Due to some problems I’ve had posting since I returned to my apartment in France (and a repaired Macintosh PowerBook where I’ve had to reload every application) I’ve been slowed in writing both fiction (it’s on the way, seriously!!!) and responses to events that have occurred during my two week hiatus.
Joe Gandelman, at The Moderate Voice, has posted many times on the London bombings, with one of the more recent posts presenting a cross-section of those affected, injured, and killed by the murderous attacks, ending with: “And the bigger question: will they be avenged?”
In most things, I agree with Joe, but in this case, I must disagree and say that the larger question is not one of vengeance. Revenge is for the small-minded, and we have had more than enough small-mindedness in the past four and one-half years to last a decade.
The bigger question is, what are we doing to resolve the fundamental problem that creates situations where people are willing to dehumanize others to the extent they are willing to kill large numbers, even at the expense of their very own lives?
Until we find the answer to that question, and create the solution, we will NEVER be free of the fear of terrorism, because the terror is not based upon reason, it is intended to create unreasoning fear upon us, those who are perceived by the offenders as those who have offended.
Until we can crawl outside our own mentality, we will be relegated to cowering in fear.
And we will have lost.
Recall the wisdom from millenia ago:
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
-Sun-Tzu
You must know the enemy AND yourself.
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