You may recall where you were on 9/11 (September 11, 2001). I recall sitting on an aeroplane on that date flying over USA airspace, one of hundreds of planes, ordered to turn around and fly back to the airport of departure.
The Western media is currently marking 9/11 with countless numbers of articles, analysis, comment, radio and television documentaries for the 10th anniversary of that obscene and senseless act of mass murder that killed 2996 citizens of New York, Washington DC and crew and passengers on Flight UA 93 in the four co-ordinated suicide attacks by 19 hijackers.
Twenty six days after 9/11 the US government ordered the land and air attack on A fghanistan and the Taliban. (“Taliban” is the Arabic word for “Students.”). You will recall the suicide bombers were primary Saudi Arabian citizens. None of the suicide bombers were Afghani citizens. The war on Afghanistan triggered a 9/11 in Afghanistan week after week, month after month, and even a far greater casualty rate in the war on neighbouring Iraq.
The Obama administration increased by 50% troops to maintain the war on Afghani towns and villages as well as intensify the use of drones (unmanned war planes) weekly to attack villages in northern Pakistan.
The USA and NATO inflicted so much suffering on so many for the merciless crimes of 19 suicide attackers. And it still goes on. It is estimated that more than 1,000,000 deaths – or equivalen to around 330 9/11s in terms of deaths of Afghani and Iraqi men, women and children in the past 10 years.
I recall in October 2001 a New York/London publisher asked me to write a book on terror from a spiritual perspective. I wrote the book “Transforming our Terror” in six weeks. Essentially, I stated that a spiritual perspective looks at suffering and its resolution – whether from violence of the state or organisation, suicide, conflict, anxiety or despair, as well as the terror of domestic violence, debts, sickness and unemployment. Such experiences terrorize people’s daily lives.
I made it clear that a spiritual perspective has absolutely no interest to support the strategic aims of the nation state or organisation, if either supports even a whisper of violence.
Based on a story in the New York Times, I wrote about the suffering of the Rodigreuz family in NYC who lost their son in the Twin Towers. The family did not want US planes to be used to kill Afghani citizen. (Years later, a reader of the book wrote and told me the son had actually sat a retreat with me at the insight meditation centre in Barre, Massachusetts). On the same page (page 16), I wrote about the suffering of the Ahmed family in north Kabul who lost their six children from American bombing just a few weeks after 9/11.
The publisher wanted to me to delete the suffering of the Afghani family and leave only reference to the New York family. In other words, “Transforming our Terror” would refer only to US terror and nowhere else. I refused to co-operate with what would amount to censorship. After a flurry of emails and a meeting with the London director, the publisher agreed to include the suffering of Afghanis, Palestinians and others that I wrote about.
I also wrote a polemic as a poem in the autumn of 2001 for a public meeting on our response to 9/11. Here is the poem.
“9/11. OUR GOD IS MORE POWERFUL”
Twin Towers hold their economic drives
as two fingers to poor without consent
before a crash on very fractured lives
in name of Allah’s mercy and intent,
pathology, hate, revenge then derives,
as limbs are burnt, and terror’s a meltdown
and horror from the skies, a plane enlists,
a diving death, a tower falls downtown,
and brave firemen race up the twist of stairs,
free speech and patriotism and fanfares
arrive to form the hell of death ‘s despair.
We lack emotional intelligence,
we suffer and we lose our elegance
and when dust does settle, voices stay mute –
rabbis, ammans, preachers and lamas, too,
therapists, counsellors and such repute,
and turn to blind eye of trauma so wide
a city then reacts, fingers point blame
a nation’s pain is then identified.
Afghanistan! Find Muslims. Bomb the same.
Two fingers of hate. Up Yours. Revenge acts
We must act now. We have our hurt and blame.
New Yorkers stand on rubble’s deadly site,
chant “USA,USA.” with all their might.
A bully orders planes give hell abroad,
on cities, towns, the homes, schools and mullahs
a war on terror, launch hell to applaud,
bomb wedding parties, cafes and hookahs,
more horror from skies make human torches,
and desert homes become New York skyline
a violence rages on and scorches.
Pilots press buttons in name of their God
as boys and girls just play in huts below
and women sow their fate in ground they trod,
to take the pain of America’s woe.
Who cares Afghanis had played no guilt to show?
‘We care not for your innocence or your guilt
Who cares that all our grief then came to this.
We will use our planes to show what we have built.
You see our planes make hell on earth we can,
We decide that you are the Taliban.
We act. We control and we then compel.
We have a mighty God direct the stage.
We have the Bible belt to shout and sell,
a nation’s hurt leads to a nation’s rage,
our power makes you all the infidel.’
Afghans wait below for bombs hated flare,
as ninety per cent in US shout ‘YEAH.
‘Arabs now pay. You did not do, you folk.
We will destroy your lives, and heap distress.
Unleash our horror so you have no rest.
We hate your life. Nowhere for you to hide.
We will heap pain on you all, the fiendish.
We are Americans. God’s on our side.’
In land of sand and stone, thirsty camels,
a rain of bombs, jihad upon the poor,
unleash attacks for history’s annals.
That’s just so Mister Bush, Mister Cheney,
You, too, Misters Rumsfeld , Mister Powell.
You and Al Quaeda can all go to hell.
To heap revenge upon the other too,
makes grief for many as well as the few.