By Reeta Sinha
During winters when I was little, the boys on my block
played a game called King of the H ill. After storms, snowplows clearing the
streets would leave behind huge hills of dense, packed snow hills 15 to 20 feet
high. The game was simple. The one who reached the top of the hill and kept
everyone else off it was the King of the Hill. Boys would scramble up the hill,
shoving and pushing each other, sometimes sending a playmate tumbling to the
ground. It was a rough game and usually it was the bully who made it to the
top. The biggest, loudest, meanest kid on the block became the King of the
Hill. The others -- smaller and weaker -- tumbled down quickly or were thrown
off by the King, if they got close to the top of the hill.
Standing a safe distance away, I would watch the boys who
were knocked off the hill over and over again. They never looked defeated. With
their chins set, they would get up from the ground, brush the snow off their clothes
and, after grabbing handfuls of snow, climb up the hill again, determined to
topple the King. What they lacked in bulk and height, they made up for with
creativity (icy snow shoved inside a shirt pretty much paralyzes any bully).
Inevitably, the bully's arrogance was his downfall. Confident that he, the
King, was the biggest, the strongest, the best and so certain that the others
were puny and dumb, the bully usually didn't see the boy sneaking up behind
him. The one who, with one shove, sent the former King sliding headfirst down
the hill.
The smaller boys didn't really care who was the King of
the Hill. That snowy kingdom would be gone come spring. It was the bully's
attitude, his assumption that he deserved to be King that made the boys so determined.
Without treaties or negotiation, they would band together and attack the King,
just to see him take a fall.
Bullies, kings, dictators, meanies don't seem to get it,
do they? The more they push, the more they shove, the more they flex their
muscles, the more determined it makes those they ridicule and bully.
The world has seen this human drama played out time and
time again throughout history, sometimes by individuals, sometimes with entire peoples
with uprisings. In fact and fiction, those who are pushed frequently and far
enough, always push back.
It happened again on September 11, 2001. When terrorists
crashed passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon building in
the US, someone, some group of people, was pushing back.
The message seems pretty clear: the wealthy, powerful king
had to be knocked off the hill.
Perhaps this is not the time to criticize a country that
has suffered such great loss of life. But, as I have listened to news reports
and watched the horrific images for the past several hours, the most recent showing
a second plane aiming directly for the World Trade Center, crashing through a
tower as onlookers scream, I can't help but wonder. What would drive some people
to take such extreme measures? Why would anyone go to these lengths to hurt the
United States?
I can come up with only one answer. It's not us they hate.
It's not the US they want to destroy. It's our arrogance. 'America under
attack.' That's how the media is describing it. Unaware of the morning's
events, I listened to cryptic voicemail messages about my home office in
Chicago being shut down due to the 'crisis' and my father asking me to call. I had
left my California hotel room for a conference session without listening to the
news hours earlier. Confused by the messages, I turned on the television
immediately. The caption on my muted television screen alarmed me. Were we
being invaded? Had the government been overthrown?
But it isn't the US these terrorists want. They don't want
our land, our buildings, our wealth, our leaders or our people. I think they
are just sick and tired of being pushed around. As I write this, I don't know
who 'they' are. It doesn't matter whether these terrorists came from outside the
US or from within. As we saw with the Oklahoma bombing a few years ago, there
are many inside the US who feel pushed around, who feel they are not included
when US leaders tell the world, 'we are the best, we are the smartest, we are
the most powerful, we are No.1.'
The US likes to rub it in whenever it can, whether it is
true or not. It boasts of being the greatest democracy in the world, the leader
of all free people and if that were not enough, it seems to think it can dictate
to the world what is morally right and wrong. This attitude came through even
as news of the terrorist attacks broke. President Bush declared that our
freedom, our democracy had been attacked.
As people jumped out of the World Trade Center, as passengers
were slammed through steel and concrete, do you think freedom and democracy were
on their minds? Do you think the terrorists were envious or even cared about
the US' obsession with these values? Only a country, or more
accurately, the leaders of a country, so focused with its own greatness would
think so.
Yet, in a matter of minutes, a series of almost perfectly
choreographed events destroyed two of the tallest buildings in the world in one
city and critically damaged one of the most impenetrable structures in another.
New York's World Trade Center crumbled -- the target was a symbol of US wealth;
in Washington, DC, the Pentagon, the military nerve center of the US was
directly hit. While the bully was thumping his chest, claiming victory, the
smaller boy crept up behind him and knocked him off his feet.
The question is being asked repeatedly by media analysts:
how did the US miss such a sophisticated attack? In my opinion, the answer is
simple. The US arrogantly underestimated its perceived and known enemies.
