Not Just Another Placebo

Three years ago, I came to America. Things were starting to fall apart in the Palestinian territories, and the peace that was born at Oslo a few years earlier was dying. It was the beginning of the end for the once hoped-for peace between Arabs and Jews. For me, it was the beginning of a new journey in life: a search for an opportunity in distant lands not torn by hate and injustice.

“Amrika,” as my parents and friends suggested, “is the future.” When people from my home thought of America, they thought of the utopia man has been searching for since the birth of time. I heard people say that problems always get solved in America, and life never stops because of an accident or a death in the family. The rumor was that America was perfect, but it was, how should I put this... a little exclusive. It was time for me to discover this wonderland everyone was talking about. It was a new world I was entering. And for a while I thought it was actually going to be perfect.

It only took nineteen young Arabs on a cold September morning to bring the entire Middle-East nightmare back down on my head.

For the world, September 11th was a disaster and a calamity; for me, it was more than that. It was the beginning of a fight I was all too familiar with: the kind in which there is no absolute victory or absolute defeat, only vengeance and sorrow.

Ever since that dark day, life in America began to look more and more like life back home. Everyone had to be on alert, careful, and uncertain. There were flags in yards, on windows, cars, and pickup trucks. People were always talking about how the government was going to respond to the attack and at the same time getting ready for the next attack—and similarly speculating about the response to that attack, and so on. There was hardly any talk about a real cure for the problem of terrorism. America, it seemed to me, was failing to act American. This place is no different, I thought to myself. This is going to be just like back home.

Last week, I heard honest words from a not-so-often-honest man. The President of the United States of America declared that the war on terrorism cannot be won. In an interview with NBC news, President Bush said: “I don’t think you can win the war on terror.” I always suspected that the war on terrorism could not be won, and certainly not with the kind of bankrupt strategy being followed today. A strategy entirely dedicated to creating obstacles to stop terrorists, rather than a strategy that also aims at putting an end to the roots of terrorism, is deeply flawed.

Sooner or later terrorist minds will find a way to infiltrate our security measures, just as they have done in Madrid, Beslan, Saudi Arabia, and many other places. The terrorist that is killed or captured is almost instantaneously replaced by tens of young men and women eager to continue the job, proving that the spirit of terror lives on after terrorists die.

What the people of the United States need today is honest reflection on the problem of terror. In times of war, the greatest difficulty comes in trying to stop and take a good look at the enemy—to understand where the enemy is coming from.

There is almost a universal consensus that evil minds are not born, but rather made. There are factors and conditions that make the creation of such evil easier and more probable. Poverty, injustice, and ignorance are factors which help develop the terrorist mentality and the mentality which sympathizes with contemporary terrorism.

There are those who think of terrorist acts as acts of ultimate heroism and nobility. Indeed, these people are all over the world. They are in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Palestine, and they are in Indonesia and Pakistan, and they are in Chechnya, and they are in Afghanistan, and they are in Africa, and they are in Latin America. They are in every place where children are taught how to be proud, yet when they grow up all they feel is humiliation as their nations stumble from one failure to another; and they are in every place where a father or mother struggles and sweats all day to afford the price of a meal for a hungry family at night. They are in every place where boys keep hearing the phrase “America is the future.” They are the forgotten passengers of the globalization journey stuck in a third class seat, begging for a taste of success. And to these people, terrorists are selling a fake victory—a moment of balance when the strong feels vulnerable and violated by the weak.

There will be people who say that this is yet another attempt to justify terrorism or condone it. Using the same chain of logic, then, those who point out that cigarette smokers are more vulnerable to cancer are cancer apologists. Nor is this a call to abrogate the use of force in the fight against terrorism. Force is needed, but we also need to understand and grasp factors that make the idea of terror take hold of man’s imagination. And those who try to block such an attempt to understand this terror mentality are apostates disguised as patriots.

In these uncertain times, we are facing an enemy like no other: an idea unleashed in the reality of wounded peoples. We are facing an enemy who has managed to include suicide in his definition of victory, managed to infiltrate the hearts of hundreds of thousands of young men across the globe and hence managed to surpass our capacity to contain him.

As we approach a possible change in the White House, I hope the American people will choose to embrace a new policy in this war against terror. A real cure, not just another placebo. A policy not blinded by desire for vengeance, so that the light of hope can come into view. Let’s help to improve poor nations, intensify humanitarian aid where needed, and promote peace and coexistence between adversary nations. A true remedy for terror will make it clear that there is no greater evil than a man capable of providing help who turns his back on another man in need. Only then will people abandon prejudice and celebrate life, not death. Only then, can we truly win on terror.

Mohammed J. Herzallah ’07, a Crimson editor, is a government concentrator in Adams House.