September 2001

By Rabbi Michael Lerner RabbiLerner@tikkun.org Editor, Tikkun Magazine  There is never any justification for acts of terror against innocent civilians — it is the quintessential act of dehumanisation and not recognizing the sanctity of others, and a visible symbol of a world increasingly irrational and out of control. It’s understandable why many of us, after grieving and consoling the mourners, will feel anger – – and while some demagogues in Congress have already sought to manipulate that feeling into a growing militarism (more spies, legalize assassinations of foreign leaders, increase the defence budget at the expense of domestic programs), the more “responsible” leaders are seeking to narrow America’s response to targeted attacks on countries that allegedly harbour the terrorists. But though the perpetrators deserve to be punished, and I personally would be happy if all the people involved in this act were to be imprisoned for the rest of their...

America and Americans on September 11 experienced the full horror of what must surely be the greatest display of grotesque cunning in human history. Its essence consisted in transforming the benign, everyday technology of commercial jet aircraft into weapons of mass destruction. There has been much talk about Americans discovering the vulnerability of their heartland in a manner that far exceeds the collective trauma associated with the attack on Pearl Harbor. But the new vulnerability is radically different and far more threatening. It involves the comprehensive vulnerability of technology closely tied to our global dominance, pervading every aspect of our existence. To protect ourselves against the range of threats that could be mounted by those of fanatical persuasion is a mission impossible. The very attempt would quickly turn the United States into a prison-state. And yet who can blame the government for doing what it can in the coming months...

Tankar efter 11 september* Vad är terror? Det har gått fjorton dagar sedan någon, vi vet inte vem, flög plan in i World Trade Center och Pentagon. Det var privat- eller NGO-terror och avskyvärd som all terror. Fanatiker och martyrer kunde inte komma på mer intelligenta medel att få fram sina åsikter på. Inget politiskt mål, ingen filosofi eller religion kan förklara eller legitimera terror. Terror kan definieras som politiskt våld som saknar tillräcklig moraliskt och juridiskt rättfärdigande, oavsett om aktören är en mindre grupp privata individer eller stater. Den kännetecknas dessutom av att drabba oskyldiga, sådana som inte har med konflikten att göra, och av att den har ett inslag av oförutsägbarhet så den skapar fruktan även utan att ha genomförts. Denna artikel ska ge infallsvinklar till en självkritisk reflektion över varför terrorn drabbade just USA, den västliga världens ekonomiska och militära centra. USA:s kommande överreaktion USA:s hämnd eller...

The terrorist attacks against the United States have shocked the world and left Americans feeling vulnerable and fearful of future attacks. The US has made a major military deployment to the Middle East and seems intent on military action against Osama bin Laden and possibly Afghanistan and other states that may harbor terrorists or be linked to these attacks. But the military is a blunt instrument that could easily increase the cycle of violence by causing the deaths of more innocent civilians. The US response to the attacks should adhere to three basic criteria: it should be legal, moral and thoughtful. a) It should be legal under both domestic and international law, sanctioned by the United Nations, and multilateral in scope. b) It should be moral in not taking more innocent lives. c) And it should be thoughtful in asking why this has happened and what can be done to...

LONDON – Menachem Begin, the rightist Israeli politician, wrote in his account of the Jewish Irgun movement, active in Palestine against the British colonial power during the 1930s and 1940s: “Our enemies called us terrorists. People who were neither friends nor enemies, like the correspondents of the New York Herald Tribune, also used this Latin name, either under the influence of British propaganda or out of habit. Our friends, like the Irishman O’Reilly, preferred, as he wrote in a letter to “get ahead of history” and called us by a simpler, though also Latin name: “patriots”.” Yesterday’s terrorists can become today’s freedom fighters – – and in the Israeli case- today’s imperial oppressors. The very word fills us with dread yet it is replete with its own contradictions. The Russian czar killers were the first to bring the word into common political usage. But, ironically, although they claimed that political murder...

(B) Continued from PressInfo 129 Global brainstorm on a humanity-oriented Western policy Imagine that we begin a global brainstorm where people of all walks of life can contribute their opinions freely on questions such as: how can the United States, and the West in general, make a more efficient contribution to a world in peace, justice and human development? What new forums do we need — in the fields of politics, religion, education, culture, etc — to balance the globalisation in the economic sphere? How must we re-structure the world system to promote global democracy and democratic governance (for, by and with the peoples) to benefit all and not mainly Western people? We are talking about a new global policy for us all and not just for the biggest countries. We are talking about taking the idea of a global human family seriously when making decisions at home. We are...

