September 11: An Open Wound?

I have already talked about the terrible events which took place in the United States on September 11, 2001 last year in the  post entitled 10 Years of Fear. Eleven  years have passed and we do well to remember the memories of those who died on that day and those who died as a consequence of 9/11. But it would be wrong to stop there and not be ready to move on, and, yes, let go.

For, horrible as 9/11 was, this event isn’t actually the cause of all the distrust and intolerance that we still witness to this day. Hate and revenge have always been a dark part of human nature. If you look closely and reflect on what might have caused 9/11, you may be surprised that there’s a very rational explanation to why we have reached such levels of hate and violence.

The fact is that even before 9/11, there was fear. But accounting for 9/11 in terms of fear may appear too simplistic and unsatisfying. Thus it’s important to qualify how fear operates at different levels. Thus, we can speak of the:

Fear of Change

As long as some do not accept that the world has changed, they will try to externalise their frustration through hate speech and violence. Thus, we have ideologies that misappropriate religion for their own political interests. Recent examples include the American Christian Right and Ismism. All promise to return to a world where they feel safe and control because they cling to a false belief that only one view of the world is valid.

Fear of Loss

Some of us  feel threatened by the ‘other’. There is a tendency for us to believe that our view of the world is correct. A false belief that we are independent selves and that we’re better or more superior than other people. We feel threatened by difference because it challenges our map of reality. We are ready to cling to beliefs that are irrational or incorrect. We justify violence because we see it as a way to protect who we are - or who we think we are. Thus, we have sexism, racism, disablism and so on and so forth. In a sense, we become slaves to the labels we give ourselves.

Fear of Losing Self

Finally, perhaps the subtler of fears. The fear of losing our self. In a way, this can be compared to the fear of death. But, the only difference perhaps is that this fear is more present and a real possibility. We fear to face who we are may be because we are not really sure of who we are. We keep holding on to our convictions not out of genuine effort but because we know that, if challenged, we are defenceless. We want to retain control and fear change because we were never on a solid foundation to start with.

There are no easy solutions to fear. However, what is sure, is that closing our minds and hearts to others who we perceive as different, foreign or as a threat, won’t heal the wound. Indeed, this may worsen the cycle of violence and hate that exists today. There remains a mistrust in our world which is somehow justified.

For, the modern war (if you may use that word) is increasingly becoming an individual matter. Everyone can be an enemy. It may even be a friend, a relation or someone you know. The recent shootings in Aurora, for example, exemplify how easy it has become to commit  individual acts of violence. There, are of course, suicide bombers still killing others they want to destroy and killing themselves in the process.

Thus, it’s now not only a matter of nations or world leaders whether there’s world peace. Then, it follows that it becomes more important that we are the ones who work for peace. Yes, there is the fears I discussed above.

We fear change. But, in truth, change is part of life. Ironically, we cannot change the fact that things change. It’s not a good or bad thing because change leads to growth and can lead to progress. Rejecting change means that we remain in a world that, however safe, is not real.

We fear difference. Perhaps because it challenges our view of ourselves. Accepting difference might mean to abandon our idea that wee are better than other people. Even labelling others as ‘less fortunate’ is a false belief that we don’t have any control over our lives or that injustice and inequality is natural and inevitable. Yet, while we are different on some levels, we are all human beings who share in the joy and suffering of life. Whoever we are, we were born of a mother, we all get sick, we all get old and we will all die. In this respect, our identity will not change this - even if it may change how we deal with these processes.
 We fear to lose who we are. But, how much of who we are has been given to us by others. Our names to start with. The fact is that there is no constant self. We aren’t who we were ten years ago. We’re not the same selves we were when we were children. This will change. Thus, our fear will not help and denying the fact that there are people who may be different than us leads nowhere but self delusion.

What does all this have to do with 9/11? The tragic events that happened on that day didn’t happen just like that. They happened because of many factors, one being fear. The fear of reaching out to others, a fear to accept things as they are and fear of losing our identity. A fear that has continued feeding into a cycle of violence. A cycle emerging out of a failure to communicate and reach out to others. A failure to correct injustice and poverty because of national interest.

It’s a failure to look at people who appear different than us as being part of us. Part of one human family facing the same challenges and all having the potential to improve the world.
We can’t afford to remain insulated in our own worlds of beliefs. We need to challenge and change who we are. Silence may help but if that means we stop talking to each other, it can be destructive.

