Blame

Consider this cover to The New York Times Magazine of October 5, 2014:

“Every hour, an Acre of Louisiana Sinks Into the Sea.  Who is to Blame?” As intriguing as the title is, what irritates me is the question, ‘Who is to blame?’  Is it necessary to look for ‘blame’ at the outset of nearly every issue that comes before the public?  Could we not approach things with something like, ‘How is this affecting people? or ‘Has this been going on for long? or ‘What seems to be causing this to happen? or ‘What needs to be done or can be done about the situation?’ or ‘Is this as bad as it sounds?’

 

Blaming, pointing fingers, affixing guilt, assuming that identifying a single cause or person or entity will absolve everyone else (including the blamer) of culpability seems to be the modus operandi of many journalists, television ‘personalities,’ politicians, criminal justice, and,  of course, the law profession.  Accusation, right off the bat, has taken the place of civil dialogue and debate. 

 

I read the article about Louisiana and sure enough, an ‘investigator’ was quick to file a lawsuit against the oil and gas industry.  Never mind that many disparate entities (farms, levees, population growth, dams, canals, shipping, vagaries of weather and climate change, as well as oil and gas) each contributes(ed)  to the situation, someone needed to be blamed.  Surely money could be made from somebody’s conviction!  Witness how much money in legal fees and fines were made from BP’s conviction in the oil eruption in the Gulf! Let’s get in on the act!

Practically every aspect of Louisiana’s economy is/has been affected by the oil industry, but let’s now ‘bite the hand that feeds us’—it still has some blood left.

It reminds me of the incident in the Bible where the woman who was caught in adultery was brought before Jesus to get his opinion on the matter.  Of course nothing was said by the accusers about the man who was involved with the woman, or the mutual consent, or the probable intrusion upon the privacy or property of the accused or her paramour, the accusers wanted her stoned—they wanted blood.  They also wanted Jesus’ blood.  Jesus in reply said those memorable words, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” “And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience [departed]” (John 8:3-11).

In the milieu of our present society ‘conscience’ (even the scribes--lawyers--and  Pharisees, at this Biblical time, had a conviction of conscience)  has practically been silenced in favor of shifting the blame. 

   

My view is, let us not be so adversarial in our common interactions with each other.  Let us look for solutions to problems rather than a scape-goat, or someone else to blame; for more often than not we, too, if we honestly look inward, may have contributed to a problem or been somewhat less than perfect.  Let us take responsibility for our own actions rather than immediately looking for someone to blame. Let us take the 'beam' out of our own eye before we consider the 'mote' in our brother's eye.

Counter-terrorism

Terrorism, as discussed in my previous essay, is a weapon used in our time more and more by the weak, the alienated, the marginalized, the often unemployed or unaccomplished, the depressed,  the hurt and angry against the strong or perceived ‘cause’ of their misfortune.  The misfortune may initially be the young person’s being the target of bullying or rejection.  And bullying or rejection and consequent humiliation is often engaged in by larger, stronger, more attractive, better favored, more skilled or talented or more conforming peers or groups against one who is out-of-step or different in some way from the norm.

A push-back response by the ‘victim’ may be further retreat, or it may be eccentric appearance or behavioral changes.  Finding that they do not have a ‘voice’ or a refuge in a conventional sense they seek for some way to be heard or recognized.  They may find others who are likewise alienated and join with them for solace or refuge.  It may be a group as small as just a friend or two.  Or it may be a gang, or a faction or a movement—someone or some thing that has identity, resources, or momentum, or a plan that has room for them to fit in.  They might become part of a demonstration to be ‘heard’ in their frustration.  They might become a ‘foot soldier’ in a cause.

Or they may choose more extreme measures.

Through the media or the grapevine they may learn about someone who has been recognized, become cause celebre or even ‘martyred,’ and  choose to copy their act.  Or, they might be recruited by agents or representatives of the larger group. 

