“Too long have I lived among those who hate peace. I am a man of peace, but when I speak they are for war” (Psalm 120:6)
9/11. Nine eleven. Everybody knows what those numbers signify. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the invasion of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese air force “A date that will live in infamy” (December 7, 1941). It seems that we’ve now added to that date—seven years ago already, or just seven years ago, depending on one’s point of view. Most of us remember the gruesome photos: People plummeting to their deaths, planes crashing into the Twin Towers, the smoke mixed with pulverized stone, panic on the streets, firemen rushing into the buildings and to their deaths.
And we well remember the transformation of attitude by people in New York City and across our country. The city of cold aloofness, where just a few years back a young woman, Kitty Genovese, was being beaten to death, yelling for help and nobody would even call the police; the city where everyone was for himself and nobody bothered to give directions to strangers suddenly became as concerned for one another as monks in a monastic community. They were all survivors, and they came to understand how fragile is life and how important to express friendship to one another. Not just New York City but through the entire country, somehow everyone wanted to do something. They sent rescue workers, professionals in trauma and medical care, people to clear the debris, and money from all quarters and sources.
And what of the world? Ten million New Yorkers, 300,000,000 Americans, add that many sympathizers of Western Europe and Canada, making upwards of a half billion who identified with the victims of 9/11 and America. Who knows how many others celebrated, gleeful that the mighty USA empire finally got its comeuppance—perhaps many of the billion Muslims globally. Yet how many of them are intelligent, well-educated, and indignant at being bunched with the radicals and sympathetic to America as victims of atrocity. Let’s say that roughly five billion worldwide have had no strong opinion, but like each human being with a soul and conscience, must have felt some empathy with our nation.
Those who attacked us were not able to recognize in us the same human qualities that they possess. Hatred is a passion that blinds the bearer from identifying with all of those workers in the Twin Towers who are like themselves earning a living, caring for parents, spouses and children now suddenly without a father or mother, son or daughter to be with them at the evening meal, open presents with them at Christmas, laugh and cry with them. Instead, they only could understand that they and we are infidels, defilers of the sacred Koran, enemies of all that is good and holy, creatures to be scourged from the earth. Finally revenge was theirs. They celebrated their victory, laughing because our anguish was so sweet for them, rejoicing at our grief.
Although they were incapable of feeling our suffering, many others did. Humanity is really one, regardless of the evidence of alienation and individuality. Thanks to the media and television, the entire globe was able to witness to the horror of bodies flying out windows to their death, and the anguish of the city and the nation. We speak of Christian witness. We were reminded of the innocent victims and recalled the glorious examples of our holy martyrs in every era and generation. What an opportunity to show the whole world what we are made of. Of course we stand with our leaders who responded with invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan-but might it have been more effective had we elicited the support of the United Nations? Could we have retained the sympathy of good people everywhere had we pleaded with them for unity against terrorism? Was there any hope to demonstrate pure Christian values, or was that too much to expect? Might we have substituted kindness for hatred, compassion for violence, gentleness for brutality, and the love of Jesus in the face of those who claim to be the true disciples of Allah? Alas, we all know that it was not to be. We haven’t reached that level of Christianity. At least not yet. We chose the response of vengeance on our own and lost the opportunity to appeal to universal compassion.