Why?
You may have been surprised not to hear from Hope for Peace & Justice last week as the 10th anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001 approached. Honestly, I started writing several times, but, each time, I realized that what I thought needed to be said would only make people angry. As they say: “Been there, done that.”
In 2001 the Cathedral of Hope spent the first half of the year working on how to “detox from fundamentalism.” We acknowledged that all of us had been impacted by Christian fundamentalism, and that we all were irrationally legalistic in one area of our life or another. In the midst of talking about what it meant to be liberated and liberal in the best sense, 9/11 happened. Of course, we had the same painful reactions as everyone else. We too felt the shock, grief, and rage. However, we tried hard not to let those feelings determine how we responded or shape who we were. On the Sunday after 9/11, we did not unfurl a flag or sing patriotic hymns. We dared to invite introspection.
At that time, I had been an activist in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in the South for more than 20 years. I had been spat upon, had my car vandalized, and my tires slashed. I had pastored two churches that were fire-bombed, and I had received crates of hate mail. However, none of that prepared me for the vitriol that would be poured out after 9/11 about our refusal to have a fundamentalist response to that attack. This year, I’m trying to learn from that and not simply irritate people who weren’t ready to be reflective.
So, are we ready now?
After 10 years, is it possible for us to ask, “Why?” Is it possible to consider that perhaps we weren’t entirely innocent victims? Oh, make no mistake. The 3,000 people who died that day were innocent victims, but can we consider that, as a nation, perhaps our policies weren’t so innocent?
It may be that you have to leave the country in order to ask such questions. A former member of the H4PJ board of directors who now lives in Costa Rica sent me a link to an article that was published in an English language newspaper there. Dean Barbour wrote:
Ten years on from 9/11, there is still no meaningful national conversation, let alone a debate, about why 3,000 people died that terrible day, although the reason couldn’t be more obvious if it were carved into the marble alongside the names of the fallen at the Ground Zero Memorial: The United States finally got paid back for half a century of clandestine meddling and overt mayhem in the Middle East.
America, (meaning the CIA, aka the gang that couldn’t shoot straight), just doesn’t seem to be able to get it right over there, and hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims have been killed, imprisoned and tortured along the way.
• Who armed the Taliban? We did, to fight the Russians.
• Who armed Saddam Hussein? We did, to create a military balance to a radicalized Iran.
• Who radicalized Iran? We did, (with a little help from our friends), because back in 1953 we wanted to protect British petroleum profits and Allied access to Iranian oil. So we backed a coup that installed the Shah of Iran whose brutality gave rise to the Ayatollah Khomeini, the capture of the American Embassy in Tehran and finally, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a genuine whack job if there ever was one.
There are always going to be unforeseen and destructive consequences when a powerful country imposes its will on weaker ones through force or political machinations, no matter how compelling the argument for the actions of the stronger country may be. This is especially true when the stronger country is Christian and the weaker ones are Muslim. To pretend otherwise is political naiveté in the extreme.
No one wants to look at this or talk about the relationship between American foreign policy and 9/11. Instead, the conversations focus inevitably on the survivors, the pain of the families of those who were lost, and the two unwinnable but very patriotic wars which the U. S. embarked upon as a result, which have sapped the American treasury, killed thousands of brave men and women in our military and caused the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, just like the ones who died on 9/11.
 While Mr. Barbour says this more strongly than I might, what I want to say, in the strongest possible terms, is that the tens of thousands of innocent children, women, and men who have died as a result of the American bombs since 9/11 were just as precious as the 3,000 that died in this country that day. After 9/11, we wanted revenge. We wanted someone punished. We rejoiced when Osama bin Laden was executed in his bedroom. So, is it unreasonable to expect that those who loved the innocent ones our bombs have killed, and are killing, would want to see us punished?
Almost 3,000 innocent people died 10 years ago on September 11, 2001. More than 100,000 innocent people died as a result of our military response. Think of the pain and grief that our entire country felt after 9/11. I believe that when the Twin Towers fell the first heart to break was God’s.
Now think of how the country feels after the deaths of the tens of thousands of perfectly innocent children in Afghanistan and Iraq - Does anyone in America even care enough to know? Were their lives really so much less valuable and sacred? I believe that when the first American bomb fell in Afghanistan the first heart to break was God’s.
Will America ever repent of those thousands of innocent deaths? Will America ever forgive and seek forgiveness? I don’t think it ever will happen until followers of Jesus stop pretending to take him literally and begin to take him seriously. That thing about turning the other cheek, and forgiving your enemy, he really meant it.
Blessings,
Michael Piazza
President, Hope for Peace & Justice |