The ‘victim’ or ‘victims,’ if they can find, make, or steal a weapon may resort to a terrorist act to hurt the person or class of persons or values of the perceived perpetrator. The bigger the ‘gun’—Kalashnikov, pipe bomb, train derailment, airplane hijacking, germ-warfare canister, etc., or more heinous the outcome, the more perceived satisfaction—and payback—as viewed by the perpetrator. 

   

Terrorism is engaged in primarily by young men (although more and more by young women who may have more real cause for redress); it is their ‘message’ sent in extremity.  It is a last-resort tactic that is effective in that it does cause terror, fear, and reactionary response in its target; it often also causes the demise of the terrorist himself.   It is employed in many ways: cyber threats, individual acts of physical violence, torture, kidnapping; larger acts such as suicide bombing or by planting bombs, or shooting up public places with no regard for the innocent; or in large acts of public mayhem—war and the like but without the ‘rules,’ goals or conventions of war. 

Society’s response is, of necessity, a crime-and-justice response. A huge,expensive, counter-terrorist apparatus of police, military, intelligence (FBI, CIA, TSA) and the like has been created to deal with these incidents. However, if the police or military response is too severe it is likely to backfire.  

  

                      Another approach to the War on Terror

But there may be another front on the ‘war on terror.’

I think that peace-loving people or societies can do pre-emptive acts to ‘defuse,’ or better yet prevent, the potential terrorist from reaching such a state of desperate alienation.   American philosopher Henry David Thoreau sagely observed : “For every hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root.” Our current ‘War against terror’ may be simply a war against the ‘leaves of evil.’ There are always ‘roots.’

As a single-pronged approach to countering terrorism I do not think it is enough.  ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ will, as Tevye observed in Fiddler on the Roof, probably just leave both parties blind and toothless.  We can look at the ‘roots’ of the violence and address them if we are in any way a part of the problem.  We, individually, can look inward before we are forced to react outwardly. 

I like and resonate to two thoughts expressed by President George H. W. Bush that could be foundational as a new paradigm for a counter-terrorist approach:

·        “It means teaching troubled children through your presen[ce] that there’s such a thing as reliable love.  Some would say it’s soft and insufficiently tough to care about these things.  But where is it written that we must act as if we do not care, as if we are not moved?  Well I am moved.  I want a kinder, and gentler nation.”

·        “America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle.  We as a people have such a purpose today.  It is to make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world.  [We can be] a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.”

Building on such a lofty national identity and approach to the problem I submit a few ideas as part of an expanded national conversation to reduce terrorism:

Ø Be a friend to the friendless who crosses your path, or who is in your school class or workplace or neighborhood.  Be a light to help guide the path of one who feels alienated--not a blowtorch to burn up the last shred of their self-esteem.  Brook no tolerance for bullying.

Ø Consider that the grievances against ‘the West’ by the Jihadists of the Middle East are pretty much the same as those tragically expressed by our own movie theater or school shooters: feeling marginalized or powerless against those who hold the power or position and who feel they have been injured in some way.  Give all people a hope that can be heard by us and an assurance that their voice, expressed by them in a civil way, can be heard by us much better in respectful dialogue than by the sound of a bomb or a burst from their automatic rifle.  Listen to them with your heart as well as with your ears.  

Ø We as a people can take care not to be ‘Ugly Americans’ (see The Ugly American by Burdick and Lederer, 1958) through arrogance, decadence, or treating others marginally—whether at home, in our schools, neighborhoods, in our entertainment, or when we are abroad.

Ø We can stay out of places where we are not invited or welcomed—where we do not or cannot respect others’ values, lifestyle, government or religion.

Ø If we think to entangle ourselves in others’ countries’ affairs we must be invited in. Unless we have, or have solid intelligence of an impending attack against us that presents a clear and compelling national-security reason to do so (or to remain) involvement must be approved by a majority (perhaps even a 2/3 majority) of the citizens of our own country as expressed by our elected representatives.  We need to mind our own business more than we have. The executive branch of government is not higher than the representative branch.   A house divided against itself will not stand. 

Ø We must never be hypocrites to our covenants or values (especially historical values) or to the laws and country to which we pledge allegiance.

