10:02 PM Subject: Several extraordinarily insightful essays From: cii@igc.org I find these essays speak with rare compelling clarity from a place towards which more and more global grassroots wisdom seems to be converging. -- Tom _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 20:56:55 +0000 From: Jim Garrison THE STATE OF THE WORLD FORUM (To view reflections on the September 11th event from members of the Forum Network, visit http://www.worldforum.org ) An Op-Ed by Jim Garrison On September 11, 2001, we Americans lost our sense of invulnerability and joined in the universality of human suffering. Not only for a moment did the world become America, as so many noted, but America became the world. As we mourn our dead, let us also mourn the frailty of the human spirit and humanity's incapacity to be consistently humane. As painful as our agony is here, what America has just suffered is what others throughout the world have experienced, sometimes with even more devastating impact, and sometimes at the hands of Americans. People around the earth are caught up in a complexity of hatreds as both victims and victimizers: in Ireland, in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Rwanda, in South Africa, in Afghanistan, in Cambodia, in Vietnam. The list is endless. Given the enormity of the barbarity America experienced, the Government will certainly exact vengeance. The destruction of the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon were veritable acts of war against the United States. While we plan our vengeance, however, let us also be aware that from the point of view of our enemies, we are guilty of horrendous crimes against them; thus their hatred against us. To plan such acts as what occurred on September 11, with such a high degree of sophistication and precision, are not simply the acts of madmen bent on a binge of random destruction. They were calculated deeds deliberatively conceived, meticulously planned and methodically executed by men and women of such deep conviction that they were willing to give their very lives as instruments of the success of their mission. President Bush has rightly declared war against such terrorism. We must know that Osama bin Laden is a warrior dedicated to more than just war; he is leading a holy war against the United States and Israel. He is not a diplomat; he is not a negotiator; he is not a compromiser. He is a man of war who, ironically, was an ally of the CIA in the 1980s during the war in Afghanistan against the Soviets. He has been building his army and his tactics for decades with an absolutism that only elevating war to the realm of the holy can instill. He will kill until he himself is killed. When we eventually do this, as I assume we will, we must understand that in his place will arise myriad new Osama bin Ladens, equally committed, equally impassioned, equally ruthless. When one fights fire with fire, fire is not always vanquished. It can lead to a conflagration that burns beyond any borders, particularly if one is fighting a fire that is considered holy. As we seek his demise, it is perhaps worth reflecting on some truths provided by the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, now upon us. At the core of this commemoration of the Jewish New Year lies the story of Deborah, a woman judge of ancient Israel, whose leadership included the mourning of Sisera, the General against whom the Jews of the time were fighting. At the moment of victory against him and also in the midst of their grieving for their own dead, Deborah intuited that the pain of the mothers on the other side was just as intense as that of her own people. In this, she understood one of the great truths of all religions, that we are all one, which, if we can bear to think the thought, means that Osama bin Laden is us, and we are him, and we are all made of the same dust. Bush and bin Laden are caught up in the act of co-origination. In a deep and mysterious way there is a deep synchronicity of opposites coming together between them with a force that, if we can endure and live through it, can potentially redeem us. Bin Laden's attacks came against the two icons of American power: global capitalism in the World Trade Center and U.S. military might in the Pentagon. Adding insult to injury, the hijackers used American technology to destroy American symbols, transforming American civilian airplanes into guided missiles against American institutions. Underestimating the enemy, American intelligence was caught completely unprepared. More deeply, the attack came against perhaps the most conservative administration in modern American history which has been systematically withdrawing from all multilateral agreements and treaties with the exception of those which increase American economic power. Paradoxically, the actions of September 11 were taken against the son of the man who organized the coalition of nations to fight Desert Storm, the catalytic point at which bin Laden turned his armies against the Untied States. History has bestowed upon George W. the task of organizing a coalition against the man that his father's coalition turned into the enemy. The President who is withdrawing from the world in order to maximize America's freedom for unilateral actions in the world has been met by the ultimate unilateralist: bin Laden. The superpower has met the super-empowered individual. To succeed, Bush the unilateralist must become the premier multilateralist. He must forge a coalition of nations against world terrorism like the world is trying to forge to deal with global warming, nuclear disarmament, trafficking in small arms, chemical and biological weapons, all coalitions and