How to Fight Terrorism

I am republishing this due to anxiety felt as we witness a change of politics in the country to our south. The refusal to concede defeat from the Trump Administration and to plan to disrupt with violence from  various supporters (white supremacist groups), is, in my opinion, terrorism.

How can we fight that instinct to keep blowing up the blown apart?  Invest in peaceful, healing initiatives that make violence redundant.

1. Invest in mental health services to give those at risk the help they need before their illness isolates them from society.

2. Re-establish the primary needs of people - shelter, nutritious food, education, living wages and time for family.

3. Support families by providing health services, family planning, women's reproductive education.

4. Sex education that covers the real experiences of young men and women on top of the scientific knowledge about human sexuality.

5. Encourage children to develop a social conscience by listening to what they think, to honour their ideas and to talk about the world of economics and politics in a way that helps them grow into engaged citizens. This can be done at dinner times or other regular times that the family is together.

6. Value life before profit and power. Look people in the eye, take time to listen, take time to care no matter how small the offering may be.

7. Welcome refugees - they are in crisis and people in crisis can recover if others help them find peace. The earth is more than just real estate - it is home.

8. Give up the notion that competition is the only way we become better people. Competition might help us improve at sports, and certain skills but a life dedicated to "winning" is limited to egocentric obsession and narrows the world view.

Terrorism begins with  the idea that power is a zero sum game. That the intrinsic value of our lives depends on proving ourselves. Proving to be capable is worthy but when society is written out of our experience we learn to see our worth in comparison to others, in how much we earn and what we own. If being great depends on oppressing others who have less power, or making more money or up-selling products, we have disposed of our human values such as art, music, analysis, care, nurture, problem-solving and the building of sustainable futures.

Why Hate is Not a Way Out

Antony Gormley was quoted in an article (by Hannah Ellis-Petersen, printed in the Guardian July 6 ) with a warning - we live in dangerous times. “Yet we are all sleepwalking through it...aware the centre cannot hold, that 250 years of industrial activity has undermined and fundamentally disturbed our world – yet we feel somehow not responsible.” 

Worse is the seeming efficiency with which movements are able to destroy civil society all across the globe with very little analysis among comrades or from the mainstream media.

So while hatred has been whipped up towards immigrants, or more likely people who are not white, and while hatred has done so much damage to struggling countries everywhere - we seem to have learned nothing.

But there are recurring elements we must remember before we slip into civil wars, terrorism or xenophobic attacks.

1. The white race has for centuries invaded all continents and brutally destroyed the social systems of aboriginal people they encountered.

2. Outrage at the "problems" caused by immigrants usually comes from the white race who felt entitled to invade, rape and pillage wherever they landed without question. The harm done by colonialism has yet to be fully examined by Europeans who now feel threatened by mass migrations. 

3. The military-industrial complex has been very effective in flaming hatred where they stand to profit from the wars that result from it. However we don't remember the interests who help to fund campaigns such as the Nazis in WWII, military coups in Central America, or the Middle East.

4. We don't pay attention to the really powerful lobbies and their ideologies. It's as though we accept their reptilian appetites as business-as-usual without blame.

5. We forget that the front line hooligans, thugs and suicide bombers are often the poorest most desperate groups who have very little choice, and who are hungry for a future that includes dignity and meaning.  We readily turn away from their condition and their despair when it is obvious they are in need, and then are shocked when they become radicalized.

6. We forget that the masses are dismissed until they are exploited and manipulated to cause the conditions for a profitable invasion from a foreign elite so powerful, their presence is rarely reported in the mainstream.

7. We forget that every generation experiences the disregard for humanity, until their suffering becomes a useful means for profit for the very few. 

In spite of all this, we quickly blame without reflection, those who have the least power to change things. There seems to be an inability to see our part in this recurring drama which ultimately harms us all. 

But also we need to realize that it is the system that breeds contempt for life with its surgical strategies that further divide us and make life miserable.