Ø Make it more difficult for would-be-terrorists to get the material or weapons to carry out their atrocities. 

Ø Stay vigilant and support a strong domestic and national defense.    

Terrorism

From all I’ve read in newspapers, popular books, and magazines of the past twenty years, from all the interviews I’ve heard, from all the images and political analyses I’ve seen on television, from what I know of history and the psychology of man and society, here is my take on what drives the terrorist acts that have disrupted our world. 

 

Terrorism is not a nation—not necessarily even a people; it is not Islam.  Terrorism is a tactic, a weapon, an approach, a means to an end.  Josef Stalin in the last century stated it succinctly: “Shoot one, and intimidate a thousand.” For America on September 11, 2001 it was ‘Destroy 3,000 (in the Twin Towers) and intimidate 300 million.’ As a continued reminder it is ‘behead one or a few, flog one, blow up a few in a suicide bombing or shoot up a school or marketplace—it is coming to you.’  The battles we read about in the newspapers or see on CNN are just skirmishes in the great global combat to come in which the believers (they) will prevail against the unbelievers (us). Or so they think.  As yet, the terrorists view themselves as ‘Davids’ supported by God against the larger Goliaths. 

   

Why? Those who use terror as a weapon are driven, as is all behavior, by motives, as perverse as these motives may seem to us. It is their revenge—a paying back for what they perceive we have done to them.

Having said that terrorism as a tactic is not the exclusive purview of Islamic nations it must yet be said that Islam has historically had more than its share of radical extremists notwithstanding its claim as a peaceful religion.  From Muhammad on, the religion spread rapidly via conquest and intimidation.  In Arabic you don’t convert to Islam, you “submit” to it.  ‘Infidels’ (non-believers) are not treated with a whole lot of tolerance by the extreme believers.  Consider a few quotations from the Islamic holy book, the Qur’an:

“Fight in GOD’s name those who fight you, and do not transgress, surely God does not love the transgressors. And kill them whenever you come upon them and expel them from where they expelled you, as persecuting people to sway them from GOD’s religion is graver than killing . . . kill them, this is the recompense of the unbelievers.”  “And continue fighting them until there is no more persecution and GOD’s religion prevails, but if they desist from unbelief, then there should be no hostility except to the evildoers.” “The unbelievers, they are the evildoers.” “Grant us victory over the unbelievers.”(Surah 2: 190, 191,193, 254, 286) “ “Fighting has been ordained for you, and you are averse to it, but you may be averse to a thing while it is good for you and you may like a thing while it is bad for you.”  (Surah 2: 216) “Fight in the cause of GOD….” (Surah 2: 244) “Oh you who believe! Do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends.  They are friends one to another.  And whoso among you takes them for friends is indeed one of them.”

Let us take the Islamic, or more accurately, Jihadi fanatics from Osama bin Laden to the present.  What is their motive?  It is their war against Western influence on the minds, hearts, lands (and resources of the land, i.e., oil) and religion of those who have a completely different world-view than ours—or what we project on MTV.  Their atrocities may be, as Thomas Friedman, columnist for The New York Times, says,  “the fuse for a much larger war of civilizations.” We have, they believe, defiled and disrespected their most cherished places and values.  They not only want us out of their lands, they want to supplant us and again become the dominant force in the world as they were in the approximately 1000 year period from A.D. 622 to their humiliation in the late 1,600’s.  If and when the inter-Arab struggles between the various factions of Islam resolve themselves and Muslim jihadists become united against the West, today’s Middle Eastern based terrorism will look like just a warm-up.  Having the sanction of what they believe is holy scripture tips the scale for many who will be the fighters in that jihad in pursuit of a Qu’ranic dispensation. 

   

Although the Islamic resurgence poses the largest threat to the Western civilization and its values, extremist terrorists (mujahid, or 'Fighters on the Straight Path of God,' as they call themselves) are not restricted to Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, the Taliban, Boko Haram, Shia Houthi or any of their other splinter groups.  We, sadly, have our own terrorists because alienated and misguided people world-wide have now seen a weapon that they can use that works. 

I will treat that reality in my next essay.