treaties from which he has disengaged. Perhaps the ultimate irony of this complex set of interactions is that this Administration might learn that global cooperation and global governance, meaning the alignments of nation states around rules and norms for international priorities, deliberation and commerce, actually serve the national security interests of the United States rather than threaten them. Working within the complexity of coalitions might enable us to tackle another complexity: that the war against terrorism can only be truly won when we also declare war on the roots which cause such acts of barbarity: poverty, illiteracy, injustice, and disease. Terrorism does not arise in a vacuum but has it roots in historical, political, social and economic dysfunctions so deep, so cruel, so systemic that they create and sustain discontent until it spills over into a desperation that sees no recourse other than wanton destruction against those perceived as responsible for the plight of the terrorists. Unless there is an equally dedicated attack on the causes of terrorism, there will never be victory in the war against terrorism. Let us meet our measure of vengeance therefore with an equal measure of mercy. In so doing, perhaps we can come to realize that the world is not simply a rough terrain that needs to be made flat in order to enable the global corporations, financial interests and entertainment industry to have a richer harvest. While good for business, free trade zones may not do justice to the complexity of the world ecology with all its voices, cultures, histories and traditions, all of which have their own unique legitimacy and all of which must be given their rightful place of honor. While at the level of politics we seek victory over terrorists, at the level of healing our redemption might come with our willingness to grapple with the complexities occurring around us: that when opposites collide, they co-create; and it is precisely our ability to hold the opposites in a spirit of empathy and humility that generates the capacity for the redemption we seek. If out of the present crisis the United States emerges more connected with the rest of the world, more willing to compromise national sovereignty within the context of the needs of the larger community of nations, more willing to live cooperatively within coalitions than outside them, then light will have truly come from out of the darkness and redemption out of the recesses of hatred and war. In one of the deepest paradoxes of contemporary history, the present crisis might compel America to reconnect with the wellspring of values the rest of the world intuits it needs America's leadership in order to achieve. If we can attain this level of understanding, we will have learned the wisdom of limits, that in an increasingly complex and interdependent world, no country is an island unique unto itself; and, since there are no longer frontiers to war, the only sustainable solution to hate is to stop the underlying causes that produce it, working within the community of nations to achieve goals that benefit the poor as well as the rich, the south as well as the north, the developing nations as well as those more advanced. Achieving this, America will fulfill the deepest yearning of one of its founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, who wrote that he believed the real destiny of America would not be about power; it would be about light. These thoughts I pass your way, keenly aware that many might disagree. I am deeply sensitive to the fact that wisdom is a very elusive thing. We often have the experience but miss the meaning. It invariably comes slowly, painfully, and only after deep reflection. This is to say that my thoughts now will change as my subjective interaction with the event itself changes, as they will with the passage of time and the constant ebb and flow of the world situation. In a year we will all look back on September 11 and view it completely differently than we do today. Let us all be humbled by this and modulate our certainties accordingly; and let us engage with each other with deepened empathy and compassion. ************************************************* THE CHALLENGE OF TERROR: A TRAVELING ESSAY By John Paul Lederach Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Conflict Studies and Resolution at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia So here I am, a week late arriving home, stuck between Colombia, Guatemala and Harrisonburg when our world changed. The images flash even in my sleep. The heart of America ripped. Though natural, the cry for revenge and the call for the unleashing of the first war of this century, prolonged or not, seems more connected to social and psychological processes of finding a way to release deep emotional anguish, a sense of powerlessness, and our collective loss than it does as a plan of action seeking to redress the injustice, promote change and prevent it from ever happening again. I am stuck from airport to airport as I write this, the reality of a global system that has suspended even the most basic trust. My Duracell batteries and finger nail clippers were taken from me today and it gave me pause for thought. I had a lot of pauses in the last few days. Life has not been the same. I share these thoughts as an initial reaction recognizing that it is always easy to take pot-shots at our leaders from the sidelines, and to have the insights they are missing when we are not in the middle of very difficult decisions. On the other hand, having worked for nearly 20 years as a mediator and proponent of nonviolent change in situations around the globe where cycles of deep violence