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I spent a couple of days with a friend who was in his office a half-block from the World Trade Center on September 11. Fred
Burnham is a priest at Trinity Episcopal Church in New York City. His guest that day was the Archbishop of Canterbury and
a diverse group of spiritual directors who were scheduled to film a television program that morning. On three occasions,
they were fairly certain that they were about to die.
Early the next morning, Archbishop Rowan Williams received numerous telephone calls from reporters in England who knew
he was in New York. One of the first was from a reporter in Wales. The caller addressed the Archbishop in Welsh. Though
it was more uncomfortable for him, Williams answered the caller in the language he was addressed and continued the interview
speaking Welsh.
Reflecting on the call later with Fred Burnham, Archbishop Williams said something like, "The language that you use
to respond to another sets the context of your response." The next day while preaching, Williams referenced the earlier
call, and warned prophetically of the dangers of responding to these attacks in the language of war. He said that if we respond
to their violence in the same language that they have addressed us, it will only perpetuate the conversation in that violent
language.
"A War on Terror" never seemed like the right language of response to me. Following the attacks of September
11, using the word "war" gave a false grandeur and drama to the actions of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. It dignified
their activity as though they might be a great army fighting for some cause or territory. And it inclined the direction of
our thoughts toward the traditional responses that we make in times of war. It may have contributed to our ill-conceived
invasion of Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, and nothing to do with September 11.
What happened on September 11 was not war, it was criminal activity. Al Qaeda is an entity of organized crime. It is
more like the Ku Klux Klan or the Mafia than it is like the Mongol armies of Genghis Khan or the guerilla army of Ho Chi Minh.
Like the Klan and the Mafia, Al Qaeda uses terrorism to provoke fear. They are too small and insignificant to do anything
else.
Small, relatively powerless organized crime groups use the tactics of terror in order to create fear that magnifies their
effect. Fear plays into their hands. By fueling the emotions of fear and using the language of war, our leaders have only
increased the prospects for terrorism, creating a war that is breeding extremist recruits for radical jihadists. In speaking
their language, we are being false to our own values, resorting to such tactics as torture, kidnapping combatants' wives,
launching missiles into villages, and wiretapping Americans without court warrants. Beware of trying to slay the dragon,
lest you become the dragon. War is the wrong language for dealing with criminal gangs.
We know how to deal with organized crime. Our FBI has been very successful infiltrating, exposing and bringing to justice
both the KKK and the Mafia. We didn't declare war or send an army to invade Alabama to defeat the KKK. We used informers
and moles to get inside the secret organizations. Probably more important, we promoted a compelling vision of equality and
human dignity that gradually turned the hearts and melted the fears of whites who felt threatened by the full acceptance of
African Americans. Today the Klan is more like a toothless circus side show than a serious threatening force capable striking
terror in the hearts of the peaceful.
CNN terrorism expert Peter Berger and others have noted that the most effective anti-terrorism strategy recently has been
the West's generous reaction to the tsunami in Indonesia. Our actions of compassion and generosity moved hearts and gained
friends in an area that previously has been a stronghold for Al Qaeda's training and recruitment. Between Al Qaeda's unpopular
second bombing in Bali that killed only Indonesians and crippled tourism income, and the loving outpouring of aid coming from
Americans and others, the tide has turned against the terrorists in that corner. Eventually, love always overcomes fear.
Fred Burnham said that he discovered two things on the morning of September 11. First, he discovered he was not afraid
to die, and that discovery released in him a great freedom to be. Second, he discovered he loved all of the people around
him. He experienced love expanding universally. During the terrorizing hours of the morning of September 11, he realized
that he loved all humanity, indeed all of this living creation.
Fred said that the people around him who experienced the terror of that day seemed to react in one of two directions.
Many, like him, found their fears released and their compassion enlarged. Others, however, felt haunted and afraid, freezing
the trauma behind a wall of fear. It was the first group that created the community of healing at St. Paul's Chapel which
ministered so profoundly to the rescue workers at ground zero in the subsequent months. He said that being in that place
of fearless compassion, where exhausted workers came to rest and be cared for, was like living in the kingdom of God.
What if our leaders had been motivated by the language of love rather than fear, the strategy of reconciliation rather
than war? America gained international goodwill and empathy on September 11. What if we had used that moral credit to foster
a truly just settlement on behalf of Israel and Palestine in the name of 9-11? What if we had peacefully joined with the
voices of moderation in the Arab world to increase their credibility and standing? Instead, we acted as though blinded by
fear and deafened by the angry rhetoric of war. There were so many better options than declaring "war on terrorism."
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Published in the Northwest Arkansas Times, 2-6-06
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