NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — On Sept. 12, 2001, I decided that I would not allow the terrorists’ attacks of the previous day to change my life. I believe the best way to defeat terrorists is to live joyfully and fearlessly - not to give them what they want: fear and division.
Terrorists are so weak that they can’t openly defeat a perceived enemy either by force or persuasion.
So they just try to scare.
Terrorists succeed only if they can provoke our primitive emotions of fear and paranoia. The fact is, terrorists can do very little.
Their only real weapon is, well, terror - to make us afraid. Therefore, Fear not.
Be not afraid. It is a repeated Biblical injunction.
Other than the minor inconveniences when boarding a plane, the biggest change 9/11 made in my life was that it motivated me to meet some of my Muslim neighbors. I made some good friends. And I reinforced my own commitment to regular daily prayer and to fasting, inspired by my new friends’ Islamic disciplines of five periods of daily prayer and their annual month of fasting during Ramadan.
From the beginning the Bush-Cheney administration gave the terrorists just what they wanted - fear and division. When they should have been inspiring us, ourleaders were pumping fear into us with exaggerated fantasies of mushroom clouds and WMDs. They treated a tiny band of organized criminals as if they were worthy of our declaration of war. They made us afraid of Iraq, afraid of Muslims, afraid even of our own liberties.
They scared us into an unnecessary war.
From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney Administration’s fear mongering sounded bogus to me. There was no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. The only country Iraq threatened was Iran.
Psychologist Dr. Martha Stout says that the repeated messages of fear coming from our leaders after 9/11 re-traumatized a large portion of our nation. Dr.
Stout treats patients suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, helping them reclaim their freedom after traumatic events.
In her book “The Paranoia Switch: How Terror Rewires Our Brains and Reshapes Our Behavior - And How We Can Reclaim Our Courage,” Dr. Stout makes a strong case that a large portion of our nation now suffers symptoms of PTSD.
The experience of fear has taken root deep in our culture and causes fearful reactivity within many of us.
Nearly nine years after our collective trauma, exaggerated messages of fear continue to assault us.
They find resonance in many, provoking anxiety and anger. The latest round of irrational fear comes in the wake of the recent passage of health reform. The voices of fear shout, Socialism!
Bankruptcy! Attack on freedom!
The health reform bill wasn’t socialist. It was a modest tweak to our system of private health care to make care accessible to more people. It is similar to a health insurance plan Richard Nixon nearly had through Congress when his administration imploded. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates it will lower rather than raise the budget deficit.
The fact is, we’ve had socialist health care in the U.S. for a long time - our V.A. Hospitals. Socialism is government provided services. The government owns VA Hospitals, and theVA health care professionals are governmental employees. From what I’ve heard, our Fayetteville VA Hospital gets high marks for its service and patient satisfaction.
To listen to the reactive fear and anger of the Tea Party, you would think President Obama has raised taxes to an unprecedented level. In fact, 40 percent of the stimulus bill was tax cuts, helping 90 percent of all taxpayers earning below $50,000. Our top marginal tax rate is the lowest it’s been since 1917, except for two brief periods right before other economic downturns. And immigrants, including those without papers, add to our Arkansas economy rather than take from it. They are neighbors, not enemies.
A traumatized society is vulnerable to exaggerated fears. A healthy society will question fear messages, will stay grounded in reality and will act courageously from its deepest and best values.
We make our best decisions from places of peace, confidence, love and compassion. How better might this decade have been had our leaders embraced those traditional American values instead of amplifying fear in the service of anger and revenge.
LOWELL GRISHAM IS THE RECTOR AT ST. PAUL’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN FAYETTEVILLE.
Opinion, Pages 9 on 04/18/2010