Special
Report When power is not enough
By JOAN CHITTISTER
The heart goes numb at the thought
of it.
At Xavier Universitys academic convocation on The
Effects of Globalization, the ethicist and the economist were speaking
about the challenges and problems that come with global economic development.
The Jesuit had already told us that there were lessons to be relearned today
from the lives of Jesuit missionaries like Mateo Ricci and John DeBrito who had
been sensitive to the cultures in which they worked.
Then, in the middle of it all, the cell phone rang for the first
time. The World Trade Center had been barraged, the voice on the other end of
the line told me. I froze in my seat, aghast and unbelieving: Who? Why? What
can possibly be done in the face of something like this? I tried to concentrate
while the real world haunted the academic world like silhouettes behind a scrim
as we all sat in straight, neat, professorial rows approaching the problems of
the world reasonably.
Thirty minutes later, the cell phone rang again: The Pentagon had
been bombarded, too, the caller said. Shock turned to pain in me while the
political scientist mused about whether or not globalization was really the
problem a few vociferous voices say it is and the theologian reminded us that
all religions of the world warn us that personal development depends on the
development of the common good. When I moved out into the lobby, television
sets, radios, cell phones were shouting the news: The United States of America,
leader of the free world, center of the capitalist world, was under attack from
unknown terrorists from unknown places. It was an ironic, a bizarre, setting
for a bizarre event.
The nightmare of wounded people, of peace shattered by shards of
hate, of the curdling of the illusion of security was bad enough. But the
nightmare within the nightmare was even worse. Something was all wrong. The
Cold War had generated paranoia of massive proportions. So, armed to the teeth,
we had won that war, hadnt we, and against the most powerful people in
the world?
Well, maybe yes, maybe no.
What we had really won in the wake of the Cold War may have been
exactly what makes us so susceptible now. What we won, perhaps, was a sense
that we were invulnerable, impenetrable and invincible. But now we had been hit
from behind the trees, just as a small band of American farmers once defeated a
well-prepared and well-disciplined British army. Now we had been struck at the
heart of our most symbolic centers: the World Trade Center, our icon of
capitalism, and the Pentagon, the symbol of the kind of American military
strength geared to deal with nuclear powers. Now we had been wounded more
seriously than we had been at Pearl Harbor: All financial markets closed, all
airports locked down, all federal buildings evacuated, children sent home from
school.
The United States had been brought to a halt by four commercial
planes and a band of anonymous terrorists.
What we had really won in the Cold War, it seems, was a false
sense of power and a false kind of power. With no national government
formidable enough to check our own, we could break international treaties, walk
out of international conferences, ignore the complaints of large parts of the
world. We could do whatever we wanted anywhere at any time. Who was strong
enough to stop us now?
A traveler whose plane had been affected by the attack groaned to
the TV interviewer in despair, I cant understand who would initiate
this kind of attack on us. As the West takes over more and more of the
resources of the world with small regard for social inequities that raw
capitalism leaves in its wake, we may all have to try to understand again that
it may be weakness, not strength, that is our enemy.
As unpatriotic as it may be seen to be in the initial moments of
such an event, we may have to learn that listening to those to whom no one
listens at all may be the only power thats really effective.
Shooting wont be enough to control people who have nothing
to lose. Nuclear shields wont have a thing to do with it. Getting them --
whoever they are this time -- wont solve the problem or keep America
safe, because they will simply come back again and again in their children.
The United States of America is worth more than this. The United
States of America stands for more than this. The United States of America was
itself born out of having nothing to lose.
The only thing that can possibly resolve global situations like
this is a power based on respect for the powerless before their powerlessness
turns to rage. Indeed, there is something to learn from Ricci who respected the
culture of the Chinese and DeBrito who became an Indian ascetic in order to
communicate across all castes. Then, terrorists, whoever they are and however
fanatical they may be, will be able to curry no favor with those who need favor
most, with those who dance in the streets to celebrate such a thing.
In the meantime, God bless America. May God give us all the grace
it will take to survive this grief.
Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister lives in Erie, Pa.
National Catholic Reporter, September 21,
2001
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