seem hell-bent on perpetuating themselves, and having interacted with people and movements who at the core of their identity find ways of justifying their part in the cycle, I feel responsible to try to bring ideas to the search for solutions. With this in mind I should like to pen several observations about what I have learned from my experiences and what they might suggest about the current situation. I believe this starts by naming several key challenges and then asking what is the nature of a creative response that takes these seriously in the pursuit of genuine, durable, and peaceful change. SOME LESSONS ABOUT THE NATURE OF OUR CHALLENGE 1. ALWAYS SEEK TO UNDERSTAND THE ROOT OF THE ANGER. The first and most important question to pose ourselves is relatively simple though not easy to answer: How do people reach this level of anger, hatred and frustration? By my experience explanations that they are brainwashed by a perverted leader who holds some kind of magical power over them is an escapist simplification and will inevitably lead us to very wrong-headed responses. Anger of this sort, what we could call generational, identity-based anger, is constructed over time through a combination of historical events, a deep sense of threat to identify, and direct experiences of sustained exclusion. This is very important to understand, because, as I will say again and again, our response to the immediate events have everything to do with whether we reinforce and provide the soil, seeds, and nutrients for future cycles of revenge and violence. Or whether it changes. We should be careful to pursue one and only one thing as the strategic guidepost of our response: Avoid doing what they expect. What they expect from us is the lashing out of the giant against the weak, the many against the few. This will reinforce their capacity to perpetrate the myth they carefully seek to sustain: That they are under threat, fighting an irrational and mad system that has never taken them seriously and wishes to destroy them and their people. What we need to destroy is their myth not their people. 2. ALWAYS SEEK TO UNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF THE ORGANIZATION. Over the years of working to promote durable peace in situations of deep, sustained violence I have discovered one consistent purpose about the nature of movements and organizations who use violence: Sustain thyself. This is done through a number of approaches, but generally it is through decentralization of power and structure, secrecy, autonomy of action through units, and refusal to pursue the conflict on the terms of the strength and capacities of the enemy. One of the most intriguing metaphors I have heard used in the last few days is that this enemy of the United States will be found in their holes, smoked out, and when they run and are visible, destroyed. This may well work for groundhogs, trench and maybe even guerilla warfare, but it is not a useful metaphor for this situation. And neither is the image that we will need to destroy the village to save it, by which the population that gives refuge to our enemies is guilty by association and therefore a legitimate target. In both instances the metaphor that guides our action misleads us because it is not connected to the reality. In more specific terms, this is not a struggle to be conceived of in geographic terms, in terms of physical spaces and places, that if located can be destroyed, thereby ridding us of the problem. Quite frankly our biggest and most visible weapon systems are mostly useless. We need a new metaphor, and though I generally do not like medical metaphors to describe conflict, the image of a virus comes to mind because of its ability to enter unperceived, flow with a system, and harm it from within. This is the genius of people like Osama Ben Laden. He understood the power of a free and open system, and has used it to his benefit. The enemy is not located in a territory. It has entered our system. And you do not fight this kind of enemy by shooting at it. You respond by strengthening the capacity of the system to prevent the virus and strengthen its immunity. It is an ironic fact that our greatest threat is not in Afghanistan, but in our own backyard. We surely are not going to bomb Travelocity, Hertz Rental Car, or an Airline training school in Florida. We must change metaphors and move beyond the reaction that we can duke it out with the bad guy, or we run the very serious risk of creating the environment that sustains and reproduces the virus we wish to prevent. Always remember that realities are constructed - Conflict is, among other things, the process of building and sustaining very different perceptions and interpretations of reality. This means that we have at the same time multiple realities defined as such by those in conflict. In the aftermath of such horrific and unmerited violence that we have just experienced this may sound esoteric. But we must remember that this fundamental process is how we end up referring to people as fanatics, madmen, and irrational. In the process of name-calling we lose the critical capacity to understand that from within the ways they construct their views, it is not mad lunacy or fanaticism. All things fall together and make sense. When this is connected to a long string of actual experiences wherein their views of the facts are reinforced (for example, years of superpower struggle that used or excluded them, encroaching Western values of what is considered immoral by their religious interpretation, or the construction of an enemy-image who is overwhelmingly powerful and uses that power in bombing campaigns and always appears to win) then it