9/11 at 10 Years: The Timeless Lesson of Standing Down Evil; Getting Along; A Poem
Although I said prior that there is not much that can be really said to help us cope with 9/11, after watching the ceremonies today and listening to discussions on New York public radio, it seems to me that one area that has received little focus, leading up to the 10th anniversary today, has been the perpetrators and their motivations.
Today should well have been predominantly centered on the victims and a celebration of their lives, as it was, but reviewing how such victims came to be, namely at the hands of their murderers, is critical to at least minimize such future atrocities.
For this analysis, history is always the best teacher.
Throughout our country’s history, we have been faced with various foreign and internal threats. Our founding was the result of the overbearing (to put it kindly) rule of King George III. Then the early 19th century saw us up against the Barbary pirates. Slavery then consumed several decades of compromise until the matter was finally fully addressed, in the Civil War. Thereafter, anarchists had their say going into the early 20th century. It took us some time but we finally entered World War I and helped resolve the conflict, albeit at a high price. Then, after a lull and false sense of security, including British Prime Minister’s infamous declaration of “Peace in Our Time” when he deferred an inevitable European conflagration, we entered World War II, again at a high price.
As Europe lay in rubble in 1945, the U.S. switched its efforts towards the Cold War and the long-smoldering race issue. Discrimination was finally legally ended, 170 years too late, in the 1960s. America grinded on only to see the Cold War officially end in the early 1990s, after many lives lost (i.e. Korea, Vietnam).
For the better part of the second half of the 20th century, Islamic terrorism was simmering and occasionally erupting (terrorist highlight reel: Munich, 1972; Pan Am Flight 103, 1988) after the U.S. recognized and supported the state of Israel in 1948.
Then came 9/11, when all was on the table.
Throughout all conflicts including today’s, there was a loud and ostensibly thinking class of people (read: Liberals) who not only advocated but insisted that non-confrontation (pacifism, neutrality, acquiescence) was the only answer. Again, a “peace at all costs” position that Prime Minister Chamberlain saw woefully fail with Mssr. Hitler. They were wrong. The mindsets of, amongst others, Mr. Hitler, the Barbary Pirates, Uncle Joe Stalin and today’s Islamo-facsists is one of complete conquest, unconditionally.
So the lesson that we can glean from our history is, when faced with evil, as we are today in Islamo-Fascism, confront such immediately as it is not going to go away by itself. And stick with the endeavour, as we did with the Cold War: commitment has its dividends, if you classify not being destroyed by your enemy as a dividend.
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I have seen many flags awaving at whole and half-staff. It is heartwarming and undermines my concern that we, as a society, are not cognizant of history and today’s issues we face.
Still, I wonder if, in the name of honoring 9/11 victims, we can perhaps do a bit more than just wave a flag and bite our lips. The phrase from the movie “An American President” comes to mind: “love your country but hate your countryman.”
Perhaps, after we fold our flags and place them away with reverence, we can make that extra effort to be nice to our fellow countryman, whether on the road, at the office, in the neighborhood, or at the store, which will go much further than all the flag-waving and chest-thumping that any of us can conjure.
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The Duty to Live On
A Life has come
A Life has gone
And ah……what a wonderful life.
But the worst thing we can do
to honor that one
is to not continue our lives
-I.M. Windee
