Fighting Terror with Terror Defeats Our Values
Kim Carlton, MBA2
Issue date: 10/1/01 Section: Perspectives
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I’m sad for the people who died in the assault on the World Trade Center. I’m also sad for the people who will yet die in the coming reprisals, which seem all but inevitable now. Like the people in the WTC, the innocent civilians in Afghanistan who are the likeliest victims of the war Bush promises to wage will have had nothing to do with what happened.
More than sadness for the dead, though, I feel at times profoundly sad for the rest of us, left here to deal with the complex emotions of pain, loss, grief, anger and rage at what happened. There is already talk of a world changed, where nothing is as it seemed. I wonder, might not dying have been easier than being left to pick up the pieces?
In a time like this, I feel strangely unpatriotic. It isn’t that I don’t love my country; having lived abroad for 8 years, I feel more American now than ever before. It’s just that now I have another perspective, and I feel torn between the pride (and, I must admit, periods of embarrassment) of being American and my clear understanding that we humans are all in this together. Having spent so many years living in the land of “the enemy”, as Russia surely was during my growing-up years, I’ve learned that we are so much more alike than different.
For the first time in many years, Americans are personally affected by the events unfolding in the world. For the first time in my generation, it’s not happening somewhere out there, to someone else. This time, it’s personal. And, somehow, it suddenly has a deeper meaning to most of us. I remind myself that many people on our planet live with terror on a regular basis. And, God forbid, sometimes that terror occurs as a result of our actions.
This gives me pause and I can’t help but think: how many lives in other places have been disrupted or even destroyed because of the policies of our government? How is that really different from terrorism?
We justify the killing of civilians in the name of… what? Those who attacked us – don’t they believe their actions justified somehow? I don’t see how they can be justified, for nothing can make them right. But it would be intellectually dishonest to claim that I don’t see the same thing in reverse when our government makes plans to attack others. We believe we’re right… So does Osama bin Laden. Fighting to be right, I fear, just leads to never-ending body bags.
I am an American, yes. More fundamentally, though, I am a human being. I have used this distinction when dealing with sexism as well: I am a woman, yes, but first and foremost, I am a human being, a person. All else comes after that fundamental fact. I am human, yet ashamed of how we humans kill ourselves. Frightened by it, I recoil from labels that are all too easy to affix to people. I look at another human being and I see an individual, someone’s child, a person loved by others. Vengeance kills our humanity, makes us impervious to the suffering of others.
When I saw those towers collapse, I cried for humanity, for the hatred we still feel because we do not see that we are all people, more the same than different. Continuing a cycle of violence will never end the violence, and we now face choices that define what it means to be Americans. Will we respond with the tactics of terrorists, heedless of civilian lives lost to achieve an aim, and thus become as they are? Or, in our time of trial, will we stand up and proclaim the ideals of this nation, founded on the highest hopes of human decency?
It is easy to proclaim the virtues of freedom, of the rule of law, when times are smooth. Yet when these values are challenged is the time when we really decide, each for ourselves, what being American really means. Life is not a zero-sum game, where we win by defeating others. When we lower ourselves to the level of our provocateurs, that is when they really win. When America responds to terror with terror, fighting fire with fire, then the terrorists will have won because they will have defeated our values and made us like them. That, truly, is something to mourn.
For those who desire a more concrete solution, I would propose a meeting to discuss alternatives. I have already heard of creative options and would love to hear from others on this. – Kim
More than sadness for the dead, though, I feel at times profoundly sad for the rest of us, left here to deal with the complex emotions of pain, loss, grief, anger and rage at what happened. There is already talk of a world changed, where nothing is as it seemed. I wonder, might not dying have been easier than being left to pick up the pieces?
In a time like this, I feel strangely unpatriotic. It isn’t that I don’t love my country; having lived abroad for 8 years, I feel more American now than ever before. It’s just that now I have another perspective, and I feel torn between the pride (and, I must admit, periods of embarrassment) of being American and my clear understanding that we humans are all in this together. Having spent so many years living in the land of “the enemy”, as Russia surely was during my growing-up years, I’ve learned that we are so much more alike than different.
For the first time in many years, Americans are personally affected by the events unfolding in the world. For the first time in my generation, it’s not happening somewhere out there, to someone else. This time, it’s personal. And, somehow, it suddenly has a deeper meaning to most of us. I remind myself that many people on our planet live with terror on a regular basis. And, God forbid, sometimes that terror occurs as a result of our actions.
This gives me pause and I can’t help but think: how many lives in other places have been disrupted or even destroyed because of the policies of our government? How is that really different from terrorism?
We justify the killing of civilians in the name of… what? Those who attacked us – don’t they believe their actions justified somehow? I don’t see how they can be justified, for nothing can make them right. But it would be intellectually dishonest to claim that I don’t see the same thing in reverse when our government makes plans to attack others. We believe we’re right… So does Osama bin Laden. Fighting to be right, I fear, just leads to never-ending body bags.
I am an American, yes. More fundamentally, though, I am a human being. I have used this distinction when dealing with sexism as well: I am a woman, yes, but first and foremost, I am a human being, a person. All else comes after that fundamental fact. I am human, yet ashamed of how we humans kill ourselves. Frightened by it, I recoil from labels that are all too easy to affix to people. I look at another human being and I see an individual, someone’s child, a person loved by others. Vengeance kills our humanity, makes us impervious to the suffering of others.
When I saw those towers collapse, I cried for humanity, for the hatred we still feel because we do not see that we are all people, more the same than different. Continuing a cycle of violence will never end the violence, and we now face choices that define what it means to be Americans. Will we respond with the tactics of terrorists, heedless of civilian lives lost to achieve an aim, and thus become as they are? Or, in our time of trial, will we stand up and proclaim the ideals of this nation, founded on the highest hopes of human decency?
It is easy to proclaim the virtues of freedom, of the rule of law, when times are smooth. Yet when these values are challenged is the time when we really decide, each for ourselves, what being American really means. Life is not a zero-sum game, where we win by defeating others. When we lower ourselves to the level of our provocateurs, that is when they really win. When America responds to terror with terror, fighting fire with fire, then the terrorists will have won because they will have defeated our values and made us like them. That, truly, is something to mourn.
For those who desire a more concrete solution, I would propose a meeting to discuss alternatives. I have already heard of creative options and would love to hear from others on this. – Kim