Letter to Terrorists (Terrorism)

Member Name: cbpotts

Product:	Terrorism
Date:	18/09/01 (117 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: there are no advantages to terrorism

Disadvantages: hate breeds hate

"We will never become like you." Below is a letter that my brother wrote to the terrorists out there. It's reprinted here with his permission. Please understand that it is not my intention to take credit for this, but the message is important to share.

To The Terrorists,

Our two year-old son is young enough that, so far, we have been able to protect him from the tragedy that you have visited on our nation. Still, I know that he will some day learn of your actions and that I will need to discuss them with him. I have been thinking a great deal about what I will say to him when that time comes.

I imagine that one of the first questions he will ask is, "Why?" I have heard and read speculation that these acts have to do with economics, politics, religious fanaticism, and culture. I suppose that these are probably all relevant, and that my son and I will talk about them as such. But many people disagree with our country’s politics, despise our moral stands (or lack thereof) and resent the way our culture tends to influence others, yet they don’t try to kill us. That, together with the fact that these are fairly abstract and impersonal factors, leads me to believe that we will spend most of our time talking about what I suspect is the driving force behind these kinds of acts, and that is hate. Hate and the desire for revenge.

If you are like almost all the other terrorists who have struck at us, your lives have been consumed by hate. You probably believe that we have grievously wronged you or someone who is important to you (and perhaps we have). I suspect that you have taken your pain, and the anger that can grow from it, and fed them. I wonder if you believe that not to be utterly consumed by them is somehow dishonoring of yourself or to others. I wonder if you feel compelled to spread your agony to your family and followers by preaching hate, perhaps feeling some measure of validati
on in numbers. If this is so, then you are trapped in this torture, as will be your children, and your
children's children.

Here is the critical point that I will make to my son. We will never become like you.

I will not nurture the anger that is in me over the destruction you have wrought, and I will not encourage it in him. I believe that he will look back on this with me and see a country that reeled, responded and has moved on. He will learn of our horror and our grief and of the resolve and strength that will spring from them. But my anger will not turn to hate and it ends with me. I refuse to pass it on.

If the men who suicided to hurt us did so thinking that they would be poisoning us and future generations with the kind of hate and lust for revenge that seems to have wrecked you, then they failed and their deaths were utterly without meaning. You misunderstand us. We are not like you who are dead inside from years of harboring spite. You can wound us for a time, but you cannot destroy us.

- John-Marc

Summary: