Letters from NYC

9/15/01

 

More news and thoughts

 

Dear all,

 

The days go on. I woke to disturbing dreams this morning. Police lying dead

beside their vehicles. I had to get up and face the day.

 

Friday, I walked across the southern most part of Manhattan I could get to.

The no-cross zone started below Canal Street. They moved it from where it

had been at 14th Street. The streets were beginning to show more signs of

life. Some businesses were open. Police were everywhere--all kinds of cops

on the corners. State troopers who look the same from state to state, with

their short cropped hair and their high hats strapped behind their ears,

stood tough and distant. The city cops on the other hand seem jollier and

more approachable. They're different breeds.

 

Canal Street was a traffic jam of emergency vehicles, Humvees, earthmovers,

and big rigs, some filled with debris others in line to collect. The street

was lit with flashing lights. At ground zero, smoke continued to billow. The

rain fell, hard at times, like tears. It was colder than it had been. For

the first time year, it felt like fall was here. So many are volunteering

that there is no more room for them to accept the help. People are now

having to search for places that can accept all the donations. With an

effort this big and this quickly set up, there's been no chance for

organization to really develop. Everything is ad hoc, and only because of

the outpouring of goodwill, is all moving as smoothly as it is.

 

Last evening we attended a candlelight vigil at Union Square on 14th Street.

Not since 1968, when I went to the building of People's Park in Berkeley,

have I seen a gathering of people all working so hard to assist. There were

the peace marches of the sixties and seventies, which were similar in their

way.

 

In some ways yesterday's event resembled those, but now, the outpouring of

patriotism, the number of flags being waved proudly is in distinct contrast

to the anti-government sentiments that existed when it was our country

waging the war across the sea. Today, there is a new mood. In fact, it was

hard for me to make the shift. As I looked at the people in the crowd, I saw

the same faces I had seen in peace marches thirty-years ago. We're all older

now. And the young people who are who we were, are waving those same flags

we once hung upside down. Seeing them here was a throwback. But now, while

the songs were the same, the chants were different. The mood was different.

People were somber. People were grieving.

 

For so long, I've carried the sentiments of those many years past, when we

were all talking revolution. We wanted to turn the government upside down.

Today, even our right wing leaders like Bush and Giulianni stand strong and

tall in our hearts, taking on the crisis as leaders and doing their part to

truly lead us through this darkest of nights. Whether we agree with them or

not, they have taken their roles seriously and their presence here

demonstrates the unity of the country behind New York. Back then, in the

sixties, we really didn't appreciate the nature of our proposed violence.

Little did we know, what we might have visited upon ourselves. We were

idealists. We were innocent, then. The only violence we knew was the

isolated type of human to human violence, or the violence of natural

calamities and accidents. Here, for the first time in the modern era, on the

American mainland, the horrific cataclysmic violence of mass destruction was

visited upon us by angry, hate-filled maniacs bent on a suicide mission.

 

Today, the divisions that divided us politically have vanished. They will

return soon enough. For now, in the middle of the crisis, their absence is

one of the few things we can celebrate. It is humbling to us who have strong

political leanings, that our leaders can come together and set aside their

differences. It makes evident just how small the differences truly are.

 

There are other good things to emerge from this tragic event: the

unification of the people of this country, the outpouring of generosity, the

movement toward prayer. But the hatred wreaked here has also elicited our

hatred. Anger begets anger. So many of us confess our utter dismay at the

hatred directed toward us. But it is not altogether without cause. We, in

America, are the last imperial power. We live in the country that consumes

most of the world's resources. We are so mighty that we often overlook the

ramifications of our richness on the lives of other nations. There is slave

labor around the world, much of it supplying us with shoes, chocolate and

other goods that make our luxurious lives better. Everything comes at a

cost, and because of our relative wealth, as a nation, we often don't see

the cost paid by the rest of the world. We, as citizens, are trapped by the

structure of our culture, unable in to stand against the excesses. Those who

do stand against excess, do so by great virtuous efforts. For the normal

person, trying to eek out a life, we are compelled by the dragon that is our

culture to consume, to drive, to purchase the items necessary to an American

life in 2001.

 

There is so much suffering in parts of the globe that we don't fully

appreciate here. We're isolated from it. We've been safely ensconced in our

lives of plenty. Even though there is suffering on our shores, it tends to

be isolated--until this. Last night, at the vigil, songs were sung, signs

were held up promoting peace, flowers were laid upon memorials, candles were

lit, people gathered peaceably in a massive sharing of grief and hope. It

was helpful to be in community. Many people carried the message of peace and

love. There were signs declaring Arab Americans are Americans, too. There

was so much effort at healing and inclusiveness.

 

It's so easy to blame, to want to visit a violent response to those who

harbor the people capable of these treacherous acts. But to respond with

more war-like actions, we will further incite those who hate. Hate cannot

cure hate. We are confused. Those of us who wish for peace, are distraught

because we cannot simply stay our ground and not respond. But should we

respond with bombings, are we not the same as the perpetrators who attacked

us? No, some will say. We're justified because we are responding to their

actions. But their actions did not take place in a vacuum, either. In the

minds of those bent on the destruction of America, theirs is a justifiable

cause. We must not ignore that. We can stand on the platform that there is

no justification for their actions, but that dismisses the passions that

motivated this madness. Clearly, the people who did this are not insane. Too

much planning went into this attack for that. They are waging a war. They

are strategizing ways to take down America. They believe in their cause--to

the death. It is their beliefs that are so frightening. Their lives means

less to them than their cause. Is there anything short of death that can

stop them? What is it that has caused so much pain and anger that they are

bent upon our destruction?

