Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Little Amina was proud to have a grown-up job, making tea for the family in the little kitchen just outside the main part of the house. Boiling the water and getting the teapots ready, stacking cookies on a small platter, she couldn't wait to start bringing the afternoon treats inside to her waiting family. Brothers and sisters, mother and father, cousins and aunts and uncles all sat together on the floor inside the house, chatting and waiting for little Amina to come inside. Eight years old, and taking her job seriously, Amina waited. Suddenly, she heard a rumble and then her entire world exploded and went black. Minutes, perhaps even an hour later, she came to, buried in rubble. Slowly, painfully, she pushed at the rubble over her head and began to see the sky. Gingerly, frightened, she pulled herself completely up from the ruins of what used to be her home and began to look around. The house was gone, parts of the house and body parts littered the area where only a short while ago her entire family sat around chatting, waiting for their tea. In shock, she began to stumble around the rubble. Suddenly, she heard a low moaining sound, horrible, in pain, and she followed that sound to a pile of rocks and bricks and wood. From beneath that pile, she heard her father. "Help me.... please!" She tried to remove some of the stones herself, but it was too hard. She spent two hours removing scraps and then, finally, neighbors became brave enough to leave their homes and help her. Hours later, her father was recovered from the ruins of the home. The only one left alive, but stark-raving mad. Seventeen members of her family, all killed by one bomb.

Was the destruction of that house and the killing of 17 people a terrorist act?

Jennifer Marie Hartman loved four-wheeling, in fact she lived for it. She lived for four-wheeling and she cooked for her fellow soldiers stationed in Iraq. And, according to her MySpace blog, she feared getting blown up. 21 years old, she lay sleeping after a long hard day's work when her world exploded. Unlike Amina, she didn't wake up. An IED (Improvised Explosive Device) took her life. Now her parents and friends are mourning the daughter and friend they will never see again, her comrades spend their waking days in fear and their sleeping nights troubled by nightmares, and every day more and more American soldiers die.

Was her murder a terrorist act?

Young Mandel and Kobi decided to ditch school one day. There were caves that they loved exploring so they snuck off to spend a day having an adventure, instead of another boring day of math and history. Soon after they entered the caves and started playing, they heard sounds that made them realize they were not alone. A group of other children, kids from the wrong side of the gated community, had followed them into the caves. Mandel and Kobi never went back to school or to the arms of their parents, their smashed heads and battered bodies found days later.

Was their murder a terrorist act?

Teenaged Abeer was sitting at home with her parents and siblings, perhaps the televison was on, showing the latest horrors of the war while the government proclaimed things were going just fine. The door suddenly burst open and soldiers came pouring into the house. One soldier grabbed her and ripped her clothes off, he began to rape her as her family watched, held in place by the other soldier's guns. One after another the soldiers took turns and raped the 14 year old and finally - when the last was finished, one by one the soldiers murdered everyone in the house.

Was this gang rape and mass-murder a terrorist act?

How ironic that petrol would be in short supply in Iraq. Yet every day, women and children, more often the very young and the very old, wait in long lines for cans of petrol to cook their food and boil their water. Electricity can't be counted on, so families need petrol every day just to survive. A mother of four waited in line for hours and was finally reaching the front of the line to fill her petrol can. Suddenly, an explosion ripped through the line and then the large petrol tanks exploded. Dozens of people were killed, their body parts scattered for blocks around, the blood burned into the streets. Soon afterwards a woman kneels in the bloodied street wailing "How can I go home and tell her children that I sent her to get petrol and now she is dead?"

Was this bombing a terrorist act?

Trying to escape the death squads that roam the streets at night, the family quietly packed their bags and loaded up their car. They had seen neighbors slaughtered, headless bodies left littering the neighborhood as a warning to those remaining alive that it would soon be their turn. Leaving behind a family business, most of their posessions, and memories of a better time, they started the car early one morning for the long drive to another village where perhaps they might live safely. They saw a military vehicle ahead of them, a U.S. soldier shouted something in English, they slowed down. Soon, a hail of bullets showered their car. Moments later, everyone in the car was dead..

Was this shooting a terrorist act?