If we don't wake up soon, our beloved will suffer the torture and violence that spreads like a deadly virus as though it is the only solution, when in reality, it simply breeds the trauma that keep us fearful and afraid of one another. And therefore powerless cannon fodder for the strategists planning their next windfall.

Charter for Compassion: Promoting Peace

"As a 9/11 family member, this topic of peace is profoundly important to me. My brother, Donald Freeman Greene, having hugged his beloved wife and young children goodbye, headed off on an early flight on September 11, 2001 to visit our siblings on the West Coast. He died on that beautiful morning as a passenger aboard United Flight 93. Young men, deluded into thinking that they were acting in accordance to their religion’s beliefs and/or to benefit their people, had taken over the plane in an act of extreme violence. Their intent to use the airplane as a weapon, most likely aimed at the United States Capitol, was thwarted by passengers who came together to retake control of the cockpit." Terry Greene


Read the full article on Charter for Compassion: Promoting Peace website.

How to Fight Terrorism

1. Know the purpose of terrorism.
To create fear and confusion in the hearts and minds of people everywhere, to alienate them from their own humanity and their community so they can be manipulated to work for the wealth and power of a few. Xenophobia, blaming Muslims, race-baiting and hate is not the way to fight terrorism. In fact it is precisely what will keep us from an understanding of who we are. Xenophobia is really an inverted projection of ourselves - we project onto the other what we don't want to see in ourselves. Security and policing agencies are charged with the mandate to deal with the symptoms of terrorism - they cannot cure it or get rid of it.

2. Know who the terrorists are.  
Terrorists are not just those who wear suicide belts, who plant bombs and who bring machine guns into public places. Ask who funds terrorist organizations? Who supports their ideologies with propaganda? Who inflames hatred and suspicion with words, images, policies, entertainments and games? Who lobbies governments to undermine democratic systems? Who conflates crises into racist 'causes'? Who are the institutions that work secretly with other institutions to centralize power through misinformation and ideology? While most of this demographic are not entering theatre halls with guns and bombs, they are all part of the industry that creates fear and encourages public disengagement, creating fertile grounds for the marginalized to seek radical 'solutions'. Ideologies that exclude large groups of people based on race, gender, and social orientation are the most effective feeders for terrorist groups.

3. What do terrorists hate?
While I don't personally know what all the men and women who have willingly joined a terrorist organization really love or hate, the message emanates from the action. Killing people you don't know is a very strong message that symbolizes what they hate. They hate the unpredictable. They hate diversity. They hate anything that questions their world view?  They love unquestioning obedience and loyalty to a cause and the muths of perfection.

4. Know their weapons.
Their primary weapon is indoctrination that deadens thought and reflection. Guns and bombs are just the hardware to shut down all aspects of human nature, such as curiosity, language, art, love, friendship, empathy, generosity, and all the soft skills that contribute to civil engagement.

5. Know their victims.
The first victims are the volunteers who are trained to kill. PTSD is a sophisticated term to describe what happens to men and women who can no longer manage to live normal, emotionally fulfilling lives because their nervous systems have been cauterized by violence. The second victims are the families of those who have lost loved ones in terrorist attacks. The third victims are those who have lost limbs and lives. The fourth are the racial and religious minorities who are blamed for the violence because fear without access to healing is followed by hatred.

6. Know how to defeat them.
The only way to defeat them is to defeat their ideologies.  Retribution keeps terrorists alive because it is the endless game of war and violence that becomes more entrenched and imperative with each generation under siege. The most fertile nations for terrorists are those who have been economically and culturally destroyed by war. Hegemonic systems create terrorism by making people refugees in their own country by turning all of nature, including human nature, into a resource to be exploited.

Once  upon a time we might have debated the pursuit of equality and social justice as a kind of delusional idealism. Now the urgency of this call means we either build human capacities on a reverence for life or deliver the future into the hands of terrorists.