Reflections
on the Day After
Along
with the rest of the world, I have watched the
unfolding tragedy in New York and Washington. I felt
the ball of iron form in my stomach and found myself
unable to speak, even to utter the words
"horrific," "another Pearl
harbor," or "tragic loss of life." I
have listened, as we all have, to the pronouncements,
confusion, anguish and pain. I am struggling with the
facts the reality of what happened, that it is not
another action film but a flesh-and-blood event. I've
tried without much success to imagine what it must
have been like to have been part of that cascade of
steel, glass and human beings that plummeted onto the
streets of New York. And along with all the expected
thoughts and feelings that we all must surely share,
I have felt something else.
I am sad and afraid for Americans not only because we
have been dealt a sickening blow, but also because in
the upwelling of jingoism that inevitably follows an
incident of this kind. I have heard not one word of
self-searching, nothing to indicate that Americans
have the slightest notion that we ourselves might be
partially responsible for this repulsive event. Yet I
believe that surely there is a lingering doubt among
thoughtful people, something in the back of the mind
that might be whispering, "Wait a minute. Didn't
we secretly expect this to happen?"
With no disrespect to those who have suffered (and to
some degree that includes everyone), I would like to
speak up for the idea of looking at our own
culpability for this latest event in a world that
seems to leap past the gauzy limits of an inconstant
morality on an almost daily basis. As any good
therapist will tell you, in order to get better, one
needs to look at oneself rather than blaming others.
America is in need of some therapy, and, while I
don't pretend to be able to offer any help, I would
like simply to suggest that everyone climb down from
the high horse of outrage and do a little personal
soul searching about the part that he or she plays in
the devolved condition of the world.
I don't think it takes a political genius to predict
that in the coming weeks and months we'll be hearing
a lot about retaliation, swarthy-skinned monsters,
and the need to defend ourselves from future horrors.
We are already hearing talk of limitations on
personal freedom that are unprecedented since World
War II. And government officials, caught flat-footed
in one of the worst lapses of intelligence (in both
senses of the word) in recent memory, have done their
best to project an air of confidence and capability
as they predict swift justice for this faceless
enemy.
The question on everybody's lips is, "How do we
prevent this sort of thing from happening in the
future?" The answers seem to revolve around
weapons technology and beefed-up security at any cost
to civil liberties, or they reflect a stoic fatalism
mixed with outrage at the perpetrators. I believe
there's something missing from this conversation.
The best way we could have avoided this tragedy would
have been to have integrity in our dealings with
others. Had we Americans lived up to our stated
ideals of freedom, equality and justice, we would not
now be suffering the wrath of so many of those
affected by our nonchalant exploitation that we so
nonchalantly practice on the majority of the world's
people. In order to achieve our perpetually
retrograde state of unbridled consumption, greed and
moral obesity, we have destroyed ecosystems, ways of
life, legally-elected governments and individuals by
the hundreds of thousands. We are in no moral
position to express outrage at any act directed
against us, no matter how outrageous it might be.
It has been said that we are now at war, and it's
hard to deny that we must do something to ameliorate
what is certainly a very bad situation. Of course,
this is the first time in well over a hundred years
that serious violence has visited us at home. What is
commonplace in most of the world has now come to us
and we are shocked. In the past century, we have
watched as Europe was destroyed again and again. We
have taken part in he levelling of numerous foreign
nations. But because we have not experienced this
kind of havoc on our own turf, we have gradually
developed an attitude that war is something on
television, something that, like auto accidents,
happens to other people, people who are brown, black
or yellow, poor, small, weak, and if not deserving at
least dispensable. War is something that happens to
the producing class, never to the consuming class.
But yesterday it was "people like us" who
died horrible deaths, people in Armani suits and
polished shoes. Yet, what is the difference between
the life of an American businessman and the life of a
street urchin in East Timor, for instance? Or a
Palestinian, to align the example a little better
with current events? Yet we have habitually looked
the other way, changed the channel, repressed
whatever feelings we may have had for these
"others."
In the years after World War II, beat poet Kenneth
Patchen wrote, "There is no war between us,
brothers. There is only one war anywhere." I
have always tried to keep that quote in my heart as a
talisman in the service of compassion. I believe I
understand what Patchen meant, and I believe there is
no better time to consider his words than today when
we are at risk of falling into the age-old trap of
righteous anger.
We are not at war with others so much as we are at
war with ourselves. Ours is a battle between our own
dark and good sides. The casualties are the
environment, other cultures and nations, and our own
well-being. Because we are complicit in the
maltreatment of these interests, we have to a greater
degree than any of us may wish to acknowledge brought
this tragedy upon ourselves. By sitting idly by (or
protesting weakly) for decades as our government has
engaged in one heinous act of imperialism after
another, we have helped bring this about. By giving
our money to the corporations that now run the world,
we are in league with the very worst forces in the
history of humanity. By failing to rein in our
consumptive urges and by failing to question our
belief that as Americans we are entitled to own at
least one of everything that is spit out by the
post-industrial economy, we have become the enemy
whom we should most fear.
In a statement that is typical of the
disingenuousness and myopia of world leaders, Great
Britain's Tony Blair said yesterday, "Mass
terrorism is the new evil in the world today."
But mass terrorism is only a symptom of the real evil
in the world today a rapacious global economy that is
fed by the patronage of Western white consumers. It
is we who drive the engine of destruction, and the
fact that it eventually turns back on us should be no
shock to anyone. The grave matter here is not that
some vicious Arabs (everyone assumes) have
successfully penetrated the integument of American
complacency but that the complacency exists in the
first place.
Our best defense will be to control our impulses, to
live up to our stated ideals as a nation and to work
for genuine justice for everyone. Our best defense
will be to stop wrecking the world in order to have
comfort beyond anything anyone else has ever had on
this planet. If we do that, maybe in 10 or 20 years
some of the anger will burn off and people will stop
wanting to crash planes into the symbols of our
decadence. That's how I think we need to handle this.
I believe that these words will be unwelcome to some.
I imagine there will be those who consider them
disrespectful, unpatriotic or insensitive. But I
believe they are words that must be said. Americans
are in a dream state, anesthetized by that worst of
all drug problems, affluence. Maybe this event will
wake people up, but the probability is that it will
instead propel us further into our sickness. That's
the real tragedy.
Owen Dell
