I submitted this to The Oregonian, but it wasn’t accepted for publication. It was published at The Agonist. I think it’s worth a read (and some reflection)….
Ten years have passed since 9/11, and those years have laid bare a difficult and inconvenient truth: the terrorists won. After an initial flurry of togetherness and unity of purpose, America has become a weaker, meaner, more divided, and less self-confident place defined primarily by what we fear and hate.
We fear and hate swarthy bearded men who speak Arabic. We fear and hate women who cover themselves head to toe. We fear and hate Islam, because that leads to Sharia, though few Americans can say with certainty what Sharia is. We fear and hate Muslims, because they practice Islam, which leads to Sharia, which evidently leads directly to America-hating Islamofascism.
We fear and hate non-Christians, homosexuals, Liberals, environmentalists, and Socialists. We fear and hate those who think differently, those who ask questions, those we suspect would take Jesus out of the classroom, and those who would build a mosque.
Of course, some of this prejudice pre-dates 9/11. It’s not as if hatred didn’t exist prior to 19 murderers committing unspeakable atrocities in the name of their twisted version of God. A few hours into a beautiful Tuesday morning and 3000 dead Americans later, America faced a choice. Do we come together and heal as a nation? Or do we travel down the path of hatred, recrimination, and vengeance? An entire generation of children is growing up never having known America at peace. Our children have learned that our world is divided into two camps: Us (good) and Them (evil).
We’ve sacrificed many of our civil liberties in the name of fear. In what other venue besides an airport security checkpoint would you tolerate having to partially undress in public? Where else would you acquiesce to having anyone touch you in ways otherwise reserved for your “significant other?” We’ve sat mutely by while our government monitored phone calls and email messages within our borders. We’ve tolerated all manner of invasions of privacy in the name of “protecting the Homeland.” And who used the term “homeland” prior to 9/11?
Our politics have increasingly come to be dominated by those who traffic in hatred, divisiveness, and fear. Those who would take America down a kinder and gentler path are roundly ignored or ridiculed as being “soft on terror.” Our hearts have grown harder and our commitment to one another grows weaker by the day.
The past ten years have seen us become a more wary, fearful, and suspicious people. The terrorists have won the battle; they need not win the war. We may defeat them on the battlefield, but more importantly, we need to defeat the effect of terrorism on our souls.
I don’t know what a big-picture solution might be, but I do know that sometimes the most enduring victories begin small and gain momentum. If each of us could commit to beginning this next decade focusing on kindness and tolerance instead of fear and exclusion, we might just be able to change things.
What have we got to lose?
