9/11: Hatred vs Understanding for The Future

This was sent to a mail list from Samcvt on 09/06/08

There are dozens of folks on this list who spent precious and painful time near the pile at the World Trade Center as volunteers assigned to the "Big White Tent (BWT)" working with colleagues and for those moving the pile onto trucks to be hauled away to still more piles. Other volunteers worked with the brutality of raking and seeking some portion and identifying personal property of those whose lives disappeared as the World Trade Center collapsed. Still others were assigned to the Disaster Morgue, shelters, the Mayor's office, Disaster Service Headquarters, and to be available for family members, colleagues and friends of those who died that day.

Some of us were assigned as administration, health care, operations, public relations and logistics managers, and service managers. Others were assigned as disaster service instructors to the operations management center, New Jersey and Philadelphia for the American Red Cross and some of us were assigned to and worked as either direct service providers, managers and supervisors at the various sites throughout the region.

While I cannot write or speak for the hundreds of victims and commited volunteers I worked with and trained, I can write and speak my thoughts about that day and what followed for months thereafter.

I was an operations manager, an instructor and a direct service provider and supervisor at different times during my assignment. In addition to working in the Disaster Mental Health function, I provided public relations information at various times, and interviewed in-processing and out-processing mental health professionals volunteering from North America the Caribbean area and South Pacific Islands. Other mental health volunteers and I provided brief counseling with volunteers overwhelmed by their experience.

There was little time and less opportunity for introspection during those 10-15+ hour days during my time there. But, there has been ample time since to reflect about the experience, and what the events and our national response immediately and over time have meant to me. I'm fairly certain the same is true for probably thousands of others who volunteered back then.
Some of those faces, those personalities, those situations continue and will probably never fade as background images and memories of my life - they are that powerful.

The only two adjectives I could use to represent my experience at the time which continue to be valid today are that the experience was awesome, humbling and painful.

I didn't see the McCain public relations piece shown at the just completed political convention, and am relieved that I wasn't watching that portion of the convention. I was angry enough about the lying and misrepresentations being thrown at the attendees and viewers, and didn't need to add more fuel to the ire that evening. But, watching the video today reminded me of just how damnably significant 9/11 was and has been for millions of our nation's people - it was a unique, seminal defining moment and experience which has been used for various purposes from then until now.

I am increasingly concerned about that defining moment for our people and its meaning in our nation's history.

We are allowing some of our political leaders to continue using 9/11, the entire experience and millions of the world's citizens as the basis for their claims that fear and hatred are the most appropriate means of understanding and responding to our nation's leadership and security requirements today and for the forseeable future.

Unfortunately, it is the "Government of the People (GOP)" political party which has allowed a partisan group within the party to demand that fear and hatred must prevail if the United States is to survive. I resent that this has happened. I resent that our nation of patriotic citizens has allowed this to happen and prevail. As was spoken so eloquently at the beginning WW II, we "have nothing to fear, but fear itself." I believe we can better manage our response, not from fear but from an understanding and realization that dealing with hatred requires far more aspects of our lifes than merely using war. War in this case, has served to enhance our fears.

If anything beyond the actual 9/11 experience should prevail, it is that we Americans must think about why 9/11 occurred, how had our nation come to be so hated by so many millions of the world's citizens such that hatred, fear and terrorism became the only reliable means to get our attention.

We must understand this aspect of who we were before, on 9/11, and since. I believe it is imperative that we discove how we got to that point in the world, how we have reacted to 9/11 and what differently we must do if we are to ever move our nation and others in the world to a more positive understanding about co-existing positively in a world of ever increasing social complexity.

For the past 7+ years fear and hatred have been perpetrated and sustained by our national governmental and social leaders, and this has extended and intruded into our industrial and economic identity as well. It is almost as though every nation, every culture different from
own has come to be viewed here at home as at best, our enemy and at worst, the most evil threats against our nation. The espoused response from and to this phenomena of fear and hatred has been to rouse and stir up more fear and hatred as a means to either remain in power or demonstrate that we can overcome those who threaten us with more fear, hatred and power. This is not working and millions of Americans are believing and stating that this cannot have positive results.

What is clearly happening today within our political and social arenae is that any response from our base of fear and hatred that does not respond in rage and like fashion and purpose as those who threaten us, represents a lack of resolve and patriotism, a national and social weakness.

This belief and attitude has prevailed far too long to be considered potentially successful, and any discerning American can understand this as a failure of national intent - the results are obvious. Our leaders use a strategic process called "the surge" in attempts to assuage our national fear and hatred, all the while ignoring that those who are threatening us at home and abroad have gained more viable strength since 9/11 than was extant then. Using this "surge" to support claims that we are winning is not unlike the current commercial depicting a fellow walking away from a gum-patched hole in the dam which isn't holding, but is worsening. We Americans are allowing and encouraging this delusion, and it is one of the major aspects today which represents the failure of leadership a lack of genuine patriotism that is "killing" our society, disarming our values, ruling our lives.

Those of us throughout the nation who speak out against the ruling tyranny of fear and hatred are attacked, just as millions of us were attacked for opposing our war in Viet Nam. Historical observations have taught us how correct about our resistence to the Viet Nam experience we were. It seems to be becoming more and more apparent that those of us who are continuing to reject the strategy of fear and hatred directing our nation today are correct.

With this in mind, I believe it is an essential American patriotic responsibility for young and old alike to join forces and increase our resistence to being controlled by fear and hatred demanded and perpetrated by our national governmental and non-governmental leaders. More, I believe we cannot afford to elect and appoint any more leaders whose actions and espoused intentions are to continue using fear, hatred and brute military power as our only national response to others' fear and hatred of us.

This does not mean that I believe we should avoid confrontation and challenge to the fear and hatred we are responding to in like form. It does mean that we must move toward the basis for those cultural and social emotions held by so many millions of people at home and abroad; we must engage those beliefs and feelings underpinning that fear and hatred. We must bring to the table our leaders and those of other cultures and nations to better understand our differences and create different and more positive opportunities for resolving our difficulties. We must initiate a different resolve and intent which can lead to far different results than we are now achieving as we continue to ruled by fear and hatred.

We must change as we expect others to change. I believe it is as simple and as complex as that. The alternative cannot work. We know this simply because there has been ample documentation that our participation and use of war has not been working for decades. We must make hope and peace positive words and concepts in our society. We must win from a collaborative and positive perspective because there can be no win when we attempt change from the base of fear and hatred.

Thank you for reading this and know that I'll read any comments which are returned on the blogspot pages.

Sam Conant