Today, humans have the potential to build a better world but, at the same time, they have acquired weapons that can reap havoc and even destroy the whole planet in a matter of hours. Peace is the only rational choice. For, whether we like it or not, we are all in this world together. And while it may sound rather naïve to use such language, the truth is that we may need to start outgrowing the idea that we are distinct human beings but rather consider to be people with differences rather than different people altogether.

For history has shown that violence only breeds more violence. By continuing this violence by pretending to defend ourselves from another 9/11, we would be doing the same thing the hijackers did on that day. We would be killing our ‘enemy’ but, at the same time, we would be killing ourselves.

I believe that renewing a dialogue based on peace and mutual respect and cooperation is the only way to honour those who died (and are dying) as a result of the 9/11 attacks.

It may be the only way to prevent more 9/11s…

10 Years of Fear

There is already a lot of commentary and opinions trying to analyze where we are today following 10 years since the September 11, 2001 attacks. However, as we prepare to honour the many people who lost their lives on that tragic day, I feel it it’s important to ask ourselves whether the world has moved on. In other words, can we say that the planet has become a safer and more peaceful place for us to live in?

Putting aside any political interests, can we truly say that the so-called “war on terror” was real and justified? Undoubtedly, 9/11 caused great loss of life and, indeed, we must remember all those who were killed in the name of an ideology feeding on hate and revenge. But have we thought of the thousands more of equally innocent people whom have been killed in a war against an unknown target?

Don’t we care that much because they don’t belong to our culture, don’t have our values, don’t believe in the same God as we do? Perhaps, we fear, that these people we now label “Arabs” or “Muslims” are a threat to Western civilization which we believe is based on the values of democracy, respect and justice? Does this explain the rise of Islamophobia in the West and the growing popularity of far-right extremism?

Can we reconcile our supposed respect of human rights with the emerging evidence that innocent people might have been tortured and bullied to reveal dubious information about events that took place on 9/11 and to investigate whether there may be new plans to attack? Can we we pride ourselves with the good values we hold while we inflict pain and suffering on the world we never bothered to understand, let alone care for?

Are we comfortable with the fact that some multinational companies are exploiting parts of the world for their rich natural resources to gain profit while the inhabitants are living in a state of hunger and unimaginable poverty and disease? Are we ready keep watching scenes of conflict and violence on our media thinking that this doesn’t affect me? Yet, you meet someone who is different than you, perhaps a Muslim, do you become fearful and suspicious?

Yes, Osama bin Laden was killed. However, it would be naïve to think that this solved the problems that gave rise to 9/11. For horrible as the actions of Al Qaeda may have been, there are still people who have come to the conclusion that terror and violence are the only ways to stop a West, that they perceive is exploiting their lands, killing their people and impoverishing their lives. We who don’t have to deal with a situation where you have to worry about whether you’re going to eat today or how far you need to go in order to get safe drinking water, don’t appreciate that out there people are living a harsh life.

We may avoid thinking about these realities. Indeed, we may not care enough to realize that killing bin Laden, for example, only removed one symptom of a far greater disease. A disease that cannot be cured by medicine and antibiotics. The disease is fear. A malady that is sometimes so strong that it forces us to keep away from anyone or anything which we perceive as a threat. In the name of fear, we close our mind and heart to others who are different while they become mere objects where we project our darker sides. They become the targets of our hate, resentment, insults and violence. As we feed our fears, our victims lose their humanity.

Sadly, unless we don’t recognize that we can no longer go on with our life thinking what happens in other parts of the world isn’t our concern, we will be easy victims for fear and its afflictions. By closing ourselves to the suffering of others, we fail to appreciate the dire situation other people living in the world are living in. Without recognizing that, to some extent, we may have contributed to this situation, we would have learned little from 9/11. If we believe what our fears tell us, we will miss seeing that our similarities with ‘those people’ are much greater than our differences.

Unless we do all that and more, we will remain trapped in an age of fear. An age which doesn’t exist in time but in our minds.

