
there are many ways to go about it there
are many organizations around the world
that help fund businesses are bound by
women in Armenia I know several NGOs
that help women that are little bit
harassed or that have been in abusive
relationships that provide them shelter
and they actually provide them lawyers
to actually further advocate for their
rights for me reaction is learning to be
the summer when I joined two NGOs in
Armenia that provide shelter and classes
in Armenian and Arabic to refugees
coming to Armenian the 20,000 Syrians
coming to Armenia and I hope that by my
small action I can help only several of
them to integrate into our community
better and so as you go about this
action list and you think about how to
define yourself after all of the
craziness that’s happening in the world
and you’re trying to find you I urge you
to understand an issue that you care
about to pursue her halted Lee and then
you can grow your impact so now when I
think about defining an identity and
understanding why I’m in this world I do
not stop by saying the phrase I believe
therefore I am brother I live in a blank
so that there are many possibilities for
me to fill it in with different words
that I choose based on my experiences
and interactions I have so I believe
therefore I am the change I believe
therefore I might one day become the
female president of Armenia
well after I turn 35 because that’s a
requirement to run for president and I
believe therefore I’m able to understand
the issue pursued or heartedly and I
grow my impact thank you very much
you
[Applause]
hello everyone my name is Anna SteriPEN
and I know the speech is going to be
success and I might even break the
internet because I woke up today with my
right leg touching the floor first if
you didn’t notice I also stepped on this
carpet with my right leg first that is
because in Armenia the country where I
come from starting your day with the
right leg brings you luck I went through
a number of different other customary
routine Ori and superstition area
activities today to make sure that odds
are in my favor today and so I do all
these things because I believe in luck I
also believe in bad luck that is why you
will never see me sitting at the corner
of a table because in Armenian
superstition that brings you ten years
of unmarried life similarly when a
friend of mine steps on my foot I insist
that I step back on bears because
otherwise we might get into a fight so I
go about my day doing these activities
along the superstitions good and bad and
I don’t even notice how they shape my
actions and the way I have your world
but thankfully those are very harmless
activities and they’re very personal and
they range from me knocking on wood when
I hear something bad to me trying to
guess what my test is going to be based
on my coffee cup and while many people
will describe me as superstitious I
think that I am superstitious but I’m
also a little more than that
and I cannot define my identity by just
this one belief a French philosopher
Rene Descartes famously said I think
therefore I am
to him the question was more existential
he thought that if we doubt our own
existence the thought process itself
indicates the way exists I think
therefore I am
to me the quote is a bit different I
believe therefore I am also I think that
this believes and the way I perceive
them have shaped my identity in many
ways and because I’ve had so many
beliefs I tried to categorize them and
so I came up with three distinct
categories religion superstition as you
might’ve guessed and societal beliefs
so this question about identity being
defined by beliefs is very interesting
to me and when I said believe the first
thing that came to mind is religion
well there is pretty straight straight
forward for me I’m from Armenia and we
belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church
the religion was brought to us by two
apostles and that is why it’s called the
pasta look we’re the first nation who
accepted Christianity as their national
religion in 301 and we don’t like when
we’re being compared to the Orthodox or
Catholic Church because we’re distinct
institution where our own beliefs and so
95% of my population which is
approximately 2.8 million people believe
in the same thing that I do I listen the
religious real and religion normally
tells us to believe in good things but
however when we come across certain
situations in our life and especially in
case the societal beliefs it’s sometimes
really hard to differentiate between the
good and the bad when it’s a religion
you can always refer back to the
scripture
whether it’s Bible the Koran the Torah
and it it acts as a manual it gives you
the guidance when you have the doubt
between choosing what is good and bad
for societal beliefs it’s a little
different I wish there was something
from the Emperor’s Grove when you have
the angel popping on your right shoulder
the devil on your left shoulder they
have a little discussion debate and then
they decide and guide you through your
actions to what is good and bad but in
real life that doesn’t happen that way
so when we think about this reference
point each one of us constructor or
prone prism of what they want to see in
world to be good and bad we probably
will all agree that Santa Claus and to
affairs are good when it comes to
different ideologies it’s more
complicated than that so to help me
guides myself through the different
ideologies I use religion culture
superstition and mentality or at least I
used to
before coming to NYU Abu Dhabi for this
prism would help me understand is to
change myself in the world where I’d
have questions and as I grew up coming
from a minion society traveling to the
US of an exchange student and then
coming to my abou diaby
I started to have more and more
questions and sometimes this prism
wasn’t enough for me to answer them one
of these questions actually
linked to a childhood story of mine I
used to take walk to the Freedom Park
where there was a statue of mother
Armenia as you can see she was the hero
for me and she was standing overlooking
the city of Yerevan my hometown
she had the sword and the shield and she
was supposed to protect us and keep us
safe and in peace when I looked at
mother Armenia as a young girl I thought
that mother Armenia is who I want to be
I thought that I might even join the
army or become the president and maybe
then I can be able to protect my country
and to change and be the change that I
want to see in the country however when
I asked some of my classmates to vote
for me when I actually started running
for the president
they said that never do so and when I
asked why they said because you’re a
girl
the determined I didn’t have enough
qualification the gentleman I wasn’t fit
for the seat for the position but just
because I was a girl in their eyes I was
just not able to be the president in
general so I support me the other way I
decided to keep my ambitions at bay and
my hopes low and I decided that I will
conform to the roles of women in
Armenian society you see it’s really
tricky here because in Armenia women are
very much valued in the realm of the
family because they’re the building
block of the family they’re the fire of
