Friends -- It is easy to think about "them", but what this is really about is "us" -- the big "us" -- that includes all of us, of all races, all cultures, all nations. No one has a monopoly on violence, no one has a monopoly on peace. All nations, cultures and religions have killed in the name of what they hold most dear. The old testament is a history of genocide, as was the inquisition, as is the American legacy in Indonesia, Nicaragua, and elsewhere during the cold war. The US representative to the UN was the US liaison to terrorist groups in Central America. The prime minister of Isreal was a renowned terrorist during the founding of that country. A handful of terrorists of one people says no more about that people than the terrorists of any other people say about that people.
We all hold wisdom, love and compassion. This is what we have to call forth in ourselves and each other. In some recent work in a foreign country, (I was brought in for some expertise I was seen to have, and even told by Indonesians "You will teach us what you Americans know.") I saw that there was great wisdom in all of us. We -- me, the other trainers, the agency people, the "trainees" and the conference participants -- all brought the wisdom of our experience. It is so easy to think that "we" know more than "they". I felt the strength in the relationships, the sharing of cultural viewpoints, the open dialog that was supported by a core commitment to inclusion and collaboration. When we get separated from each other, think that we know better, we are already sowing the seeds of destruction, which grow and grow until, in our fear, we commit acts that are so intense we finally see that the separation is unacceptable. Can we learn from this recent experience -- see that we have to come together, see ourselves as one -- or will we continue sow the seed of separation and death. America is no different than other parts of the world in core, real ways. The gloss of wealth and privilege is thin. This recent event certainly reveals this. Can we be humble enough to see this, to stop seeing ourselves as "other", better, to realize that there is something we don't know that we can learn from this incident. If we can't, we will surely create our own destruction. "Our" government has now voted unanimously a "Vow" to US retaliation, at any cost. The UN is evacuating UN staff from Kabul. The whole world is expecting "our" nation to begin killing innocent (along with "guilty") people in Afghanistan. Their loved ones will grieve their deaths as we grieve ours in New York. Are we so different? Are we proud of this? Where else will people die because we can't live with our pain? It was "our" God who said, "Love your enemy as yourself." The God of Islam is also a just and compassionate God. Kenoli Here is an extract from the words of a woman who has been living with terrorism for some time in Israel: "My son served in the Israeli Army in the West Bank, so for me the barbarous killings of two soldiers by a lynch mob in Ramallah made me feel the same anger that must have led Israeli Prime Minister Barak to bomb Palestinian leader ArafatÄôs compound in retaliation and to escalate the war against the Palestinians. So when I saw the pictures of the murder of those young men, I cried and was filled with rage. Yet I can also understand that to those Palestinians these two young men killed were just members of the occupying army, the army that had been brutally killing over 80 Palestinians and wounding more than 2000 civilians in the past weekÄîand might have seemed indistinguishable from the Jewish mobs that attacked random Arab Israelis in Nazareth a few days ago, beating and burning. For every outrage on one side there is a story of outrage on the other. For me, that doesn't justify either side--both are wrong and both sides need to atone." -- Kenoli Oleari, Horizons of Change, http://www.horizonsofchange.com 1801 Fairview Street, Berkeley, CA 94703 Voice Phone: 510-601-8217, Fax: 510-595-8369, Email: ken...@igc.org (or click on: mailto://ken...@igc.org) * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