is not a difficult process to construct a rational world view of heroic struggle against evil. Just as we do it, so do they. Listen to the words we use to justify our actions and responses. And then listen to words they use. The way to break such a process is not through a frame of reference of who will win or who is stronger. In fact the inverse is true. Whoever loses, whether tactical battles or the "war" itself, finds intrinsic in the loss the seeds that give birth to the justification for renewed battle. The way to break such a cycle of justified violence is to step outside of it. This starts with understanding that TV sound bites about madmen and evil are not good sources of policy. The most significant impact that we could make on their ability to sustain their view of us as evil is to change their perception of who we are by choosing to strategically respond in unexpected ways. This will take enormous courage and courageous leadership capable of envisioning a horizon of change. 3. ALWAYS UNDERSTAND THE CAPACITY FOR RECRUITMENT. The greatest power that terror has is the ability to regenerate itself. What we most need to understand about the nature of this conflict and the change process toward a more peaceful world is how recruitment into these activities happens. In all my experiences in deep-rooted conflict what stands out most are the ways in which political leaders wishing to end the violence believed they could achieve it by overpowering and getting rid of the perpetrator of the violence. That may have been the lesson of multiple centuries that preceded us. But it is not the lesson from that past 30 years. The lesson is simple. When people feel a deep sense of threat, exclusion and generational experiences of direct violence, their greatest effort is placed on survival. Time and again in these movements, there has been an extraordinary capacity for the regeneration of chosen myths and renewed struggle. One aspect of current U.S. leadership that coherently matches with the lessons of the past 30 years of protracted conflict settings is the statement that this will be a long struggle. What is missed is that the emphasis should be placed on removing the channels, justifications, and sources that attract and sustain recruitment into the activities. What I find extraordinary about the recent events is that none of the perpetrators was much older than 40 and many were half that age. This is the reality we face: Recruitment happens on a sustained basis. It will not stop with the use of military force, in fact, open warfare will create the soils in which it is fed and grows. Military action to destroy terror, particularly as it affects significant and already vulnerable civilian populations will be like hitting a fully mature dandelion with a golf club. We will participate in making sure the myth of why we are evil is sustained and we will assure yet another generation of recruits. 4. RECOGNIZE COMPLEXITY, BUT ALWAYS UNDERSTAND THE POWER OF SIMPLICITY. Finally, we must understand the principle of simplicity. I talk a lot with my students about the need to look carefully at complexity, which is equally true (and which in the earlier points I start to explore). However, the key in our current situation that we have failed to fully comprehend is simplicity. From the standpoint of the perpetrators, the effectiveness of their actions was in finding simple ways to use the system to undo it. I believe our greatest task is to find equally creative and simple tools on the other side. SUGGESTIONS In keeping with the last point, let me try to be simple. I believe three things are possible to do and will have a much greater impact on these challenges than seeking accountability through revenge. 1. Energetically pursue a sustainable peace process to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Do it now. The United States has much it can do to support and make this process work. It can bring the weight of persuasion, the weight of nudging people on all sides to move toward mutual recognition and stopping the recent and devastating pattern of violent escalation, and the weight of including and balancing the process to address historic fears and basic needs of those involved. If we would bring the same energy to building an international coalition for peace in this conflict that we have pursued in building international coalitions for war, particularly in the Middle East, if we lent significant financial, moral, and balanced support to all sides that we gave to the Irish conflict in earlier years, I believe the moment is right and the stage is set to take a new and qualitative step forward. Sound like an odd diversion to our current situation of terror? I believe the opposite is true. This type of action is precisely the kind of thing needed to create whole new views of who we are and what we stand for as a nation. Rather than fighting terror with force, we enter their system and take away one of their most coveted elements: The soils of generational conflict perceived as injustice used to perpetrate hatred and recruitment. I believe that monumental times like these create conditions for monumental change. This approach would solidify our relationships with a broad array of Middle Easterners and Central Asians, allies and enemies alike, and would be a blow to the rank and file of terror. The biggest blow we can serve terror is to make it irrelevant. The worst thing we could do is to feed it unintentionally by making it and its leaders the center stage of what we do. Let's choose democracy and reconciliation over revenge and destruction. Let's to do exactly what they do not expect, and show them it can work. 2. Invest