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malasadas.livejournal.comIt's now been two months since the Boston Marathon bombings. We know a lot more today than we did then. There was no larger plot to attack American targets -- two immigrant brothers from a war torn part of the world, one known to be angry and disaffected, the other thought to be well acculturated and happy, "self radicalized" in the terminology of those who study these matters, lashing out violently at a society they blamed for inflicting harm and death upon people like themselves in distant lands. A tragedy of lives taken in anger and of potential willingly tossed away.
Almost immediately upon posting the news of the bombings, political discussions took turns reminding everyone that the Boston bombs were fairly small stuff compared to what is inflicted upon far flung communities on a daily basis. I was not in a mood to hear it. The streets of Boston are imprinted with many of my fondest childhood memories, and I am always excited to go back there and enjoy the people, the sights and the venues. Sharing The New England Aquarium and The Boston Museum of Science with my children were some of my favorite days as a parent, and I cannot wait to take them to more of the places I loved to explore. Many of my close friends and family still live in Boston -- watching the news of the final capture of the surviving bomber while reading Facebook accounts from friends within a few miles it? I won't shake that for a long while.
Part of my mind is still steaming at what I saw as fairly smug protestations from people who demanded thinking about terrorist attacks and drones strikes in the "war" on terrorism on the very day that I was contemplating the mayhem in the streets of my childhood home. I say "smug" because "yes, but..." is so often part of a rhetorical tool to claim a higher moral ground of seeing nuance while simultaneously dismissing the perspectives of those touched by events close by. It is not morally wrong to suddenly perk up and have your attention dominated by that which touches you immediately -- in fact, it is unlikely that one can cultivate feelings of moral connection to those far away without a strong connection to those you know even to the point of seeing how complex they are despite their familiarity. I won't apologize for that or for the sense of withdrawal it prompted in me.
On the other hand, and it is a very large other hand, I cannot help but understand the perspective that I felt insulted by even if I did not appreciate the way it was brought up. What happened in Boston was tragic, and there are lives lost or permanently and traumatically altered that can never be recovered. On the same day, in Iraq, terrorist/insurgent attacks claimed 75 lives and over 300 wounded. Perhaps more disturbing are the unknown and continously mounting civilian casualities in the United States' drone war which indisputably is inflicting vastly more terror on the lives of innocent people who are unfortunate to live near suspected militants than the Tsarnaev brothers inflicted upon my childhood home.
But I am not so clever as to know precisely what to make of all of this. Politically, I support seeking out militants who are truly organized to mount terrorist attacks across international borders, but that is an easy statement to make when I am not living under any credible threat of ongoing and relentless attack with no warnings -- the hallmarks of true terrorism and of my country's drone war. I was against the war in Iraq, but I voted for Obama knowing full well that he intended to focus the seemingly endless war footing on the Afghan and Pakistani Pashtun regions. I voted for him a second time knowing full well that we were attacking suspected militants with drones under the full knowledge that innocents died as well. While I say that this troubles me, does that trouble mean anything when I have lent my vote to the administration carrying them out? There is no way that I can escape my share of moral culpability for those deaths.
But very shortly after the Boston bombings, I read this story and was taken aback quite a few steps. Beth Murphy, an American film maker in Afghanistan wanted to shoot a picture of herself with a sign reading "To Boston, From Kabul, With Love". But people asked her about why she was doing it, and when she explained what had happened in Boston, how did ordinary Afghans react? Did they roll their eyes and say "Big deal?" Did they look pleased that Americans were suffering some terror? No -- they expressed empathy and sadness that others had suffered senseless violence perhaps in a way that only good people, hard pressed by tragedy but still fundamentally good people, can...and she had no trouble finding people in Kabul willing to send love to Boston:
This, to me, is extraordinary -- and maybe a better lesson from the reminder of how far flung tragedies are more frequent and impact more people than many of ours at home. It does not diminish the tragedy in Boston to look to what people in Kabul have and continue to suffer in no small part because it isn't just about tallying bodies. It is about seeing how pain and suffering doesn't just result in the twisted mentality that inspired the Tsarnaev brothers to inflict more pain and suffering. The pain and suffering impacts the lives of very good and loving people who remain very good and loving IN SPITE of what they have lived through. I think I and most of my countrymen could learn a lot from the people Beth Murphy met in Kabul that day -- they are people who have endured more than I think I could ever manage, but whose empathy and humanity are in full health. And perhaps I need to spend much more time thinking of what I owe them as a citizen of the United States.
