ON FAITH
Rev. Mike YoungMeaningless cycle of pain must be ended
THIS is the face of modern warfare. Not the clash of warriors according to the Geneva Convention, nor guerilla war with warriors indistinguishable from the populace. It is not ideological conflict with adversaries engaged in a war of ideas paralleled by threat, counterthreat and bloody proxy skirmishes as during the Cold War. This is a war of emotions, born of rage and using weapons of terror. No battle lines, no victory, not even the possibility of surrender.
How does one respond to this kind of conflict? To be horrified is exactly the response the terrorist intends. Yet we cannot help but be horrified. To send off our warriors to seek recompense is almost pointless. The Faceless Other is more than prepared for death - indeed, volunteered for it in the suicide runs that horrify us. To argue the ostensible issues that birthed the conflict that nurtured the rage, too, is pointless. The question of who was or is right or wrong is also long past. One Faceless Other, us, must be made to suffer as another Faceless Other, them, feel they have suffered.
And this, the Faceless Other, is part of the horror of such warfare. It is so impersonal and it is so intensely personal. The victims were not the adversary. The horrified survivors are not even the adversary. In one sense, terrorism is an attempt to emotionally blackmail all of us into becoming allies of the terrorists. Yet there is nothing we could conceivably do that would mitigate the hurt and rage. There is no win here, only the endless cycle of suffering that perpetuates itself and keeps the rage kindled. To proclaim it as the evil that it is and try to destroy it just turns the crank for another cycle.
Even if it were politically possible, which it isn't, our leaders cannot even capitulate and do whatever the terrorist wants, for what is wanted is our horror and suffering.
ALL WE CAN DO in the present is protect ourselves, survive and try to keep our fragile communities intact. We can try to bring those terrorists to justice, but there is no punishment that could hope to fit the crime. To subject their innocents to suffering as ours have been only turns the crank for another cycle of mutual horror.
In the longer view, the horror of terrorism is a reminder that the world has become interconnected. We are no longer, if we ever really were, immune from the suffering and conflicts around our globe. A reminder that we still lack the wisdom and the means to resolve conflicts before they have produced the winners and losers that ferment the hatred and rage that results in terrorism.
The horror and the helplessness are real, the impulse to retaliate as normal and human as trying to breathe, We cannot help but feel them, and feel them deeply, or to anesthetize ourselves until we feel nothing, including the touch of our own loved ones.
Still, someone, someday, must refuse to turn the crank again, or else it never ends. If not us, who? If not now, when? It is what we will not do that finally shapes our humanness.
The Rev. Mike Young is pastor
of First Unitarian Church of Honolulu.
