CrossCurrents A Catholic Reflects on Faith in Our Times

Bernard F. Swain, Ph.D. www.CrossCurrents.us

Fresh Wounds, Tired Rhetoric

I can scarcely believe that five years have passed since 9/11. Has my heart really been this heavy for that long? Can the wounds still feel so fresh after so much time?

Hard to believe that in the 2000 elections (less than ten years after the Gulf War and 25 years after Vietnam) foreign policy issues hardly mattered. People were simply indifferent and bored, as they had been ever since Bill Clinton discovered that “It’s the economy stupid!” was the key to success in 1992.

Even after the Supreme Court decided the election in George Bush’s favor, foreign policy remained on the back burner. When Bush established his controversial stem-cell research policy in July, 2001, media pundits declared “stem-cell research promises to be the defining issue of George Bush’s presidency.”

They could not have been more wrong

Since then, the U.S. has launched three wars (the “War on Terror,” the invasion of Afghanistan, and the invasion of Iraq) and faces the prospect of three more wars in Iran, North Korea, and Syria—all this not counting Israeli-Palestinian hostilities.

These conflicts have clearly replaced the Cold War in American public consciousness. Where Americans once saw an “Evil Empire” threatening them, they now see an “Axis of Evil.” That label, of course, links these wars not only to the Cold War but also to World War II – no surprise, once 9/11 was linked in people’s minds to Pearl Harbor.

Stop and think what this means: military struggle against an evil foe has been the nearly constant theme of U.S. life since 1941 – 65 years! Is this really how we want to live in the world? Have we no other choice?

My initial shocked reaction to 9/11 included the same mind-numbing grief shared by millions worldwide – the same grief that had one Paris newspaper declare, “Today We are All Americans.”

That grief deepened when I attended a memorial service for relatives of victims from the 9/11 flights out of Boston’s Logan Airport, and deepened further working with a pastor and staff ministering to the two families of two parishioners killed on 9/11.

But even amid the shock, my reaction included other, less common feelings that many people do not share.

While many were shocked to think that such an attack could happen at all, I knew it was only the latest (although the deadliest) in a series of terror attacks on many continents since at least 1969.

While many thought the best defense against attack was a military campaign (the “war on terror”) I saw that fanatics bent on death could “weaponize” almost anything to achieve their purpose. The real threat, I thought from the start, was fanaticism itself. And I believed, then as now, that you cannot kill an idea with a gun or a bomb.

While many immediately wondered how to eliminate our enemies, that goal seemed to me as futile as killing all the world’s mosquitoes. I wondered instead how we could drain the swamp.

Here is what I wrote in the week following 9/11:

The madness at Ground Zero cannot be allowed to continue, but merely punishing those behind the attacks will not be enough. If terrorism is the hydra-headed monster many fear, stopping it will take several steps.

First, our security systems must be good enough to minimize the danger of future attacks. But no system will be foolproof guarantee if the world’s trouble spots continue to produce suicidal zealots willing to employ any method to penetrate our defenses.

Second, we must root out the motives for attack by identifying why we are the object of others’ hatred and then determining what can be changed. If instead we tell ourselves such hatred is inevitable, we condemn ourselves to an endless war against terrorism. And if our own anger makes us inflict unjust suffering on innocent people, hatred may grow rather than subside--even as we mimic our enemy.

Third, we must acknowledge that, in a world made so small and vulnerable by the wonders of modern technology, there is little margin for error and no room for barbarity. Children growing anywhere without consciences, with no feeling for the sacredness of this life on earth, are a threat to us all. Add a strong dose of hate and a fundamentalist faith in a vengeful God and you have a powerful recipe for disaster.

Our secular culture can no longer afford to ignore the mysterious hold religious traditions still have on people the world over. Authentic religious formation—which, in all the world’ religions includes hearing the voice of God within and seeing life as God’s sacred gift—cannot be ignored or dismissed as unimportant or irrelevant to the world’s well-being. Generally, the absence of such authentic formation creates a vacuum—and too often that vacuum is filled, not by some generic and benign form of secular civility, but by fanaticism.

Hence we must above all ensure the ability of human communities the world over to raise their young with a truly global consciousness—a consciousness aware of, not blind to, the sacredness of life, the global solidarity of the human family, and the profound difference between good and evil methods (even in the pursuit of worthy goals).

Vietnam taught us the folly of pursuing merely military solutions to political conflicts. Terrorism will undoubtedly teach us the folly of pursuing merely political solutions to spiritual conflicts. The question is, will we learn that lesson before we win this war or, as in Vietnam, after we’ve lost it?

Five years later, the swamp has still not been drained, because we’re still trying to solve a religious and cultural problem by mainly military force.

Indeed, it appears the misuse of U.S. military force in Iraq, for example, has merely dammed up the reservoir of hate and created a new breeding ground. Before, Iraq was merely home to one of the world’s dozen pettiest tyrants. Now it has become the world’s most fertile incubator of new fanatics prepared to sacrifice anyone (including themselves) for the hateful cause. Saddam was no threat to our public safety—but these new fanatics are! And so the attacks continue.

Moreover, since 3000 innocents died on 9/11, more than 100,000 more (mostly women and children) have been killed – all because we have insisted on a military solution, repeatedly cramming a square peg into the round black hole of terror.

It is high time to acknowledge the truth: Terrorists do not have military goals in mind. They do not aim to conquer our land, or plunder our resources, or occupy us, or take control of our government. Their aim, by definition, is to terrorize us by attacking our public safety. But we have not focused on public safety (Security experts tell us the greatest single threat is to subway systems--indeed, subway attacks have already occurred in Paris, Tokyo, Madrid, and London-- yet the U.S. is spending next to nothing on subway security). Instead, we have pretended that the threat can be counted by a military campaign.

We could not have been more wrong.

The wounds of 9/11 still feel fresh precisely because the tired rhetoric of war has finally run its course. War doesn’t work on terror. We ask, “Do we feel safer?” but the question is irrelevant. If we have altered or compromised our principles or standards, the terrorists have already scored a victory.

If we Americans ever want to feel secure again, we will have to embrace other ways of countering the threats and enemies we face. But this will be impossible unless we outgrow our childish single-minded stubborn reliance on the blunt tool of war.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2006

Send Your Comments and Questions to bfswain@juno.com

Dr. Swain’s opinions do not represent the views of this parish or any other official body.

Bernie Swain has devoted more than 30 years to adult spiritual formation in dioceses in the US, Canada, and France. Since 1991 he has maintained a private practice as trainer, teacher, and consultant to leaders in parishes and other religious organizations. He holds degrees in theology and political science from Holy Cross, Harvard, The University of Paris, and The University of Chicago.

His writings include Liberating Leadership (Harper & Row, 1986) and more than 200 articles in periodicals such as The National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, The Miami Herald, The Catholic Free Press, The Pilot, Harvard Theological Review, and Liturgy.

A lifelong layperson, he lives in Boston with his wife and three children. Visit his website at:

http://www.CrossCurrents.us

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