I would like to agree with phillip and further say that it is a very short
step from righteous anger to hatred. Hatred is the toxic brew that
foments all of this turmoil, in one way or another. My daughter morgan
spent the afternoon today making a flying that said -- heroes don't hate
-- to distribute on her college campus.
What is the final answer? Here is the best that I can do, from my own
faith base. It is matthew chapter 5, the very end of the sermon on the
mount, which really was the only genuine sermon that jesus ever gave.
Here is where he left the ante, pulling no punches --
43 "You have heard that it was said, `Love your neighbor and hate your
enemy.'
44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
45 that you may be chldren of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to
rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the
unrighteous.
46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even
the tax collectors doing that?
47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than
others? Do not even pagans do that?
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
If we can do that, then we are all home free. If we can only purge some
of our hate, then we will be somewhat healthier. Every initiative that
phillip suggests will help free us from hate and make us healthier, as
well as helping others in oppression. But it will be hard for america to
do thisI.
gary
shank@duq.edu
On Sat, 15 Sep 2001, Phillip Capper wrote:
> I, too, join this discussion with some misgivings. I am more highly
> emotional about these events than many around me, a consequence of having
> spent a number of hours believing that one of my own children might have
> been a victim. (Nevertheless it is extraordinary how many New Zealanders
> shared my experience, or exceded it).
>
> What I, emotionally, want is for this week to become impossible ever again.
> It is a rational desire, but it is irrational to expect it ever to be so.
> There is nothing in the historical record to suggest that my desire is
> achievable.
>
> What is achievable is to lengthen the odds. This could be done by promoting
> the political, social and cultural conditions that minimise the risk of it
> happening. In my intepretation of the history of terror, indiscriminate
> retaliation shortens the odds rather than lengthens them, because it
> establishes a reinforcing cycle of grievance and revenge.
>
> Discriminate retaliation and retributional justice against perpetrators may
> (only may) provide a short term gain by making it impossible that THESE
> people will do it again.
>
> Discriminate and indiscriminate retaliation provide cathartic release for
> those hurt and damaged by the initial act. If the response is discriminate
> there is a chance of avoiding satisfying that need by setting up a cycle of
> vengeance.
>
> For me all this leaves only one strategy that has any real hope of reducing
> the probabilities of a repetition, and that is to politically address the
> social and economic conditions that place whole populations in such sloughs
> of hopelessness that they perceive themselves as having no real stake in the
> world, even in life itself. Not everybody living in the conditions of
> Afghans turns into a terrorist, but such communities provide the ore from
> which terrorists can be refined.
>
> bin Laden, of course, is not in this condition, Who knows what drum he
> dances to? But as long as there are Afghans, Palestinians, and other
> substantial communities who are marginalised and oppressed, there will be
> bin Ladens to use the resources such people offer him. In his case, of
> course, we need to remember that he was militarily trained and taught to
> hate superpowers when he was working as a subcontractor to the United States
> during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. How quickly collective objects
> can become contradictions!
>
> I do not believe that we can eliminate bin Ladens from the world. But I do
> think that we can reduce the supply of young people who feel so alienated
> from their circumstances that they are prepared to contemplate doing what
> those 18 or 19 did last Tuesday. That is the optimistic side of my view. The
> pessimistic side wonders whether the western world has anything approaching
> the political will to do what would be necessary. The fear now is that the
> political will is in precisely the opposite direction ('if we make
> concessions we will have rewarded terrorism').
>
> Having said all that I have to acknowledge that none of the above adequately
> explains, for example, Northern Ireland. But perhaps it does in part. The
> origins of Ireland lie in past hopelessness, and it is sustained by cultural
> transmission. The lesson, perhaps, is that we may choose to break the cycle,
> or else we merely provide yet another accreted layer of hatred that sustains
> it in future generations and dooms them somewhere, some time, to other World
> Trade Centres.
>
> And in between, in the famine burdened villages of Afghanistan and the
> privileged townships of Connecticut, ordinary people just trying to do their
> best meet violent ends because, for others, endlessly playing the 'Great
> Game' is more important than anything else.
>
> Phillip Capper,
> Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business Ltd. (WEB Research),
> Level 9
> 142 Featherston Street
> (PO Box 2855)
> WELLINGTON
> New Zealand
>
> Ph: +64 4 499 8140
> Fx: +64 4 499 8395
> Mb: +64 021 519 741
>
> http://www.webresearch.co.nz
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matvey Sokolovsky [mailto:sokolovs@uconnvm.uconn.edu]
> Sent: Saturday, 15 September 2001 1:41 p.m.
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: tragedy in New York
>
>
> After some hesitation I decided to join the discussion of the attack.
>
> Here is the dilemma - the fourth plane. We don't know how it crashed, one
> possibility it was shut down on the way to Washington. Let's think about
> it. Say, there is a plane with 250 passengers on board heading towards NYC,
> and we know the plan is to crash it into a tower. There is time to act.
> Should the plane be shut down?
>
> I completely disagree with Eugene, our discussion is guided by emotions,
> and is framed by our own, very local cultural beliefs. We don't like wars.
> I don't like them either. I was not really able to work for several days.
> Does it mean that all cultures in the world are like us? Were Palestinians
> dancing because they are oppressed or because their culture is different?
> How many of xmca members are suicide bombers? Was Stalin brutal because he
> was oppressed?
>
> Yes, US is at war with the world, or ignorant of the world. It is
> convenient to think that people kill because they are poor or do it in
> retaliation. It is also very self-pleasing to discuss the right of four
> cells for survival when 30% of Africa dies out from AIDS, starvation is
> wide spread and huge number of working Americans cannot go to a doctor
> because they don't have health insurance. Soltys is probably a
> schizophrenic but isn't 2 mass killings last week too much? Was this
> because their parents beat them up? Mike, how many people were killed in
> the last century? Do you really think this is because they were mistreated
> as children?
>
> Many Israelis do not like American interventions. They say Americans come
> with their naive beliefs about how the things are. I don't want an
> indiscriminant bombing of Afghanistan. Plus, I don't think Bush is capable
> of any reasonable solution. Should we take a vote for the place for the
> first nuclear terrorist attack? Which coast, any suggestions? (see above
> the plane dilemma).
>
> Honestly, I don't have a solution. But all this is a reminder for me that
> the world I lived in is a dream world, and I perceive the xmca discussion
> as an attempt to come back to the dream world.
>
> Sorry
>
>
>
> Matvey Sokolovsky
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
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