Monday, September 11, 2006

Five years later

September 11th is clearly going to be a strange day for the rest of our lives.

I've caught a couple of articles and a couple of shows recalling the heroes/victims of that day. And I've found myself in or near tears a couple of times. There's just no shaking the terrible losses of that day.

But now I've also heard what President Bush had to say about it. Apparently, we're against radicalism. Our fathers and grandfathers fought "radicalism" in Europe and in Asia. And now it's up to us to fight it in the Middle East.

Radical--as I learned from Dorothy Day--has to do with getting to the root of things. She was a radical. So was Jesus. I find it hard to be against radicalism.

I liked it better when we were against terrorism. Is it just me or did an already vague enemy just get vaguer?

And why do the losses have to be answered with more violence? I wonder if we could ever see ourselves not necessarily as the solution but as part of the problem?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Mmm. . . "radicalism" is the enemy in France, too. And by that, they mean "Anyone who goes to church more than twice in their lives."
Yuck.