financially in development, education, and a broad social agenda in the countries surrounding Afghanistan rather than attempting to destroy the Taliban in a search for Ben Laden. The single greatest pressure that could ever be put on Ben Laden is to remove the source of his justifications and alliances. Countries like Pakistan, Tajikistan, and yes, Iran and Syria should be put on the radar of the West and the United States with a question of strategic importance: How can we help you meet the fundamental needs of your people? The strategic approach to changing the nature of how terror of the kind we have witnessed this week reproduces itself lies in the quality of relationships we develop with whole regions, peoples, and world views. If we strengthen the web of those relationships, we weaken and eventually eliminate the soil where terror is born. A vigorous investment, taking advantage of the current opening given the horror of this week shared by even those who we traditionally claimed as state enemies, is immediately available, possible and pregnant with historic possibilities. Let's do the unexpected. Let's create a new set of strategic alliances never before thought possible. 3. Pursue a quiet diplomatic but dynamic and vital support of the Arab League to begin an internal exploration of how to address the root causes of discontent in numerous regions. This should be coupled with energetic ecumenical engagement, not just of key symbolic leaders, but of a practical and direct exploration of how to create a web of ethics for a new millennium that builds from the heart and soul of all traditions but that creates a capacity for each to engage the roots of violence that are found within their own traditions. Our challenge, as I see it, is not that of convincing others that our way of life, our religion, or our structure of governance is better or closer to Truth and human dignity. It is to be honest about the sources of violence in our own house and invite others to do the same. Our global challenge is how to generate and sustain genuine engagement that encourages people from within their traditions to seek that which assures the preciousness and respect for life that every religion sees as an inherent right and gift from the Divine, and how to build organized political and social life that is responsive to fundamental human needs. Such a web cannot be created except through genuine and sustained dialogue and the building of authentic relationships, at religious and political spheres of interaction, and at all levels of society. Why not do the unexpected and show that life-giving ethics are rooted in the core of all peoples by engaging a strategy of genuine dialogue and relationship? Such a web of ethics, political and religious, will have an impact on the roots of terror far greater in the generation of our children's children than any amount of military action can possibly muster. The current situation poses an unprecedented opportunity for this to happen, more so than we have seen at any time before in our global community. A Call for the Unexpected Let me conclude with simple ideas. To face the reality of well organized, decentralized, self-perpetuating sources of terror, we need to think differently about the challenges. If indeed this is a new war it will not be won with a traditional military plan. The key does not lie in finding and destroying territories, camps, and certainly not the civilian populations that supposedly house them. Paradoxically that will only feed the phenomenon and assure that it lives into a new generation. The key is to think about how a small virus in a system affects the whole and how to improve the immunity of the system. We should take extreme care not to provide the movements we deplore with gratuitous fuel for self-regeneration. Let us not fulfill their prophecy by providing them with martyrs and justifications. The power of their action is the simplicity with which they pursue the fight with global power. They have understood the power of the powerless. They have understood that melding and meshing with the enemy creates a base from within. They have not faced down the enemy with a bigger stick. They did the more powerful thing: They changed the game. They entered our lives, our homes and turned our own tools into our demise. We will not win this struggle for justice, peace and human dignity with the traditional weapons of war. We need to change the game again. Let us take up the practical challenges of this reality perhaps best described in the Cure of Troy an epic poem by Seamus Heaney no foreigner to grip of the cycles of terror. Let us give birth to the unexpected. So hope for a great sea-change On the far side of revenge. Believe that a farther shore Is reachable from here. Believe in miracles And cures and healing wells. __________ An additional note on viruses from "Dear Mr. President - an open letter a draft for comment" by Len Duhl UC Berkeley School of Public Health When we were reminded of our paper on viruses, I realized that we have to respond in a similar way. How can we show that dealing with a virus is a different proposition? As you point out a virus, an idea or DNA, spreads where there are maximum contacts and fertile ground. Thus the idea of attacking the West spreads rapidly, gets modified and changed. How to attack the West, will differ as each recipient and host receives it. They will find new ways to attack. We have learned that sadly attacking human virus infection, head on with our strongest weapons, leads to more rapid modification. The "bugs" modify themselves faster than the drugs can be created. The only prevention, is making sure that the soil is not receptive. This means aid, butter, bread and medicines....