(B) PressInfo 129 and 130 is our contribution to questions we find essential now: Can something positive come out of the terrible events in New York and Washington on September 11? Can the innocent victims of many nationalities and walks of life be honoured by hard thinking about a more peaceful world? Can this particular violence teach us something about the civilisational necessity to reduce violence before it is too late? We shall be happy if you find any inspiration here and we invite your constructive thoughts to tff@transnational.org. Two weeks have passed. We mourn the tragedy in New York and Washington. Innocent lives were taken by mad men who could not find intelligent, non-violent ways to make their point. No civilised goals can ever be promoted by such methods. No ideology and no religion in the world can justify them. There are those who argue that, at this very...

LONDON – How should the United States fight Osama bin Laden? It could start by saying sorry. Despite two centuries of rapid immigration pulling in people from all over the world, America remains a predominantly Christian nation. It is not a Jewish one and certainly not an Islamic one. It draws its inspiration from another book, mightier, it believes, than the Old Testament or the Koran, although it shares common roots with both these religions and worships the same God. If Christianity is not about saying sorry and turning the other cheek what, at the end of the day, is so special about it? We have a lot to be sorry for. After all it was Christian societies that practised slavery. It was a Christian society that tolerated the long persecution and then the obliteration of the Jews. (Islamic societies, even in their worst times, have never set about the extermination...

Ferencz is a former prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial By Katy Clark,September 19, 2001 See other articles, letters and analyses by Benjamin Ferencz at http://www.benferencz.org Ferencz: Perhaps some of the tears have dried and people can begin to think rationally about the horrors of the past week and what we can do to prevent the recurrence of such tragedies. Katy Clark: Ben Ferencz has spent most of his 82 years doing just that. He was a prosecutor for the United States during the Nuremberg war crimes trials of Nazi leaders. Ferencz’s response to the Vietnam War was to withdraw from his private law practice and spend the rest of his life studying and writing about world peace. He founded the Pace Peace Center at Pace University, where he is Adjunct Professor of International Law. Ben Ferencz lives in New Rochelle, New York. You wrote this letter because you believe that...

Det er kun få forundt selv at rejse til konfliktområder og udvikle en egen forståelse og danne en egen opfattelse. De fleste er afhængige af dagblade, radio og TV. Derfor står medierne mellem os og begivenhederne. Hvad vi får er derfor ikke nødvendigvis en opfattelse af virkeligheden, men et billede af den, af en del af den, af nogle aspekter af den og vinkler på den og netop ikke af visse andre aspekter og vinkler. Det kan nok hverken være eller blive anderledes. Men! Hvad hvis dækningen er systematisk skæv, hvis der er en tendens i, hvad der dækkes og ikke dækkes? Nu er der igen en Balkankrise og igen er der nogen af os, som har været på åstedet i omkring 10 år, der spørger: har vi nu også en fri presse, som dem hjemme faktisk kan stole på ? Her kommer ca 20 spørgsmål/emner, som kunne have haft...

Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) My first reaction was of incredulity: was I watching a movie or was this real? This was real. I was mesmerised. Then one of the Trade Centre’s towers collapsed. I fell deeply silent within myself, and an awareness of the suffering and grief all this was causing gripped me. Very many people are in deep grief for very many innocent lives have been lost by this act of terrorism, which was a dreadfully evil act. I uphold these people and all those in the administration of states who are responsible for responding to this crisis. Terrorism is indeed a threat to civilised societies and democracy and the following reflections should not be perceived as diminishing this conviction. My Buddhist training helps me to examine the causes of suffering and these include those causes of terrorism that are not entirely irrational. There is some basis for...

From articles in the Seikyo Shimbun, September 16 and 17 Ignorance is a dangerous thing. Without factual knowledge, stereotypes and the imagery they spawn invariably assume a momentum of their own, proliferating out of control. Just because the perpetrators of the appalling terrorist attacks are believed to be of Arab descent, I pray that people will not immediately jump to the conclusion that all Arabs are dangerous and that Islam encourages violence. It is in no way true that all 1.2 billion Muslims in the world are violent. Even the recent revival of Islam, which is sometimes confused with Islamic fundamentalism, is not a monolithic mass movement. The extremists constitute a very small minority; the vast majority are moderates. Obviously, every act of terrorism is reprehensible and wrong, regardless of its motive. Yet we absolutely must not treat terrorism as an inevitable consequence of faith in the tenets of Islam....