Between rising in the morning and bedtime each night, we've been fed a daily diet of news reports, each with a different official label. Some horrors are called terrorism. Some are called casualties. Some are called victories against the enemy. Some are called unfortunate outcomes during a time of war. Others are called the work of a few bad apples. Some are denied completely, until cameras or eye-witnesses expose the truth. Rarely do Americans actually see the mutilated bodies of the victims of this violence, the blood, the body parts, the bloated corpses, or the mass graves. Showing such outrages on TV or the front page would violate our sensibilities, would be exploitative, or might diminish our support for the war. Instead, TV sometimes shows us brief images of grieving families, American, Iraqi, Palestinian, Israeli, and we cluck our tongues and think "what a shame." Thirty dead today, fifty yesterday, a dozen tomorrow. Thousands over time. After a while, too many of us become numb to it all.

Sometimes we come together to try to make sense of it, to try to figure out a way to bring an end to the insanity. Invariably, someone among the assembled will say something along the lines of "What's happening THERE is terrible, and I'm against the loss of innocent lives but, I really think that Muslims need to speak out against these senseless acts of violence, against these suicide bombers, against these terrorists."

The other night, Multifaith Voices for Peace And Justice, a Bay Area interfaith peace organization held such a gathering. We had two foreign policy experts leading the discussion and a room full of people, some outraged and others numbed by the continuing violence in Iraq. As one of the moderators handling the multitude of questions, juggling semi-functional microphones, and amidst both brilliant and challenging dialogue, it was hard to pay close enough attention to all that was said, harder yet guage the emotions of people in the audience. After the presentations and question and answer session were over, I could see that my dear friend Samina was terribly distressed. "Why didn't you ask my question about Abeer?" she asked. With over 60 questions littering our table, we had only gotten to ask about six. It wasn't until I got in the car to go home that I truly understood why the question about Abeer was so important. How could we ask a Muslim woman sitting in the audience to speak out against one type of terror, while so many around her failed to speak out against the rape and murder of this innocent 14 year old girl and her family?

Why is one horrible act called terrorism and another simply an act of war? One dictionary definition of terrorism is "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes." What was the purpose of "Shock and Awe?" Did we not hope to intimidate the Iraqi leadership into surrendering? Did Deputy Secretary Armitage not threaten Pakistan's president, saying that we would "bomb his country back into the stone age" if he didn't cooperate with us. Was that not an attempt to terrify him into doing our political will? Why is a 5,000 pound bunker bomb dropped onto a little girl's house from the safety of an F-117 airplane considered a conventional weapon while a car bomb is considered a terrorist weapon? They each blow human beings to smithereens. Why is one form of human slaughter considered civilized and another barbaric? It is ALL barbaric.

We either need to stop using the terms terrorism and terrorists completely, or we have to stop and ask ourselves, each and every time, what the right terms would be for the latest atrocity against humanity.

Perhaps we can be more direct and simple in our language. People who kill are killers. People who rape are rapists. People who bomb are bombers. People who commit acts of violence in the name of God, people who commit acts of violence in the name of their sect, and people who commit acts of violence in the name of their country are simply people committing acts of violence. Soldiers can believe that they are killing for a good cause, like protecting their fellow soldiers or defending their country's freedom and honor, but how is that so terribly different from all the other people who kill, to protect their families, to avenge injustices, to topple governments, to defend their property, or because they are hopeless.

And I also must admit, some people are violent because they are sick, beyond moral thinking, hateful, or in the heat of some passion that they can't or won't control.

Killing with a gun, a missile, a bomb, an IED, a sword, a knife, a large stone, strangling, poison gas, electricity, starvation, whatever... It is ALL wrong. Those who die are equally dead. Those who are left behind feel equal grief. Those who are injured bleed equal blood and suffer with equal pain. Using violence to try to convince people to stop committing violence is stupid. Killing to save lives is idiotic. Violence in all forms is wrong and we should all be about the business of bringing it to an end.

Some people can't understand why some other people are willing to strap explosives to themselves to carry out their acts of violence. Other people can't understand why bombs and missiles painted with U.S. flags drop from the sky and wipe out their entire families. Most of the victims of violence are completely helpless. Too many people with the power to stop the killing are completely silent.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Unitarian Universalists, agnostics, atheists, spiritualists, and all sorts of people DO speak out against violence. But their voices are too often drowned out by shouts that they are "naive," or worse, "traitors."

Muslims in the United States, England, France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and across the planet have spoken out against suicide bombing, against Muslim on Muslim sectarian killing, against intolerance and violence in all forms. Yet no matter how loudly they shout, no matter how many fatwas they issue, no matter how often they invite people to their mosques for dialogue, and no matter how many press conferences they convene or op-eds they pen, our daily diet from television, radio and newspapers continues to be the same, and we cluck cluck our tongues as we sip our morning coffee and we pray for peace as we go to bed at night. And in between, some of us ask each other why those Muslims are killing each other, and why they can't behave more like us. Or, we stand slack jawed with no quick response as someone asks us, good liberals perhaps, why these Muslims are so violent and why don't we speak out equally against them as we do against our own government's violence.

