Return-Path: <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id f8INY8f22768; Tue, 18 Sep 2001 19:34:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 19:34:08 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <7ADB45B391BF714283550310C8251A2F19B6EE@exchange1.sos.state.mo.us> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Jones, Karen" <jonesk@sosmail.state.mo.us> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:599] RE: response to Tuesday's attacks X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Status: O Content-Length: 8072 Lines: 132 Eileen's posting has been rattling around in my brain with many other thoughts and feelings. I have labored long over this response (and I know it is long) hoping it will not come across as adversarial but as discussion and expression. We're all feeling our way along this most unwelcome path. Maybe it depends on the circles you move in, but I've heard a number of voices raised to say that we must not target Arab Americans and many statements that we must not act the way the terrorists acted. Whether that will be carried through politically and culturally is the huge question and the frightening one. But at least it has been voiced openly. I'm not sure that all the "flag waving" is simplistic. I think any group in the world that is seriously threatened responds by voicing its love of what it fears losing. I'm sure there is an element of mindless revenge or nationalism in some people, but most of what I am hearing is not mindless. I think there are a lot of things that we can in time discuss in classrooms and other places, even if it is too raw to discuss now. Too many of our ESOL students have been close to terrorism or its equivalent before. Many of us born to the US have suddenly been jerked into something we have considered peripheral. We have suddenly been forced to think about how it would be to live in Belfast or on the West Bank or in one of those South American or African villages where the terrorists swoop down every year, maybe every month, and we are helpless. And even here how helpless I feel - and other people feel - to address it! Perhaps - pray God!- some people have been shocked into realizing that violence is not as much fun as the culture of violence wants to make us believe it is. That alone is worth mentioning and discussing. Good and evil are always living side by side. Except in the very worst of times both are always there, which is cause for both hope and despair. There is good here in North America, much to be grateful for - but there is evil too. Yes, many other countries hate us. Some of them have good reasons to hate us. Our population represents a small percent of the world's population and we use a huge percent of the world's resources. That alone is reason for hate and a major, major problem. In our anti-Communist panic during the cold war we did some foreign intervention that ranged from stupid to naïve. Our inflated lifestyle requires so much oil and other energy that we do evil and ill-advised things to protect our supplies. Civilians in Iraq are suffering from our sanctions. We are inconsistent in where and how we intervene, and it can be questioned whether we should intervene at all. We have corporations that are exploiting and destroying the resources in other countries (as well as our own). People credit western colonialism with current problems in Africa and South America. In our own history we may never fix the pain and problems set in motion by our ancestors' treatment of native Americans and by slavery. And apparently those realities and others like them are cited as the reason terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the passengers of four airplanes and the Pentagon. But, how did that change any of the things that we do wrong? How did that move anything toward righteousness or justice? Apparently no CEO of an exploitative corporation was in the buildings or the planes. Did anyone who made a decision to, say, send the substandard baby formula abroad or set up a sweatshop die? The Pentagon bigwigs who make the battle decisions are all still there and even madder. No one who made or makes evil or stupid foreign policy was eliminated. If there is an economic downturn as a result, it won't be the rich fatcats in any country who will suffer, it will those whose resources are already limited. The government will bail out the airlines, but the young mom trying to put life back together in the face of "welfare reform" whose job just evaporated won't get a break. This attack was about hate but it was NOT about social justice or stopping American injustice. Who did those attacks destroy? Window washers. Secretaries. People who were compassionate enough to go back for co-workers. Rescue workers of all colors trying to save strangers of all colors. Parents. Citizens of other countries. Black people, Hispanic people, maybe some Native American people who have all been among the ranks of the oppressed. Evil- that of the USA or anyone else- was not challenged, it was only demonstrated. Injustice was only increased. The terrorists didn't fix anything. Terrorism doesn't even avenge anything except maybe in some nominal symbolic way. Victims of terrorism world wide are usually people who are already living short and harsh and impoverished lives. Terrorists may try to use the evils of our regime or some other as a reason, but terrorism is not about reducing evil or making anything right again. Of course, the question now is whether the USA can do any better. And even if we can figure out how to avoid pointless revenge, are we willing? At first I was slightly hopeful. The fact that the military didn't try to take Afghanistan off the map by nightfall seemed to me rational and decent as a start. National leaders spoke out against anger or harassment against Arab-Americans and Muslims. My faith community and many others spent the week praying for comfort and wisdom and compassion for all and for the USA to not become what we say we abhor. But I don't know if I have so much hope for the large scale outcome. Words like "avenge" are creeping in. Generally people are more willing to sacrifice for war than for peace. This event is even more complex because the chances of isolating these perpetrators and punishing only them seems all but impossible. If other countries were involved, their willingness to try for peaceful resolution will probably be as questionable as ours. The cry for justice runs deep in humans, but we have such trouble separating justice from revenge. Getting even won't ever work because it never feels even. All sides always feel that what they suffered was greater than what anyone else suffered. The only way out, the only chance for peace or real justice is for people to say, "I care more about stopping the hurt and making things right than about thinking I got even." Individuals manage it sometimes, but there isn't very much of that in the history of any country I know of. But we can't stop trying... we absolutely must keep trying... Karen Jones -----Original Message----- From: Eileen Eckert [mailto:eileeneckert@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 8:58 AM To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:590] response to Tuesday's attacks The early postings to this list were a mix of earnest discussion, provocation, and occasional proseltyzing--tense, sometimes irritating, but usually generating reflection. I have been disappointed with the devolution of the list into a forum for announcements as critical discussion has disappeared, but I am profoundly disgusted with the jingoistic postings in response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the crash in Pennsylvania. These events, the likely retaliation, and the backlash against Arabs and Muslims (and anyone who appears to be Arab or Muslim), highlight the need to think critically and discuss openly the issues of racism and injustice, poverty and illiteracy, and our roles individually and as a nation in both perpetuating and responding to them locally and globally. If our own response is a simplistic flag-waving, how can we expect critical thinking from our students? If we cannot discuss both the attacks and the reasons we are hated by significant numbers of people around the world, how can we hope for anything but a spiraling escalation of mindless violence in response? _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
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