How many times has the US been the target of terrorism in
the past 30 years alone? The US media harps on the worst, the first, the most violent,
but the fact is that the US has experienced terrorism for decades. US airlines
have been hijacked many times, scores of US army personnel have been killed in
bombings and US embassies around the world have been hit more than once, US
citizens have been taken hostage for months at a time. Within the US, a federal
building has been bombed, killing hundreds and... and the World Trade Center
was a terrorist target less than 10 years ago. How could the US believe that
the World Trade Center was not still vulnerable? That any person or structure associated
with the US could not some day be a target?
Other countries in the world would learn from such
incidents, such real threats, and they have. But, it seems the US hasn't. Why
not? Because we're No 1. They are scum, they are evil, they're cowards, and
they are stupid. How could 'they' ever get us? White extremists or Arab terrorists,
we're better, we're smarter, we're ready. We have stealth bombers and space-age
missile defense systems, we can land on the moon and go to Mars. We're rich,
we're invincible. We're America.
The reality is we're so full of it and now, thousands of
innocent people have paid the price for the arrogance of some in the US. It
doesn't take much to realize just how well organized and clever these
terrorists were. While the US and its allies talk of arsenals filled with
expensive high-tech weapons to combat biological warfare and fight star wars, a
group of people using nothing more than knives and combined brain power brought
the US to a halt. Consider the following:
Four commercial planes with huge quantities of fuel
simultaneously hijacked from four metro US airports Four sets of hijackers who
knew how to pilot the jets (unlike many previous hijackings in the world) Two strategically
critical targets selected two successful strikes to the World Trade Center
towers where the buildings were structurally most vulnerable. No US media
outlets affected, ensuring maximum visibility to these attacks To this point,
no evidence available to determine who is responsible, leaving the US powerless
to retaliate These terrorists have made a mockery of the CIA (Central
Intelligence Agency) who seems to have no clue that an attack of such magnitude
was even possible, let alone imminent. They have put the FAA (Federal Aviation
Authority) to shame, as its radar screens showed four flights veering
off-course and, apparently, with no indication the planes had been hijacked.
Airport security has been deemed lax for years, yet there have been no noticeable
improvements.
The terrorists have left US leaders virtually powerless --
they can only repeat the now almost meaningless words claiming US greatness,
strength and its resolve to hold other countries responsible, never once recognizing
its own weaknesses and faults.
President Bush briefly addressed the nation, after being
whisked away to safety earlier in the day, while the rest of the nation,
strangely, remained vulnerable. In his speech, the world heard the same
arrogance as the President said the US was chosen as a target because
"we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the
world." World leaders, primarily those from the western, predominantly
white hemisphere, have joined in with equally superior rhetoric. The British Prime
Minister said the acts were "...perpetrated by fanatics who are utterly
indifferent to the sanctity of life." Israel's Sharon felt the US' pain
and said the country was in mourning with the US.
The theme is clear and already you know whom these leaders
blame for the attacks. The disdain for 'them' is so evident. The world is
slowly dividing itself, us against 'them.' Not against terrorists or acts of terror,
in general, but for a particular group of terrorists, a specific kind of
terrorism. Slavery and colonialism -- and their legacies, it seems, were not attacks
on freedom and democracy; political assassinations do not constitute terrorism
- these barely warrant acknowledgement eeven, as the world has recently seen.
Is it possible that it is this very attitude that so
drives some to bring the US down? The idea that one group of people is allowed
to declare that another does not count, that another group of people does not
deserve to be considered human? When will the US learn it has to co-exist with
all the peoples of the world, not just those who serve the US' interests? Hate
begets hate. Labeling people of this world as evil produces evil. The US and
others have experienced this many times, yet they continue in the same vein.
There's no mistaking that terrorism is a threat, as it
always has been. There is also no disputing that those responsible for such
acts in any way, shape or form must be held accountable. To be sure, prosecute
those who are responsible, but do not turn the process into a media circus, as was
the case with the execution of Timothy McVeigh convicted for the Oklahoma
bombing. Do not use the process to humiliate a people, as the US sought to do
when it prosecuted those who bombed the World Trade Center before.
Grandstanding, seeking to teach Osama bin Laden and his followers a lesson, the
US government did nothing more than reaffirm its role as an arrogant world
bully.
As calls for retaliation (against whom?) grow, as news
analyses continue into the early hours of the morning after, I doubt it matters
-- all this talk of US superiority and ffreedom. Imagine for a moment you are sitting
in those planes, facing certain death, or in an office in the Pentagon or the
World Trade Center, unaware just how close death is. Terrorism is about people.
Perhaps one day the world's leader will realize this.
(Reeta Sinha)
Reeta Sinha writes about things Indian and American from
the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a librarian who has held management
positions at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center, Emory University
and, most recently, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Reeta currently
works with a Chicago-based library information systems company. She can be
reached at [email protected]