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September 14, 2001
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Dilip D'Souza
From Americans Themselves: Thoughts After Terror
I watched the blood-curdling images of the planes tearing into the towers,
the towers crumbling, people being overtaken by that vast cloud of dust and
debris. Over and over again, I ached for passengers making phone calls to
announce their deaths. Through it all, I thought: I hope they get these
guys. I hope they get the sick bastards who conceived this inconceivable
horror.
There are ways in which I feel this vicious assault in my guts, as if it
were on my own home and life. Which it was, for ten years. That's how long
I lived in the States. And because I did, I'd like to share some of what's
been on my mind since that moment on September 11.
When I first got to the US, a green student with a black suitcase, I think
I carried with me at least some of those impressions about the place so
many Indians like to hold. You know the ones I mean: Americans are
unfriendly and uninterested in the world outside; they don't value families
like we do; there's tremendous crime on urban streets, and especially in
NYC; blacks are dangerous; blacks are badly discriminated against anyway,
because racism is so rampant; on and on.
In my time there, all these crumbled away. I have several close American
friends, some of the finest people I know. To this day, I think one of them
understands me like no other friend ever has. They are just as close to
their families as any Indian is. I have walked the streets of several
American cities at every hour, as I have on Indian city streets, without
any crime rising up to grab me. In my ten years, only twice were things
said to me that could have been racist. And I never could understand how
and why, or why Indians go about thinking, skin colour should imply danger
anyway.
All this to say: once I cared to open my eyes, I knew that Americans are a
fundamentally decent, generous people who have built a country that has got
many things right. And even if somehow I had missed seeing that, the proof
is in the number of people from every corner of the world who call the US
home, in all that attracts them there.
True, I also believe the country has done a lot of wrong. From My Lai to
the blockade of Cuba, from the Gulf War and the subsequent treatment of
Iraq to supporting evil regimes in El Salvador, Chile, South Africa and
elsewhere, the record is there for all to see. And yet one of the right
things is that you can spell all those out loudly in the US. Not least,
Americans do so themselves. In fact, America's fiercest critics are its own
citizens. They understand how much stronger a nation they are for
encouraging this criticism, this diversity of opinion.
There's so much talk today of revenge, and I have no doubt there will be
some measure of it taken. I want to see these people pay. But there are
many aspects to that that make me uneasy. It was no surprise to me that I
watched an American express much of the same unease -- on TV, in those
first frantic and emotional hours, even while his country tried to come to
grips with monumental tragedy.
First, to what extent is this payback for America's own doings? Hatred for
the US is widespread, and it is by no means restricted to mere envy of its
success. In Palestine, in Iraq, among shadowy groups in Japan, in Central
America, and even in India, you won't have to search long to find this
hatred simmering. Arrogant American policies have done that and one result
is September 11. Yet already there are columns and publicly expressed
opinions from Americans themselves, speculating and agonizing about this
legacy.
Second, where will it end? If the US strikes back, will there be further
and unimaginably more horrific retaliation? Yet the TV commentator I
mentioned made just this point: there are people who hate us enough to do
this to us; we are outraged enough that we will hit back hard; that
produces a new generation to hate us enough to strike at us again one day.
Where will it end, he asked his baffled hosts, how do we stop this cycle of
killing?
Third, the easy conflation of terror with religion. Already there are
ignorant, if angry and upset, Americans who have threatened people who are,
even look like, Muslims. Yet what a remarkable thing it is that my American
friends are writing to me saying: we must not over-react, I hope we will be
careful, after all we were wrong in Oklahoma, it's stupid to be angry at
every Muslim. What a remarkable thing it is that the Mayor of New York,
hours after the blackest moment in his city's history, in the middle of
rage against bin Laden and Arabs and Muslims, announces that his tragically
short-staffed and over-burdened police force will also protect Muslim and
Arab establishments in his city.
Remarkable to me, because in my city, a police officer is actually being
prosecuted for leading an attack on a Muslim-owned bakery eight years ago;
after which attack he actually rose to become my city's top cop.
Remarkable, because in my capital city, the police did just nothing to
protect Sikhs from mass murder in 1984.
Remarkable too, because in India we think we know what terror is about.
That must be why men more learned than I have already put pen to paper and
pronounced solemnly that the targets on September 11 were the US, Israel
and India. Our prime and home ministers have put up their hands and offered
"solidarity" to the US in its fight against terrorism. (Though one report
mentions "disquiet" in official Delhi corridors that President Bush has
spoken to several world leaders after the attacks, but not PM Vajpayee).
Which is as it should be, because yes, we have learned to live with terror
in India. Like the men who wrecked a Thane hospital because their leader
died (2001). Like the men who instigated and cheered riots that killed over
a thousand Indians in Bombay (1992-93). Like the men who massacred 3000
Indians in Delhi because they wore turbans (1984). How many more should I
list beyond these three? Not only does terror happen in India, we even
celebrate the men responsible for it, even bestow titles on them like
"Emperor of the Hindu Heart." Even hail them as patriots.
No, we couldn't dream of punishing them and their terror. (Which, if you
think about it a bit, may be one reason Bush hasn't yet called Vajpayee).
And all these are before I write of the terror that comes from abroad: the
bomb blasts, the years of killing in Kashmir and more.
They have their homegrown loonies in the USA, but people like that do
eventually pay the price for crime. They have their faults in the USA, but
they seem to know that you get ahead not by finding scapegoats, but by
addressing those faults. They have their hate-filled leaders there, but
those men generally remain stuck in the tiny pockets of hate they nurture,
then vanish into the oblivion they deserve. So it's not just because I have
good American friends that I believe they are a fundamentally decent
people. It's also because they live in a country that values introspection,
questioning and justice.
This is the country that was attacked by a gang of faceless men on
September 11. This country that taught me so much, this people I grew to
like and feel so at home with. This vibrant, inquisitive and stimulating
society.
Yes, I hope they get the evil that struck on September 11. I know that the
loudest demands for it to be done right will be from Americans themselves.
Dilip D'Souza
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