Reflections on a Terrorist Abomination

What happened 11 September was, of course, horrific. The grief, though neither death nor injury has come too close to me, is unlike anything Ive known. Tears have been a regular part of my life. They will be for some time.

Horrible, evil, sickening? Yes. A thousand yeses. But unbelievable? No. All too believable, sadly.

Unprecedented? No. The United Statesand let me say right now that I love this country and the principles on which it was founded as much as anyoneintentionally killed thousands upon thousands of Japanese civilians, many of them utterly innocent, 56 years ago. I know that was war. Ive heard the excuses. But would what happened a few days back really have been less abominable if the perpetrators had declared war first? Will we suddenly understand if it should turn out to have been Saddam Hussein who commissioned the hijackings? (Weve been bombing Iraq for a decade. I take it theres something like a war going on there.)

But waive that. If this act is unprecedented at all, it is so only in its scale. Consider these two: Eric Rudolph, charged with various bombings of abortion clinics and suspected in the bombing at the Olympics in Atlanta, and James Kopp, arrested for the murder of Dr. Bernard Slepian. If they had the opportunity to blow up a building full of abortion providers, do you think they would pause even a moment? Osama bin Laden and Associates are no more evil, or more vicious, than Rudolph, Kopp, et al., just smarter, richer, more numerous, and a lot better connected.

Incomprehensible, then? Hardly. It is all too easy to comprehend, given minimal knowledge of U.S. involvement in the Arab world over the last 50years. The situation in Israel is only a small, though very visible, part of the story: our support for anti-democratic regimes among moderate Arab states (including Iran, prior to the Islamic revolution) is a largely unmentioned, though equally important part. Our support for bin Laden himself, and the fanatics now ruling Afghanistan, is another. Now dont get me wrong. The responsibility for these acts rests entirely with those who planned and performed them: that people by the thousands are dead is the responsibility of those who conspired to kill them. But that there are people who hate the United States so much that they would even dream of destroying the World Trade Centerthat there is a minority, yes, but one large enough to get noticed, who would celebrate our destructionthat, Im afraid, is largely our own fault.

I shall leave the question how our nation might respond to these awful events to others. But I say all that because I think that, before we leap to respond, it would help if we could put some perspective on whats happened. Its not unbelievable, or unprecedented, or incomprehensible. Its just horrifically evil and awful and sad. That, it seems to me, is why its so hard to handle. That, and because we all feel like targets, because we all were, in a way, targets. Most of those who died did so, so to speak, as Americans: it was because they were Americans that their deaths could serve the terrorists ends. Im not accustomed to belonging to a group that makes me a potential target of hate crimes; and thats what these were; isnt it? I dont much like it, and Ill bet you dont either. But if we dont like it, then maybe we should pause a moment to think about how some of our fellow Americans feel. And I dont mean Arab-Americans and Muslims, though of course they are in great danger, and we must all oppose their persecutionvery loudly. I mean African-Americans and gay men and lesbians and members of way too many other groups, all of whom must wonder, if not daily, then far too frequently, whether they will be targets one day, not because of who they are, but because of what they are and despite who they are.

There can be no silver lining. But we can decide how to respond as individuals. We have some choice about the kind of world we shall inhabit henceforth. The fear and the anxiety, the anger and the confusionall these shall surely fade. What will take their place?

Two millennia ago, a wise man counseled us to love those who hate us. He had a way of making difficult requests. But he knew something we ought all to have learned now: that the cost of hatred is hell on earth. And he had an idea for how effectively to respond to hatred, long-term, about the only decent such idea anyones ever had: to show respect for the humanity of others, evenno, especiallyin the face of disrespect for our own. My hope, my prayer, is that our new, or renewed, appreciation of the costs of hatred might commit us to fight it, in all its ugly forms, wherever we might find it. We may begin by searching our own hearts. We may continue by examining our nations.

Whether it has anything to do with this attack or notand I have already indicated that, sadly, it probably does have something to do with itwe citizens must understand that our nation, whatever its ideals, certainly does not display equal respect for the humanity of all our worlds peoples. Not even close. How, otherwise, could we speak so blithely of collateral damage, thereby dismissing the deaths of countless innocent Iraqis, Afghans, and Sudanese, and the pain of their families, as a direct result of our own military action? (How, while were at it, could we basically ignore the holocaust in Rwanda?) If we really want all the peoples of the world to respect our humanityand it is surely our realization that our humanity was catastrophically disrespected last week that is at the root of our national agonywe should lead by example.

Professor of Philosophy Richard G. Heck, Jr. recently circulated an online petition that requests the U.S. government to restrain from unneccessary and violent retaliation against the terrorists. He teaches a philosophy course entitled Truth.