Re: RE: OT Terrorists

["Tracey" <tracey@tbt.co.za>]

Maryanne, thank you for your comments.


I have an amateur's interest in history, but the thing which has always
stood out in my mind, in flipping through my history books, is how much
suffering people inflict on others in the name of "nationhood", and even
more so in the name of "religious freedom".

I guess, having lived through it here, I feel particularly strongly about
the rights of the individual, as opposed to the rights of any one group.
Too often, "groups" become mobs.

As Lif said, it will be necessary to remain as calm as possible in the face
of this.  To rein in the natural desire for revenge, and to hurt those who
hurt us.

But here I sit, at the southernmost tip of Africa, and I'm afraid, because I
can see us heading to war, because of a conflict which has been taking
place, for hundreds of years, in a patch of desert thousands of miles north
of me.

And one thing my history fetish has taught me is that, in war, there are no
winners, only survivors.

I lost a family member in the Ellis Park bomb disaster.  Blown to pieces
whilst watching a rugby match, by Umkhonto WeSizwe.  Knowing that the armed
struggle was justified does not mitigate the loss we felt as a family, but
it does help sometimes to step back and think "if I'd walked a mile in this
man's shoes, would I have behaved as he has?"  I couldn't answer that
question in the negative, not convincingly, and so, I mourned my dead, and
also mourned those who died fighting on the other side.

Perhaps it is too late for that.  Perhaps this will, indeed, become a global
conflict.  But for some reason I can't get Wilfred Owen's words out of my
mind

"What passing bells for those who die as cattle?"

I'm not suggesting that anger is unjustified.  I'm not trying to diminish
the intensity of fear, rage, or frustration which you are feeling.  I'm just
praying : don't give in to hate.


Regards,
Tracey