From Sharif
Abdullah:
Prayers for the
Departed; Compassion for the Injured: First, I think all of us should take a
break from the television and radio broadcasts, light a candle and say a few
prayers:
First, for our
friends, families, loved ones, business associates, travel companions and
others who have departed in these attacks – our prayers on the rest of their
journey.
Next, those of us
who have been injured - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually - our
compassion and prayers for healing.
For the rest of
us - hope that our compassion and understanding exceeds our fear, our anger and
our desire for revenge.
Chickens Coming Home to Roost:
There are some
very, very angry people out there in the world. Part of their anger is in not being heard. People who do not feel heard will do
ANYTHING to get one's attention.
Some of those
angry people live here in the US; some are in other parts of the world. Some look and act just like you.
In general,
Americans have no idea that such anger exists.
It's not that people aren't screaming at you, its that you're programmed
not to see or hear them. Or, if you do
hear them, you think they are saying something other than "I am angry at
you".
Or, you hear the
anger yet ignore it - these people can't possibly hurt you in your
middle-class, gated community, your gated lives. "We" feel "protected" by our
"security".
The US government
has ignored these angry people, calling ANY attack against the US or its
interests "unprovoked".
The United
States, directly and indirectly, supports violence throughout the world. Denying it won't make this truth go
away. We seem unable to understand the
anger of someone who had their village leveled by American cruise missiles, or
whose family was killed by a US-backed government. Believe me, they are angry and they feel powerless. Anger and powerlessness is the root of
violence.
Culture and Consciousness:
A few years ago,
when I was in the Sri Lanka war zone, we passed two young men who were acting
in a way that I believed was consistent with Tamil Tiger attack spotters. I mentioned this to my Sinhalese companion,
who said, "That's impossible; those boys are Sinhalese." I asked him, "Is it possible for a
Sinhala person to be in sympathy with the Tigers?" He looked at me as though my head had jumped
off my shoulders and flew around the room.
Like the Oklahoma
City bombing, the first (and predominant) thought is that the perpetrators are
Islamic fundamentalists, America's favorite “Other". We are programmed to not hear or understand
them. Americans were in
"shock" when the "foreign terrorist" turned out to be
blue-eyed Timothy McVeigh.
Let's not rush to
see "the Other" as in any way different from yourself. The people who steered those planes aren't
"crazy, cowardly fanatics".
They are people whose spiritual emptiness and frustration led them to
commit these acts. Let's not think that
their emptiness is any different than our own.
Forgiveness and Weakness:
We may find it
difficult to forgive, because many of us equate forgiveness with weakness. In the face of attack, we want to attack
back. We want to find the perpetrators
and make them hurt, the way that we are hurting. We believe its the only way we can relieve our pain.
We have to find
another way.
Many of us have
been talking about a change of consciousness.
Many of us think that it is THE OTHER who must change; it is THE OTHER
who must change their consciousness.
They point to their favorite "Other"; people of different
ethnicity, class or power status.
It's not
"the Other" who must change first - its "us".
Beefing Security and Preventing Terrorism:
There is no way
to stop a coordinated suicide attack. I
repeat: there is NO WAY to stop a suicide attack. The suicide attackers in Sri Lanka, in the Middle East, and now
in the US have a way of making their point, with ever increasing accuracy and
deadliness.
The ONLY way to
prevent such an attack occurring in the future is to de-fuse the attacker
before the attack begins. We must work
to remove the ROOT CAUSES that drives the suicide attacker. Our intelligence must be geared toward
identification, understanding and transformation, not technology and
retribution. We clearly have the
capacity to punish: so far, that punishment has given us ever-escalating rounds
of violence and terror. We must
generate a much greater capacity to transform "the Other".
We cannot do this
without the capacity to transform ourselves.
Peace,
Sharif