Facing the Enemy Within

Who is the enemy? We all have people in our life that we feel we can never get along with. We may deny it, but as we grow older, we start distinguishing between those we consider friends, those who we don’t have any feelings towards and enemies. However, thinking of these three types of people in terms of closed groups is simplistic for friends can, at one point in the future, become enemies or vice versa.

Undeniably, the relations we have with other people and the way we perceive them in our world is important as it provides us with an identity and a feeling of control and choice. This is because, unlike our family, we tend to choose who are friends and enemies are.thinking these of these three groups of people as if life was that simple would be naïve for no individual is fixed in his/her position in our world view. Even if it doesn’t happen everyday, friends can become enemies and vice versa. People who we didn’t know or care for before may suddenly become our best friend or worse enemy. Yet, unlike our family, it is up to us to choose who gets to be  our friend or enemy.  

However, we tend to be unaware that the greatest enemy mis not on the outside but rather inside of us.  if we think about it, our greatest enemy may be within us. For, destructive and malicious as they may be, we have the choice of how to react to our enemies and, many times, we tend to get wound up in resentment and hate if we are challenged by an external enemy. In the process of letting the external enemy’s words and action, we trigger an inner conflict. On the one hand, we attempt to justify ourselves and cultivate our anger against the enemy, and on the other, all the negative self-images of our past return to haunt us.

Once this happens, it means that the external enemy, with the complicity of our inner enemy, has managed to invade our heart and mind. Whether we resort to pride and self-righteousness, or sulk away in self-pity and seeking   consolation from others, the enemy has won the battle if not the war. Don’t get me wrong - I am not saying that one shouldn’t defend ourselves if someone goes around telling lies about us or in some way harming us. I’m saying that the moment we fixate on the pain inflicted upon us is the one we have have given up our freedom to choose. Indeed, we become hostage to a  negative thought process that changes us in ugly ways.

We may attempt to disassociate from the outer threat. We may get caught up in a stream of anger, resentment, and hate. We may go as far as murdering our external threat in our mind by dehumanizing this person. In so many ways, we become the enemy - not just to our human enemy on the outside but an enemy to our own selves. The good news is that we can choose to be victims and surrender to our enemy or learn from our experience. We might even try to understand why our external enemy has attacked us.

In this sense, an enemy can be of help in becoming aware of our own weaknesses - of how easily we can be conditioned by other people. It can make us more conscious of our tendencies to distance ourselves from our enemy, but at the same time, defining ourselves in a negative relation to our enemy. It should be an experience where we learn how much we are absorbed in a belief that we, together with those we regard to be part of our group, are the ‘good’, the ‘right’ and the ‘just] - judging all those who don’t meet our standards as outsiders. In clutching to our convictions that we have got nothing to do with ‘these other people’ who may come from different race, religious tradition or ethnic background, etc., we miss out on our human heritage.

For, unlike the enemy outside, the inner enemy can generate a legion of enemies that are not real or rational. We may have never met these people, these ‘others’ but as long as our minds perceives them as a threat, then we can be as hateful and resentful as if they really were acquaintances. 

our adversaries may be, we have a choice of whether to give in to our destructive impulses characterized by emotions fueled by a growing hate and resentment. An enemy is stronger when s/he has managed to cast us in a fight or flight mode where we are caught up in an internal battle torn between defending ourselves and attacking our enemy. At least in my experience, getting caught up in the conflict within only serves to inflame the anger and resuscitate the multitude of negative images of ourselves we have grown to believe without really knowing.

In our attempts to protect our own self-image, we suddenly turn our enemy into an ‘other’ by which we disassociate ourselves from the person we perceive as a threat to the point of dehumanizing them. But, in robbing our opponent from a humanity, aren’t we becoming less human? When we tell ourselves that we are the good people and the ones in the right and insisting that we are different, better and just people and our enemy is not part of us, aren’t we denying ourselves an opportunity to learn? For once we are absorbed in an attempt to protect our self-imposed identity, we become hostage to our own thoughts and emotions. At that point, the have unintentionally chosen to be conditioned by another person. 

On the other hand, we can take the opportunity to observe our reactions as our mind battles in a conflict between our self-doubt and pride, between our instincts of defense and attack. But what is there to learn when we’re feeling pain inside and we feel hurt so much that we cannot control  our emotions? This is not easy, I admit, but we have to admit to ourselves that we are angered because something out there has challenged our world view. It has shaken the foundations of our beliefs and robbed up of any peace of mind. Yet, as we realise that we have been thrown into this state of apparent chaos because we have consented to an enemy to let the seeds of malice grow in our heart and mind. This should make us more aware of how easily we can we be conditioned into a thought process  that is, for the most part, our own making.

