What 9/11 badly tought to the
world is that terrorism is terrorism everywhere no matter wwhat motivation
ignites it. By definition, it’s catching the power looking for the people to
feel afraid living in freedom and fighting to conserve it as a way to the
progress, the tranquility, and the peace.
In the same way, for many
countries around the world where this issue has been not usual, the event made
them to call terrorist to the one who is terrorist, although like the Mexican
(but Miami-based) journalist Jorge Ramos, with Univisión Network, notices, it
also made us to call terrorist to the
one who just thinks different than us.
My memories about that
Tuesday morning are currently some blurring, but I remember I was just starting
the work day in Malingas, a rural village in Piura Department, Peru, where I
worked producing an educational radio show. I got the headline on my cellphone
like many others across my country.
For the ones who had that
news alert by SMS, then running to the TV screens and seeing live-broadcast how
the large flames came out ffrom the gap that two planes caused at the Twin Towers
of the World Trade Center in New York City brought us two sensations –
consternation and anxiety.
9/11/01: The
towers are hit - YouTube
Why did this story connect
closely to the most Peruvian audience? The simple answer is because we already passed
it through. Between 1980 and 1997, terrorists groups as Sendero Luminoso
(Shining Path) and Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (Tupac Amaru
Revolutionary Movement or MRTA as its initials in Spanish) kidnapped, killed,
set up bombs, destroyed public and private property.
They said they fought for our
freedom, for releasing us from what they say imperialism (the American
influence, actually), but ever using violence, ever blaming who thinks
different, ever threatening who set them in controversy. The agenda was clearly
taking the power anyway.
An, in this point, it’s
necessary to remark that a terrorist is not mandatorily that man or woman who
wears a military outfit. He or she can quietly wear like some of us, or even
wearing a top designer suit. He or she can come from the left, the middle, or
the right – terrorism doesn’t know of ideologies. He or she wants to control us
in the most insane way you ever can imagine.
It’s relatively easy to forge
loyalties when you force violently someone to do what you say. Acting by fear
is not acting in freedom, indeed. So, if simple impositions are not enough, the
agressions are going to scale. And if nothing works, the best for them will be
to vanish you.
After the 9/11, something
rare happened to the world. Instead to use the milestone like a pairtaking to
build a ffairest world in liberty and respect, we are confronting much than we
can imagine. The polarization in all senses is the measure of our days. And that
is a gain for the real terrorists.
They try to highlight the
feelings of one of the parts by pitching the idea they are down, powerless, so
the resentment is created, and a train of actions fueled by the hate and a
manipulated need to reinvindication is the next. And if it allows to catch the
power, the better, but to live in justice? No. The experiences across the
planet don’t prove that.
All the regimes that could
take up following that method ultimately made the leaders a kind of little
court with so many priviledges, the same they criticized the previous
administrations, while the rest of people live submitted, poor, without options
to be what they want to be.
9/11: South
Tower collapses, Pentagon hit – YouTube
Otherwise, if something has
become clear after 9/11 is that terrorism is a global issue, not the one
focused in por or developing countries –even the U.S. had domestic terrorism
issues since 1990s until the recent presidential race—so the combat against
demands unity. There are some trials and collaborative networks for
intelligence and enforcement, but not all the points of view are aligned
because the origin of every terrorist crusade has their own local
particularities. Then, a world recipe
working as a formula is not ever the best way to solve it.
It’s possible we don’t see
the lessons of 9/11 experience with clarity yet. But today that we are
commemorating 20 years of other event in the recent history that shook the
word, it’s a good time to think about. How much our political, social, economic
comfort zone come to be too important that we can’t see around and understand
that we can live as we want to live but considering the rest has the same
right, that we can help and learn each other. We can be community not quitting
our individuality – they are complementary dimensions. We are still on time to
make the step for being a better world without violence. We can. Let’s do it.
Episode 12:
Katie Couric - YouTube
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