Almost immediately upon posting the news of the bombings, political discussions took turns reminding everyone that the Boston bombs were fairly small stuff compared to what is inflicted upon far flung communities on a daily basis. I was not in a mood to hear it. The streets of Boston are imprinted with many of my fondest childhood memories, and I am always excited to go back there and enjoy the people, the sights and the venues. Sharing The New England Aquarium and The Boston Museum of Science with my children were some of my favorite days as a parent, and I cannot wait to take them to more of the places I loved to explore. Many of my close friends and family still live in Boston -- watching the news of the final capture of the surviving bomber while reading Facebook accounts from friends within a few miles it? I won't shake that for a long while.
Part of my mind is still steaming at what I saw as fairly smug protestations from people who demanded thinking about terrorist attacks and drones strikes in the "war" on terrorism on the very day that I was contemplating the mayhem in the streets of my childhood home. I say "smug" because "yes, but..." is so often part of a rhetorical tool to claim a higher moral ground of seeing nuance while simultaneously dismissing the perspectives of those touched by events close by. It is not morally wrong to suddenly perk up and have your attention dominated by that which touches you immediately -- in fact, it is unlikely that one can cultivate feelings of moral connection to those far away without a strong connection to those you know even to the point of seeing how complex they are despite their familiarity. I won't apologize for that or for the sense of withdrawal it prompted in me.
On the other hand, and it is a very large other hand, I cannot help but understand the perspective that I felt insulted by even if I did not appreciate the way it was brought up. What happened in Boston was tragic, and there are lives lost or permanently and traumatically altered that can never be recovered. On the same day, in Iraq, terrorist/insurgent attacks claimed 75 lives and over 300 wounded. Perhaps more disturbing are the unknown and continously mounting civilian casualities in the United States' drone war which indisputably is inflicting vastly more terror on the lives of innocent people who are unfortunate to live near suspected militants than the Tsarnaev brothers inflicted upon my childhood home.
But I am not so clever as to know precisely what to make of all of this. Politically, I support seeking out militants who are truly organized to mount terrorist attacks across international borders, but that is an easy statement to make when I am not living under any credible threat of ongoing and relentless attack with no warnings -- the hallmarks of true terrorism and of my country's drone war. I was against the war in Iraq, but I voted for Obama knowing full well that he intended to focus the seemingly endless war footing on the Afghan and Pakistani Pashtun regions. I voted for him a second time knowing full well that we were attacking suspected militants with drones under the full knowledge that innocents died as well. While I say that this troubles me, does that trouble mean anything when I have lent my vote to the administration carrying them out? There is no way that I can escape my share of moral culpability for those deaths.
But very shortly after the Boston bombings, I read this story and was taken aback quite a few steps. Beth Murphy, an American film maker in Afghanistan wanted to shoot a picture of herself with a sign reading "To Boston, From Kabul, With Love". But people asked her about why she was doing it, and when she explained what had happened in Boston, how did ordinary Afghans react? Did they roll their eyes and say "Big deal?" Did they look pleased that Americans were suffering some terror? No -- they expressed empathy and sadness that others had suffered senseless violence perhaps in a way that only good people, hard pressed by tragedy but still fundamentally good people, can...and she had no trouble finding people in Kabul willing to send love to Boston:
This, to me, is extraordinary -- and maybe a better lesson from the reminder of how far flung tragedies are more frequent and impact more people than many of ours at home. It does not diminish the tragedy in Boston to look to what people in Kabul have and continue to suffer in no small part because it isn't just about tallying bodies. It is about seeing how pain and suffering doesn't just result in the twisted mentality that inspired the Tsarnaev brothers to inflict more pain and suffering. The pain and suffering impacts the lives of very good and loving people who remain very good and loving IN SPITE of what they have lived through. I think I and most of my countrymen could learn a lot from the people Beth Murphy met in Kabul that day -- they are people who have endured more than I think I could ever manage, but whose empathy and humanity are in full health. And perhaps I need to spend much more time thinking of what I owe them as a citizen of the United States.
