(Please also look at Catastrophes, Healing arguments, and
Our prayer.)
There are several levels or dimensions at which the events of Sept 11, 2001 can be talked about:
One would be the political level. As a nation, we have great strengths. In many ways, we have been a citadel and beacon of freedom in the world. Our nation has on many occasions proved its courage. We are the stewards of some of the most beautiful land on earth and some of the most beautiful people.
But also, on an international level, in many ways we in the United States may have become blind to the effects of our actions. If we search our soul, we may conclude that our country has become in some ways self-absorbed and unilateral in our foreign policies.
This terrorism which we're now experiencing may be rooted in a Middle East/Muslim situation about which, collectively, we know little and have cared less.
This can perhaps be perceived most easily if we look at an example one step removed from our situation in Iraq.
We may understand almost nothing, for instance—and I include myself in this—of the misery of the Palestinians. Imagine being displaced from your home and living for decades with your children in a refugee territory with a collapsed economy and virtually no self-determination. How would you feel? Amidst your grief you might also feel an increasing anger and desperation.
And the Israelis. Imagine that you're living with terrorists every day now, after going through the Holocaust only a few decades ago. The lesson you learned in the Holocaust was to be strong, to always strike against your enemy no matter what it takes. All you wanted was a secure homeland and now your peace and security are shattered almost daily.
Now both people are caught giving "retaliation" to the other for various deeds. Like northern Ireland, like the Balkans and many other places, each is caught in an endless spiral of vengeance. We may be caught in something similar in Iraq.
As we all know, a disease can't be healed simply by treating its symptoms. Treating the symptoms of AIDS, for instance, such as lesions and night sweats, doesn't begin to address the real problem.
In the same way, it may be that terrorism is a symptom of a disease rather than the disease itself. Suppose the real disease is the increasing anger in the Arab-Muslim world, anger over the plight of the Palestinians, our invasion of a Muslim country and other perceived injustices.
A plant can only grow in fertile soil. The plant of terrorism can only grow in a fertile soil too—the soil of great anger in the populace at large.
If we don't address that issue, the increasing enflaming of the Arab-Muslim world, me may deal what seem like knock-out blows to the symptom—terrorism—and yet find that the disease, and thus the symptoms, grow ever larger. For each terrorist network that we decapitate, three more could spring up in its place if we don't address the underlying disease.
So it might be interesting to ask ourselves: Why is the Arab-Muslim world increasingly enflamed and angry? This question is almost never asked on TV, and if it is, the answer is usually that they resent our freedom or something like that.
Perhaps that doesn't actually encompass the situation. Perhaps, to the Arab world and the world in general, our black-and-white moralism may seem misplaced.
"Hatred never ceases by hatred," the Buddha said to us. "Hatred only ceases by love." And then he added, "This is an eternal law."
It's easy for us human beings to form black-and-white judgments about "us" and "them"—and then to define "our" actions as representing goodness, truth and light,
and "their" actions as representing the forces of darkness.
Which is interesting, because that's often just how "they" are thinking about and defining "us."
As long as we human beings divide ourselves into "us" and "them," so long will this beautiful planet be in turmoil. This individual "us" versus "them" thinking, written in macrocosm, is the same kind of mind that leads to acts of terrorism.
Think about Jesus for a moment. He talked primarily about love and tolerance. Was he perhaps just a visionary dreamer, unversed in the realities of realpolitick? Or did he know something that we're still trying to learn?
We humans are one. We are one. We aren't separate; that's a fiction. Inside every human heart beats the same desire for respect, understanding and love—for who we are and for our situation. We're the same.
But even that's too narrow. If we realize that we "humans" are one but then draw another line between us and animals, or between us and the coming computer-life, we've done the same thing.
We in existence are one. Existence is one. Everything is the One. Existence has never been two. It isn't now. When the left hand washes the right, it's not altruism; in the truest sense, each hand is washing itself.
If we address the fundamental causes of the increasing anger and fear in the Arab world and the world at large, we'd be helping ourselves as well, the left hand washing the right.
Though it would be enormously difficult, the deepest healing for our own fear and rage and grief might be to look at the fear and rage and grief in large parts of the world. Though it would be enormously difficult and seem impossibly idealistic, perhaps such a solution might be the most realistic in the end.
Then, in our minds and actions, instead of contributing to the tragic human cycle of retribution we might be able to put more love, understanding and compassionate action into our beautiful and fragile world.
—jim sloman, 9/11/01 for Sep 11
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