Ten years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 what do we still need to learn, asks Mike Lowe.
Like many, I can remember well where I was on 11 September 2001. I had travelled from Oxford to London for a series of meetings – including a lunch-time catch up with an old friend. Our meeting that afternoon was interrupted by news of the terrorist attacks. We turned on the TV and watched horrified as events unfolded. That evening I attended one of the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. The conductor, Christoph Eschenbach, opened with a few well-chosen words and then an unscheduled performance of the funeral march from Beethoven’s Eroica, giving expression to our grief and horror in a way that words never could.
Ten years after the attacks, what has changed? At the time, a friend remarked that he thought it would be the start of World War 3. Thankfully that has not happened – though I have no doubt that the intention of Osama Bin Laden was to provoke an all-out war in which all Muslims would be caught up and forced to fight against the West. Unfortunately there were far too many in the West who were just as keen on such a war.
It is probably too soon to know how history will judge the last decade. But I suspect that amongst all else there will be a recognition of lost opportunity. For over 40 years after the creation of the United Nations, its progress in many areas was blocked by the Cold War. The fall of communism in Europe and the Soviet Union gave rise to a hope for a new era of international cooperation. The shameful failure of the international community in the face of the Rwandan genocide led to NATO interventions when the break up of Yugoslavia saw ethnic cleansing in Europe for the first time since the 1940s. Perhaps these were milestones on the path to the development of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – adopted by all countries of the United Nations at the beginning of this century. We can only speculate about how the world might look now if the global community had actively pursued the MDGs, which include commitments to halve the number of people living on less than US$2 per day, universal access to education and sustainable development. Instead we allowed ourselves to be sidetracked into a protracted ‘war on terror’ fought largely through military means.
Personally, 9/11 started me thinking more deeply about how we learn to live with difference. It seemed that the world risked tearing itself apart in trying to make everyone become just like us. I felt urgently the call of Rabbi Marc Gopin that the great task of the 21st Century would be the spiritual discovery of the ‘other’.
At the end of 2002 I moved to Melbourne with my family. I was excited to learn from the Australian multicultural experiment. I remember asking a Lebanese Australian who had served as Mayor on his local council why it was that Australia seemed to hold so many cultures in relative harmony. He replied that back in the 80s when he’d left Lebanon, everybody viewed you through the lens of your particular religion. Whether you were Muslim Sunni or Shia, Christian Maronite or Orthodox etc defined how people saw you and how they would treat you. In Melbourne, he said, none of that mattered. After all, he had managed to get elected and serve his community as Mayor despite being born outside the country.
From the time of the first boat people – the 19th century Anglo and Irish immigrants – Australia has struggled but ultimately accepted successive waves of Greeks, Italians, Poles, Vietnamese, and now Afghans and Africans. The country has been enriched by its diversity.
Nevertheless, in recent years some sections of political life and the media have been actively promoting fear of the ‘other’ – particularly around issues of refugees and Muslims. Unfortunately they are succeeding. Politicians seem to be in a race to see who can appear toughest on refugees. And 9/11 has played a part in this narrative of fear.
Clearly we still have some way to go in Australia in our understanding and acceptance of diversity. For multiculturalism to survive the attacks from the Bin Ladens and Breiviks of this world it needs to be grounded in something deeper than an appreciation of ethnic cuisine and world music. The culture of ‘me first’ materialism and unlimited consumer choice is too thin a soil to nourish such a plant. But we can find a richer soil by going deep enough into our various religious and secular traditions.
In November 2009 a Charter for Compassion was launched by a multi-faith group spearheaded by Karen Armstrong after she won the 2008 TED prize. Compassion is a universal value. It is also a spiritual practice which takes us out of ourselves in a journey of discovery of the ‘other’. The practice of compassion, in turn, leads to other values, such as justice, honesty, hospitality, respect for women, nurturing children and the weak, and forgiveness. The practice of compassion would lead us to get to know the neighbour who is different, and to prioritize the millennium development goals.
Compassion is hard. But the rewards are great. Ultimately it is a much more fulfilling path than the futile struggle to make others become more like us or the purposeless drift of consumerism. Perhaps it’s time to give it a try.
Mike Lowe is editor of the global website of Initiatives of Change. His varied career has included teaching English in Poland, running training programmes for young leaders in Eastern Europe (www.f-4-f.org), and developing a 'Discover the Other' programme of workshops. He lives with his family in Melbourne Australia.
NOTE: Individuals of many cultures, nationalities, religions, and beliefs are actively involved with Initiatives of Change. These commentaries represent the views of the writer and not necessarily those of Initiatives of Change as a whole.
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