ISLAND VOICES
Sept. 11 has wider message for U.S.

By Dr. Willis Butler
Kailua resident

The bombing of Afghanistan is understandable in individual human terms. It is too early to know what the specific consequences will be 10 years down the road. But surely the foreign policy of the world's only superpower must not be based on a gut urge to retaliate. If that worked, peace would have come decades ago to Kashmir and Palestine.

There are many kinds of violence, and some of the worst are hidden. A great black civil rights leader of the 1960s said, "When four little girls are killed by a white supremacist's bomb in the basement of a church, Americans are horrified. When four thousand die prematurely of poverty, economic injustice, preventable disease and inadequate education, no one even notices." A wise observation, which we must apply worldwide no less than at home.

Time and distance are great deceivers, as are language, dress and the appurtenances of wealth. Greed masquerades as polity. Decisions made by gentlefolk in elegant corporate boardrooms can and do result in misery and death for humble millions in distant lands. That the evil may take years to turn up in our media or in academia does not weaken the connection or reduce the guilt.

The victims see the connections, if most of us do not, yet. It is surprising that more of them do not actively hate us. When decades and generations of pleas and nonviolent protest fail, what are they to do? We may rightly despise bin Laden's actions as murderous zealotry (probably most Muslims do), but we had better listen to his message. Millions across the world who are not zealots are pondering it. Not hating us, they still feel we "had it coming." They make up the vast pool from which enough "terrorists" will be recruited.

Only if enough of us exchange our narrow nationalistic premises for a generous and humane global outlook, and only if we instruct our political representatives accordingly, can we reverse the slide of our history.

Will the necessary changes in our foreign policy and economic culture cause us discomfort? Of course. It will entail hard and sometimes distasteful homework. And in learning to share, affluent Americans will have to give up some luxuries we now take for granted. But isn't the alternative, especially for our children and grandchildren, far worse? Nuclear bombs that fit into a pair of suitcases could flatten all of New York City.