 

We have never seen so many dead in one place on our shores at the same time.

As a nation, we have never had to mourn so many from one event of this kind.

Perhaps, now we can better understand what those, whose lives have been

shaped by war, experience. We've had no comprehension of what it means to

lose so many, to see so much destruction, so much injury, so much horror.

Will this increase our compassion?

 

In many ways, we as a country, have been callous toward the suffering of the

poor of the world. We rise up often to the aid of a nation and a people when

it is in our national interest to do so. And the problem with the denizens

of hatred is that they are fully invested in their hatred. Their hatred has

lived for generations. They have been taught from early on that the way to

be in the world is to destroy that which is different. We, on the other

hand, in America, live under the premise that our differences are our

greatness. We live in a country that tolerates our differences. We are a

country built on the foundations of the cries for that freedom.

 

But freedom is a value. We believe in that value. Others do not. Strange as

it sounds to our ears, there are those who see life very differently.

Suffering has ways of distorting the minds and hearts of a people. People

look for the causes of their suffering. We all want to place blame. And we

can all be influenced. When the indoctrination is sufficient, it is possible

to control a nation of people and lead them to inflict the will of their

leaders by meting out annihilation upon any perceived enemy, or simply to

stand by idly while others perpetrate these horrors. Often those not strong

enough to take an action they know to be wrong, are not strong enough to

resist.

 

Evil is inexplicable. We cannot understand it, because it defies any

intellectual comprehension. It exists. Many people live according to its

twisted laws. Should we attack evil with violence? While it will serve the

purpose of venting our rage and rid us of some of the living incarnations of

our enemies, it will also fuel the very hatred we want to eliminate. For

hatred does not die with the individual. Hatred is immortal. It has no body.

Hatred lives, like a parasite, in the bodies of people. And while we can

kill some of them, the survivors will intensify their efforts to make their

passions felt.

 

At the same time, we cannot sit idly by, while terrorists plan new ways to

destroy us. But if we bomb Afghanistan or Libya or Iraq, will we end the

terror? In the past, it seems we've driven it further underground. Tuesday

another of their sneak attacks worked against us. With a rate of 75%

efficiency, their military actions, whether done by isolated cells or

organized armies, proved fantastically effective, from their point of view.

The disruption to our way of life, to our economy and government will be

felt for decades to come.

 

And we can not rest easy that this will satisfy their hunger for

destruction. On the contrary, these "successes" will whet their appetites.

If they could effectively pull this off, there are likely other plots

they're working on. We're all alerted to the potentials of bio-warfare and

nuclear warfare. No one expected them to use our own civilian airliners

against us. We could not conceive of it, because we don't think with the

desperate mind of a small, resource-poor militia. But remember, the heroes

who fought to make this democracy a reality in the 18th century, did it by

fighting with tactics considered unethical in their time. There was no other

way for them to have won the war. Today, we study them as the champions of

right. But then again, we were the winners. Had the results been different,

our heroes would be seen as criminal insurgents. Since history is the

version of what happened from the winner's point of view, once the present

has slipped into the past, we can revise history as it suits our

sensibilities. But today, we are living history. We are creating history.

It is unfolding each day. We are making decisions that our children will

interpret in the future. We are creating a legacy.

 

So difficult are these times and these decisions that must be made, that we

must move with great care. For we can easily escalate a bad situation. And

if we don't move, we may pave the way for the continuation of our

defenselessness.

 

The spiritual truths are the greatest guideposts we have. Yet, the words of

the love and peace can seem like so much tripe in light of the shock we've

had. Still, while we must take action, we should make our decisions by

reflecting long and hard upon the wisdom of great understanding. This is a

human dilemma. It is a world-wide dilemma. We are not alone. The actions we

take will live as long as the actions taken against us. We must proceed with

care.

 

How do we love our enemies enough to include them into our healing? For

those who inflict great pain, it seems the only way to move them toward

compassion is for them to feel great pain, either the pain of those they've

hurt or their own pain. By launching attacks toward the perpetrators of

evil, we hope in our efforts to gain justice, to inflict a like pain so that

they can feel what we have felt. The questions I ask are: Can a cold heart

turn warm again? Can someone who has so turned away from their compassion

find it again? Can the torturer be redeemed? No one can be saved by another.

Each has to come to goodness by choice. This is what makes us so helpless in

the face of evil. We cannot fix it. We cannot heal it. We cannot eradicate

it. We must include it in the all of what is, and that pains us. It's easier

to seek vengeance. The problem is that vengeance knows no end.

 

If there's a time for peace and a time for war, and we are to wage war, we

are doing so to only create peace. Thus, we will fight a war only so that it

can end. Therefore, if we fight to end fighting, we must win. And if we must

win, we can not stop until the job is complete. But the job is not complete,

until evil is gone, and evil cannot die. Is it then hopeless? No, not

hopeless, life on the planet is made of ebb and flow. Evil rises and

subsides. We have been issued a new challenge, heretofore unseen by

humanity. We must remain vigilant. We forgot that, and in our complacency,

we were struck hard. Today, we must join in the great battle again. We must

fight evil. The trick is to find the way.

 

Marc

 

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