As Jesus once said, and I paraphrase, it is not what we put in our mouths that is impure, it is what comes out of our mouths. And sometimes, more sadly, it is what we fail to say that causes the most pain and allows the continuation of injustice.

So it was for me, after that gathering of intelligent and good-hearted people, who were trying to figure out what to say and do about Iraq. Yet again folks wanted to know where was the outrage of the Muslim community over the violence in Iraq. And I had said nothing, too busy shuffling my table full of questions and in too much of a hurry to get home.

And now, perhaps, I have said too much.

To end this, the following is a somewhat edited version of my message to Samina, a Muslim woman who thankfully has taught me more than a few lessons over the last few years. She asked me to share it with others thus prompting this essay.

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Dear Samina,

As we drove home Thursday evening, it struck me how awful it must have felt for you when people talked about wanting more outcry from Muslims over the acts of violence that fill our newspapers and televisions. And, you rightfully wondered, where was the outcry over the gang rape and murder by our troops of a helpless 14 year old girl. I agree with you that it is we (safe and sound white Americans - mostly males) who are too often silent in the face of atrocities. We tsk tsk tsk and say "that's what happens in war" when we hear of the slaughter of innocents under the bombardment of bunker bombs or the torture by "a few bad apple" soldiers. Tsk tsk, war is an ugly thing.

Thank you for your outrage, reminding me how terrible it is to sit in a room full of people who think they know all the answers, who think they are totally pure-hearted, but in too many cases, no matter how "nice" they might be, they are simply too blind to see what is right before their eyes. Sitting in the front row was Samina Faheem, who exhausts herself and gives everything in her soul to peacemaking, creating friendships, denouncing violence in ALL forms, by all people. And someone standing or sitting nearby saying "where is the Muslim outrage?"

My partner and I have sat in rooms many times during the last 20 years when people have talked about whether we, as gay people, should or should not have certain rights. I believe you can understand the fury I've felt when people made horrible accusations against us, and when we had little or no opportunity to speak back because of the rules of the gathering. Even worse, when someone compared gays to child molesters, alchololics, or thieves and no one in the room condemned such remarks. How often we've found ourselves so totally appalled by something someone said that we became dumb struck, unable to figure out what to say. Given our experience in such gatherings, I should have been more sensitive when those in our midst used the words Muslim and terrorist in the same sentance as though they naturally went together.

Thursday night must have felt the same way for you and I apologize that I did not read the question you gave us about Abeer. I actually didn't see it, but that's no excuse. There was one question I thought you gave me that I kept on top of the pile and did my best to make sure I read. I don't know if I even did that. But whether I did or did not doesn't matter. I was a bit too focused on keeping the evening going and too tired at the end to realize that a friend about whom I care may have been hurt that evening.

So - if I can - I want to tell you that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for stupid things that are said by others and the too many times people like me sit by and don't even realize we should do something about it.

Last night started Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of a period when Jews are supposed to reflect on the entire past year. If possible, we are supposed to right any wrongs we have done to others, make amends with anyone we've hurt. Before Yom Kippor, when they blow the Shofar and the temple doors are slammed shut, it is believed that what will be in the coming year will have already have been written in God's book. I can't atone for all that I've done in the past year, but I try. And before Yom Kippor I gather up a handful of pebbles which represent those things I can't fix, and toss them into the ocean. Letting go. This year, though, beyond trying to atone, I also plan to remind myself whenever possible to look around me and see who is in the room. Who has a voice? Who has been silenced? Who might be hurt by something said, or worse yet, unsaid.

Thanks for reminding me, Samina, and for the many ways you touch our lives.

About the Author:

Craig Wiesner is a veteran of the United States Air Force where he served as a Korean Linguist from 1979-1987. He received two Air Force Achievement medals and the Joint Service Achievement medal during his career and was the John Levitow honor graduate from the Air Force Leadership School in 1986. Craig is the co-founder of ReachAndTeach.com, an education company dedicated to peace and social justice. He is on the board of Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice, an interfaith peace organization based in Palo Alto California. Craig is a frequent contributor to the KQED (National Public Radio) perspective series.