[If we] respond with vengeance, that will cause the virus to spread more. The Jihad is a virus infection not even started by Bin Laden, but spreading like a wildfire. To respond with our major tools will breed more and new viruses with lots of new ideas.... _ _ _ _ _ _ Excerpts from a reflection by Dr. Charles Johnston, MD The Institute for Creative Development We are in a time of mourning. Ahead, and just as appropriately, will come a time when what is called for is action. But this call to action presents a complex and hugely demanding question, a question that will stretch everyone regardless of political or philosophical persuasion. What kind of response will best serve us in the only way that ultimately matters, by making the world a safer place? Wise leadership will require a breadth and maturity of perspective we are only learning how to muster.... Our response must have three parts. Each effort, to be effective, will stretch us in ways we may not at first find pleasant. Each confronts us with how very real limits exist to what can be done. And each, at least if adequately conceived, requires us to step outside the comfort of traditional political allegiances. Conventional liberal or conservative perspectives can help illuminate parts of the picture, but neither, alone or even together, can get us where we need to go. First: The world needs to hold those responsible accountable, send a clear message that terrorist activities will not go unpunished. In some form that means a military response. But for such response to serve us, we must understand how limits exist to what military action can accomplish. We face confounding questions: Exactly who should be held responsible-the direct perpetrators, those immediately supporting them, countries that gave them refuge? And in other than the most extreme situations exactly what should holding responsible mean. Define who is responsible too narrowly and actions taken will be symbolic at best. Define it too broadly and innocent people, perhaps large numbers of innocent people, will die. Such would be morally unacceptable and in the end lead to greater carnage. However successful such efforts, our actions will be necessarily imperfect and incomplete. Second: We need to commit ourselves to stopping terrorist actions before they start. This means spending more on intelligence. Too it means greater security, and not just at airports. But again we face limits, both to what is desirable and to what is possible. Many have pointed out correctly that imperfect security is part of the price we pay for a free society. But even if we turned our country into a police state, we would not be safe from terrorism. Indeed the effect might again be the opposite. Timothy McVeigh attacked the Oklahoma City Federal Building in large part because he saw the US as already a police state. Third: We need to establish deeper and more supportive relationships with peoples throughout the Middle East. The sophistication of intelligence needed to effectively safeguard against terrorism will require the active cooperation of the countries where terrorism originates. And we face the simple fact that just being more powerful is no longer enough to guarantee safety. In a fully global world, no one can feel safe unless everyone feels safe. We need to reach out politically and economically to the Middle-East. We need to establish more balanced Middle-East policies. And we need, individually and collectively, to do everything we can to counter attitudes that confuse whole populations with specific perpetrators of violence. Even in the most extreme of situations, we accomplish nothing by viewing people who may see us as "the great satan" as satans in return. And limits exists to what even the best efforts at friendship and alliance can accomplish. Inequities are real. The modern Western values are a threat to almost medieval fundamentalist beliefs from which terrorism arises. (And who is right is not as clear as we might think. Grains of truth exist in even the narrowest of Islamic fundamentalist critiques. I too, for example, have deep concerns for what one cleric called the "McDonald's-ization" of global culture). In addition, even if the East-West divide was not religious, but simply one of power, the West would still be Goliath to the Middle-East's David. No one leg of this three legged stool can stand by itself. But what these actions ask can easily seem contradictory. On one hand we need to be hard and unforgiving, on the other open and embracing. A chance exists that disagreements about which hand should prevail may become as divisive as those we saw during the Vietnam War. The necessary decisiveness-the hardness-of the first response may be more than many of liberal persuasion can stomach. And the degree of acceptance, and even forgiveness-the softness-demanded by the third response may only look like weakness to those of more conservative bent. But both are needed, and not diluted by mushy compromise. The more mature leadership on which the future depends must successfully get its arms around such contradiction. While what happened in New York and Washington was horrendous, the carnage we might see in the future-for example, with the use of chemical or biological weaponry-could be much worse. And more broadly, such maturity of leadership will be essential if we are to effectively address any of a growing array of challenges presented by life in a global world. It is important that we respond effectively to the specific events of September eleventh. But even more important will be what the task of choosing how to respond will teach us for the future.