I moved out of my parents’ house in the end of August 2001. This was when I slowly started watching the news on TV. I remember exactly what I was doing and where I was on September 11th 2001 when America was attacked. This was the first big thing I really followed on the news. After that terror has been in the news almost every day. And every day I care less. This is part of the world I live in. This was what concerned the world when I started watching the news and it almost seems normal to me.
When Mother wanted people to write about where they were on July 7th last year and something like that, I had to ask myself what happened then. London Bombings, 56 people dead and 700 injured. I can’t remember what I was doing, where I was and I doubt it has affected me. I’ve stopped seeing it as something to remember. This is the world we live in.
The thing I think we need to see is who did the attack one year ago. They were not raised in a country where religion was dominating. Three of them were born in England one in Jamaica. People raised in our society who have managed to find so much hate against it that they blew themselves up killing 56 people. If we didn’t see it before it should be clear to us now. Attacking other countries is not the way to deal with this problem.
When the US was attacked they had to respond. The world’s only superpower can not let such an action go unpunished. Most of the world was behind the US, when a French newspaper writes “We are all Americans” you know there is support and sympathy. How the US managed to throw that support away so fast and so completely is beyond my ability to understand. It takes skill.
The US responded by launching the war on terror, introducing the patriot act and invading different countries. None of which seems to have made the world any safer. What could England do? Their terrorist had lived there all their lives. What should they do? Invade their own country? What happened in England tells us this is a problem that can’t be solved with violence and it doesn’t help simply guarding yourself against it by stripping people of their liberties. What we need is understanding. Knowing your enemy so to speak. Labelling terrorists as evil or animals, isn’t going to help either. We need to see them as humans, humans who believe they are doing the right thing. We need to understand them and change it. We need to understand the society they come. And we need to do so without using any of the tools we condemn them for using. We also need to realise that we don’t always know what’s good for the world. We need to learn from them as well.
Instead of spending so much money on wars to insure peace, we might try using the money on more peaceful measures. Food and clean water in the countries without. Fighting poverty. Making sure that people around the world are given a chance to live lives worth living.
What we need to do is to realise that we are part of the problem and really look at ourselves.
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Silence.
When Mother wanted people to write about where they were on July 7th last year and something like that, I had to ask myself what happened then. London Bombings, 56 people dead and 700 injured. I can’t remember what I was doing, where I was and I doubt it has affected me. I’ve stopped seeing it as something to remember. This is the world we live in.
The thing I think we need to see is who did the attack one year ago. They were not raised in a country where religion was dominating. Three of them were born in England one in Jamaica. People raised in our society who have managed to find so much hate against it that they blew themselves up killing 56 people. If we didn’t see it before it should be clear to us now. Attacking other countries is not the way to deal with this problem.
When the US was attacked they had to respond. The world’s only superpower can not let such an action go unpunished. Most of the world was behind the US, when a French newspaper writes “We are all Americans” you know there is support and sympathy. How the US managed to throw that support away so fast and so completely is beyond my ability to understand. It takes skill.
The US responded by launching the war on terror, introducing the patriot act and invading different countries. None of which seems to have made the world any safer. What could England do? Their terrorist had lived there all their lives. What should they do? Invade their own country? What happened in England tells us this is a problem that can’t be solved with violence and it doesn’t help simply guarding yourself against it by stripping people of their liberties. What we need is understanding. Knowing your enemy so to speak. Labelling terrorists as evil or animals, isn’t going to help either. We need to see them as humans, humans who believe they are doing the right thing. We need to understand them and change it. We need to understand the society they come. And we need to do so without using any of the tools we condemn them for using. We also need to realise that we don’t always know what’s good for the world. We need to learn from them as well.
Instead of spending so much money on wars to insure peace, we might try using the money on more peaceful measures. Food and clean water in the countries without. Fighting poverty. Making sure that people around the world are given a chance to live lives worth living.
What we need to do is to realise that we are part of the problem and really look at ourselves.
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Silence.
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