In addition, as we seek to justify our belief that we are the better ones, we build an image of the other that is inhuman and even worthless. Ironically, by defining ourselves in terms of our enemy makes us not only psychologically dependent on our enemy in defining ourselves, but also robs us of any clains to a free will. We are confined to a state of mind where we are tuck in fear. The tragic thing is that, many times, we create our own cell and surrender to the enemy within, which makes us believe we are the best as we intoxicate ourselves in calling ourselves names that elevate us to a godlike status. In short, we have created an enemy that is even more dangerous because we’re unaware of. The fact is that we can ultimately give power to those who want to harm us.

However, there are other groups of people who our mind may perceive as enemies, especially if we are prone to being attached to an image of ourselves that is exclusive and is set against ‘other’ people we deem, consciously or unconsciously, inferior and less worthy than we are and the group we associate ourselves with. Our ‘enemy’ here is not real in the sense that we may have never met these persons. But we can still harbour a certain hate and resentment if we even hear their name mentioned. It sounds irrational and it is irrational. But, that does not stop people from holding on to preconceived notions of people depending on their race, religious tradition, or ethnic group. 

Our justification in conceiving those different than us as enemies emerges out of a fear that these people will threaten our social order. A national identity that prides itself in respect of diversity and freedom of expression is used to delineate between those who are worthy of rights and those who are not. Our cultures which were only possible because of our interest in discovering how other people live slowly becomes an instrument to oppress and exclude what can actually enrich it. A faith or religion which preaches that we are equal in the eyes of God, can implicitly resist those who belong to different faith. In forming our mental image of the enemy, we fail to be aware that much of what we believe is but a delusion. Worse still, by building barriers between ‘us’ and ‘them’, we risk to forget that we share our humanity and face the joys and pains of birth, love, friendship, disease and death.

This brings us back full circle to the initial question: Who is the enemy? The answer is not straightforwardIndeed, as we have seen an enemy can be really out there to harm us and our perception of them as threats may be legitimate and advised. On the other hand, enemies can be produced through our own preconceptions and world views. We can also find enemies hidden in our past memories and experiences. Yet, if we had to identify a common characteristic that defines enemies that we create from real or past  experience and imaginary enemies we form out of mere prejudice is that we are the ones who consent in letting these enemies take control over us. True, manny times it’s due to habit and our tendency to look at our world without consideration to those who fall outside of our rigid world view. 

This is why it’s important to find a time in our busy schedule to reach within and face our enemy. Even if we may feel uncomfortable with facing our enemy, the inner critic, which lifts us up only to enjoy seeing us taking  a great fall. While may be unable to help feeling resentment and hate in certain situations, we should take this opportunity to learn about ourselves and perhaps slowly changing our inner enemy to an inner ally. If we succeed in that, our human enemy has no more power over us and, indeed, if we make that extra effort, we can start to understand why your enemy has chosen you as a target. Indeed, you sometimes cannot choose your enemies either if you think about it because an enemy may hold feelings of hate and resentment based on a wong view. Then it’s even more important to be more aware of yourself and more open to others.  

Yet, what all these enemies have in common is that we can usually decide to what extent do we give power to them to condition our lives and, indirectly, control our thoughts and emotions. While we think of our daily enemies as persons who we would do without, they can also help us reflect more deeply on who we are and on what we can be like in difficult circumstances. Our enemies can also help us make an effort to understand that, malicious as they may be, our enemies still share our humanity and are not immune to their own inner enemy. 

I know that it’s easy to write all this and putting into practice is another matter altogether. Indeed, I’ve made many mistakes in the past and will surely do more along the way. But, as I grow in self-awareness thanks to my daily meditation, the more I come to realize how destructive we can be by giving up to someone else or to an imaginary threat our minds. How easy it is to persist in believing lies about your world that contradict experience.

The danger of avoiding to face our inner enemy is that, in persisting in protecting ourselves and our self-image, we close our heart and mind to others with the result of losing part of our humanity and of an opportunity for real growth.