09.16.01
Where Is My Anger
2001, September 16th
So, like most Americans, I’ve spent the last few days coming to understand too much about terrorism. The standard questions keep running through my head. “Why did these people do this?” “How do you find 14+ suicide bombers?” “How could those 14 or more suicide bombers spend enough time in America to learn to fly and yet hold on to enough hate to go through with it?” “How did they come to hate America so much in the first place?”
Also, like many Americans I have been thinking about how to respond or react to such people. Others of America have responded with blind rage. I could not join them, yet I felt rage. So I had to find out where that rage came from and why it had no direction or outlet.
Why I don’t hate these misguided men is complex. The answer did not come to me easily but it did come. When I learned of their actions, my first thought was, “We have the tools and the technology to simply turn their homeland into radioactive glass. That sounds like a good plan.”
Then I started to consider the millions of people that would die who do not share anything with the terrorists. These men were not arabs just like every other arab. These men were not muslims just like every other muslim. These men were extremists, just like every other extremist.
And that is what caused my rage. I had become one of them, even if for a few minutes, I understood how they could hate so completely because I did as well. So now my questions are not “How do we strike back so that this never happens again?” but “What did they believe about us that allowed them to do what they did?”
To be certain, I feel we should hunt down and punish any allies they left behind. However, we must temper our zeal as we hunt. We have to keep our minds not on revenge against all muslims or all arabs or all middle-easterners but against the terrorists and those who support them.
While we do the ugly job of retribution, we must also do what we do when we are not so engaged. We must find out how they have come to hate America and Americans so much that they willing and individually give their lives to hurt us. We must reach out to those who do not understand us and explain who we are.
America is the richest country this world has ever seen. We are also the most generous.
One does not have to look long into our past to see that generosity. America operates many international aid efforts. Look just outside the borders of Rwanda today and you will see hundreds of thousands of refugees. You will not see them living off of the land. They have tents, blankets, clothes and food. These did not come from their own governments who would rather wipe them out but from America.
As americans, we enjoy the benefits of a free society and it hurts us to know that not everyone in the world does. We see war torn countries like Bosnia and we send in troops, not to kill but to promote peace, to see that a local government will not oppress its minorities. And when those minorities get the upper hand, we do our best to prevent them from blindly seeking revenge.
So too, must our revenge not be blind. It must be directed, focused and above all accurate. As americans, we must be, not better than the terrorist, but more particular. We should expect more of ourselves. It bothers me to hear of americans who have recently commited hate crimes against the arab or muslim communities. These men must be stopped. If necessary, by force or incarceration, but hopefully by showing them that they, as americans, have a duty to expect more from themselves than did the terrorists.
I didn’t really know I had this much to say. Maybe its is all just unrealistic rambling. But maybe we can actually get it right this time. Maybe we can wake up to the pain in the world and help those less fortunate without building resentment that can fester into hate.
And then again, maybe not.