the family they’re nurturing the family
but outside of the family the role of a
woman is very limited and I thought
that’s how it’s supposed to be until I
came tell me Abu Dhabi my sophomore year
I studied rooming with a girl from the
US she was very different than me
she would wear clogs and leggings to
class and to me there was little
outrageous to print a perspective in
Armenia when a girl goes to a grocery
store to buy bread she puts full makeup
her wrong right clothes and she doesn’t
deflate and it’s very interesting for me
to see that people have different
beliefs than that also she would not
wake up in the morning with her right
leg touching the floor first so for the
longest time I thought she was going to
be the most unlucky person on earth but
our conversations and discussions that
deeper than that we used to argue about
many things one of them being rights I
believed in human rights
she believed in female rights I didn’t
really see the difference between the
two because ideally there shouldn’t be
any female rights are human rights women
argued about education should say that
girls education is very important to me
education for everyone was important and
I didn’t see how these two ideas both
being good had to be separated however I
was being very ignorant to the issue
that there are 64 million girls that do
not have access to education that’s the
entire population of France and that’s
actually 9 million more girls that are
out of school than boys I didn’t
understand that just because you’re a
woman the access to the human rights
sometimes is just not there and
different characteristic not only gender
whether it’s raised religion or the
color of skin ethnicity those things
that define us as a group can hold us
back from accessing these human rights
and when I understood that I being even
a wrench to some of these things I
questioned have I been ignorant towards
many other things like racism
Islamophobia what was the world I was
living in was this prism enough for me
to understand the world as I came in
touch with more people started sharing
my ideas went to different classes
travelled around the world
read up on different issues my prison
started growing and growing and growing
and at the end he became a kaleidoscope
of ideas the way that I identify myself
it’s not just superstition religion
culture mentality it’s an not an
exhaustive list even the one you see up
on there there are many ways I have been
learning to define myself and view the
world and so I feel that this issue of
beliefs is especially important today at
the wake of an unprecedented migration
you might think the jump from gender
equality superstition beliefs to
migration and yes to refugee crisis
might be a stretch but let me explain
there are 65 million refugees in the
world now that’s the entire population
of France plus 1 million and there many
people who are asylum seekers so for
them who haven’t the people who haven’t
even gotten
the status of a refugee the future isn’t
leaked even more bleak so when these
people are playing war coming to a
country with the people that have
different beliefs it’s sometimes really
hard for us to accept people who do not
confront to the same norms that we do
people who have a different religion
have a different view on the world and
who we identified the other when I’ve
been preparing to this speech I came to
learn that yes beliefs make us who we
are make us individuals but those
beliefs don’t really have to take us
apart instead we can discuss them we can
try to change them and we can try to
identify them as something that can even
bring us together so how I came about
thinking about beliefs as not being
something that is a per person and
identity but rather something that is
more societal and that we can work on as
a group is first by raising awareness so
awareness can be achieved in many ways
whether you decide to travel the world
have a dinner with the local person
there and then have a conversation with
them or you just sit in your room Google
News and you read up on the issue that
you care about there are many different
great ways that you can reach the
understanding of the issue that you
truly care about for me
I joined knowledge generation group at
NYU and it’s part of NYU solidarity with
refugees initiative and two weeks from
now we’re going to host the conference
with high school students and we’re
going to educate them and raise
awareness about the refugee issues we
want to raise empathy as well but not PD
because we don’t want to have them think
about the refugee crisis in a
patronizing way we want em to facilitate
the conversation and treat the people
that are going to come to 315 thousand
refugees as equals
another thing after you learn about the
issues is to actually doubt what you’ve
learned in the 21st century where there
are so much fake media and fake news you
have to keep questioning yourself and
not stop at a point where you think the
information that you got comforts you
you have to keep asking you have to keep
wondering and you have to keep doubting
yourself and understanding that you can
be tricked into thinking that getting up
every morning from your life right
like is going to bring the luck and at
the end of the day Renetta card also
doubted the existence and our
existential crisis has brought him to
the quote that you just saw earlier
after you realize that you can be
tricked and you realize the issue that
you care about you have to think about
the ways you can address it so there
comes action whether you decide to
volunteer whether you decide to donate
there are many ways to go about it there
are many organizations around the world
that help fund businesses are bound by
women in Armenia I know several NGOs
that help women that are little bit
harassed or that have been in abusive
relationships that provide them shelter
and they actually provide them lawyers
to actually further advocate for their
rights for me reaction is learning to be
the summer when I joined two NGOs in
Armenia that provide shelter and classes
in Armenian and Arabic to refugees
coming to Armenian the 20,000 Syrians
coming to Armenia and I hope that by my
small action I can help only several of
them to integrate into our community
better and so as you go about this
action list and you think about how to
define yourself after all of the
craziness that’s happening in the world
and you’re trying to find you I urge you
to understand an issue that you care
about to pursue her halted Lee and then
you can grow your impact so now when I
think about defining an identity and
understanding why I’m in this world I do
not stop by saying the phrase I believe
therefore I am brother I live in a blank
so that there are many possibilities for
me to fill it in with different words
that I choose based on my experiences
and interactions I have so I believe
therefore I am the change I believe
therefore I might one day become the
female president of Armenia
well after I turn 35 because that’s a
requirement to run for president and I
believe therefore I’m able to understand
the issue pursued or heartedly and I
grow my impact thank you very much
you
[Applause]
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