WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? LET OUR PAST BE OUR GUIDE TO THE FUTURE

Each year the out going president is charged with providing the membership with a run down on the status of the Association of Third World Studies-in short how are we doing? Well such a question usually depends on how you view things. It could be like the guy who jumped from the Empire State Building. On the way down someone on the 81st floor called to him, "how are you doing?" To whit the man replied "so far so good!" Of course, some organizations are like that. History teaches us that empires, companies, nations, and associations can come crashing to an end. Or they can just fade away. But others endure and I don't think anyone in this room wants to believe that ATWS will splatter on that hypothetical street in New York City.

So, how are we doing? At this moment in time pretty darn good thanks! Our finances have never been better thanks to our excellent treasurer Gary Kline and the generosity of numerous members like Harold Isaacs, Karim Bangura, A.B. Assensoh, Cecil Currey, the Wu Foundation-which means Shu and her brother, and many others who have contributed regularly to worthy ATWS programs and projects.

As for membership we have members in 38 states and 52 countries. We have full operating chapters in Africa and India. While our membership goes up and down we average between 350 to 400 individual and institutional members. We have a position in the UN. We have the respect of the community of scholars. Our members publish and present widely and the Journal of Third World Studies continues to grow and thrive due in large part to the continuing efforts of Dr. Isaacs, our Associate Editors (Dorothea A.L. Martin, John M. Mbaku, Rolin G. Mainuddin, and J. Patrice McSherry), Editorial Assistant (Kathryn L. Zak), and our excellent contributors.

However, statistics are not the only way to measure success. Nor indeed are they always the best way. For many of us the most important measurement of ATWS' success has been its ability to be a spokesman for peaceful development in a world confronted by war and terror, and its capacity to act as a voice of reason, overcoming the den of hate and fanaticism, and a light of compassion able to penetrate the veil of darkness that is prejudice and repression. In a world where purveyors of destruction and mendacity lead others in slaughtering innocents and some power mad leaders respond with heavy-handed bullying and conceited pretentious and self-serving justice, human beings of good will from all nations must find the means and determination to stand up and say ENOUGH!. ATWS is such an organization. It has, since its conception over 20 years ago, joined together men and women, scholars, professionals and students from diverse avocations, disciplines and cultural backgrounds in an effort to show our fellow human beings a path away from pandering violence and cold blooded brutality.

From the beginning it has been our design to provide a public written and verbal forum from which to advocate sane and peaceful growth and human progress. Have we been a success? Surely at times, especially in the beginning, many of us felt like we were crying in the wilderness. But as we have grown and prospered most of us have come to realize the enormous impact such a noble cause forwarded by high minded people can have on our fellow man. As teachers we have had an impact on our students far greater than many of us realize. On a personal level I have former students who have become doctors, lawyers and teachers and remembered my primary lesson that concern for humanity matters more than the size of the car you drive or social status of your country club or neighborhood. I even have one former student who, years later, told me he didn't commit suicide because I made him realize there was meaning in the world. all of us have that capacity to influence our students and our colleagues even if, in frustration of our lives, we lose sight of it on occasion.

Indeed, sometimes it is hard to see this impact but it is there. There is a Chinese proverb that tells of an old farmer and his sons having to circle around a large mountain each day to get to their fields. One day, in an effort to cut down on this trip he decided to spend part of each day digging a tunnel through mountain. His neighbors ridiculed him calling him a fool but he replied that "the mountain will never grow and each day we cut the tunnel deeper. IfI do not live to see it finished my sons, and grandsons, and their sons shall continue until one day we reach the other side." Indeed, it has been 21 years since we began building ATWS and the light at the end of the tunnel toward reason and peace grows clearer each day.

However, this is a process that does not end here! To be sure November 8, 2003 is not the end but instead the next step. I can recall my first step came in the Fall of 1984, not long after I arrived in Middle-Georgia. I had received a mailing, I don't even remember what it was or why I got it. It advertised a meeting by an organization run by Harold Isaacs. Ah! I thought the great Sinologist whose writings had inspired me to study the history of China. I wrote a very long and reverent letter to this luminary of Asia with great expectations. Of course, what I soon discovered was it wasn't Harold the China expert, rather Harold the renown Latin Americanist who had just begun a program and organization not only to forward the study of the Third World but seek to educate people first in Georgia and then the rest of the world. It was a compelling vision I could not ignore. And, so I became a fellow traveler.