| A Third Option Of Response | |
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Letter from Gary Douglas Smith regarding the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack
Dear Friends,
The nation and the world continues to mourn over the unspeakable tragedy committed on Tuesday, September 11. As a nation and world community, we are still processing the devastation. As we speak, our leaders are huddling to come up with an appropriate act of response to this tragedy. The media and our leaders are telling us that we have two options of response: the first is to go to war with the terrorists and those countries harboring them. The second option is to do nothing.
The first option of going to war carries many consequences. The most important consequence is bloodshed. The blood of the terrorists, the blood of the countless thousands of innocent people, and the bloodshed of more Americans in the form of troops and victims of retaliatory terrorist acts. The polls are showing that 83% of Americans favor war. This is understandable due to the heinous crimes committed against civilians.
The second option we have been told is to do nothing. If we take this option, we are sending a message to the world and to the terrorists that if they attack us, we will hide in fear.
I would like to discuss a third option. That option is nonviolence.
Most people believe that nonviolence is passive, that it is the path of the weak. In truth, nonviolence is the most courageous and most difficult of the three options. Nonviolence is the path of moral and spiritual truth. When Gandhi went before the press and told the world that he was going to regain India's independence from the British Empire, and that he was going to do this without aggression and that in the end, Britain would leave as India's friend, the world laughed at him. This man, little in stature, was able to pull off the largest example of a peaceful revolution.
Another man who espoused the path of nonviolence was Jesus. If we distill Jesus' teachings to their core, we find they touched on three important teachings: that of forgiveness, love, and nonviolence (turn the other cheek). The question often arises, what would Jesus do in our situation? Likewise, what would Gandhi, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses and other spiritual leaders choose?
If we choose the path of war, thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands of innocent lives will be lost, though they are in places farther away from us than New York. We've all seen those holding photos of their missing loved ones on CNN. Fathers, mothers, children, sisters, brothers. How will we explain to our children that what these terrorists did was wrong...yet somehow explain that our warlike reaction -- which resulted in the deaths of more fathers, mothers, children, sisters, brothers -- was acceptable?
Aggression begets aggression begets aggression and the cycle continues. We hit them, they hit us, we hit them once again and once again, they hit us. How much blood must be shed before we realize that the path of war and violence not only does not accomplish anything beyond vengeance, but it does not work. Another world war will not end the warring cycle.
We should certainly pursue those responsible for this heinous crime and punish them to the fullest extent of the law. Nobody is talking about this option and we should. Nonviolence is not a path of hiding one's head in the sand. It is a path of courage, a path in which love and truth are placed far ahead of anger, hatred and fear. War would certainly be the simple and quick answer. But would it be the correct answer?
Martin Luther King said, The goal of nonviolence is not the humiliation or defeat of the opponent, but the winning of the enemy's friendship and understanding. To be nonviolent does not mean merely not to fight. It means to muster considerable endurance and keep up the struggle; a persistent denunciation of injustice where there is injustice; a persistent disobedience to unjust laws. It means persistently, yet nonviolently and lovingly, pressuring an oppressor until the good in him or her recognizes our plight and responds to it.
In conclusion, it is very important to note that people who practice the faith of Islam in this country and around the world are in no way promoting the violence of the few terrorists. As there are fundamentalists of all faiths, Christianity, Judaism and others, they do not represent the religion and its God. God does not ask us to kill in any religion. God asks for us to love our neighbor, which is the main creed of every religious group of the world. Please remember this when you encounter members of the Islamic faith in this country. This is a time of understanding, not distancing.
Click here to read some quotations from those far wiser than myself.
God Bless.
Gary Douglas Smith
