Commentary: Their path to victory

Terrorists will win if they change who we are

In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, a friend commented sadly, "Everything has changed!"

No, it has not changed. A few criminals carried out an organized act of murder in Paris, France. That's all. Now there is healing to accomplish for those who are directly affected. There are lost lives to be mourned and celebrated. And there is the duty of all civilized people to return to the normalcy of the goodness of life and not to allow a few pathetic gangsters to steal it from us.

Do not amplify their criminal acts. Don't call it "war." They are not dignified enough to be regarded as soldiers or warriors. They are mere criminals. Murderers. Cowards who attack the unarmed. It is the job of law enforcement to track down criminals and bring them to justice.

Do not let them change you. Do not let them take away your joy, your peace, your hope. Be who you are, and be the best that you are.

Terrorists are only successful if we allow them to plant the seeds of terror in us. What they most desire is for us to feel fear and anger. They feed on fear and anger. What they most desire is for us to react out of fear and anger.

To defeat terrorism, we must continue to live out of our highest ideals. We must continue to love and to show compassion. We must multiply hope and bring healing to a hurting world. We must continue to be who we are, to be our best selves. We must not sink to their level of consciousness or else their violence will only beget more violence in us and we will be caught in a vortex of cyclical violence. That is what terrorists want us to do.

Do not let them take away your ideals and idealism. Do not sink to their level and begin dividing the world into us and them, good and evil, allies and enemies. Humanity is one.

Hold on to the biblical values that tell us every human being is created in the image and likeness of God. Defeat evil with goodness. Cast out fear with love (1 John 4:18). Continue to love your neighbor as yourself and insist on accepting Jesus' definition of neighbor as anyone who is in need. Jesus used a heretic and traditional enemy of his people--a Samaritan--as his example of a good neighbor. He also told us to pray for our enemies and to love our enemies.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks the whole world looked to the United States for a response. Many of us urged our leaders to use the moral credit we had earned to mobilize an international response of compassion in memory of those who had died. At that time there was great energy around the Millennial Development Goals, an achievable plan to actualize the reality that for the first time in human history we have the capacity to eliminate extreme poverty worldwide. What if we had led the world in something like the Marshall Plan based on those goals? We might have changed some of the circumstances that breed extremism and provide recruiting grounds for terrorists.

In the window of opportunity following Sept. 11 we had the moral weight to bring Israel and the Palestinians to the negotiating table. We might have helped them create a just two-state solution and lowered the level of conflict and tension in the Middle East.

We could have mobilized worldwide criminal investigative networks to track Al Qaeda and bring justice to the group that actually attacked us. And we could have acted out of our highest ideals and our deepest American heart, for we are a generous and compassionate people.

Instead we allowed ourselves to become reactive, angry and fearful. We made bad decisions based on a desire for revenge and violence. We started a war, and we helped make the world more violent and less stable.

This time, let's calm our fears and anger. Let's look for ways to act to heal the world's divisions. Millions of refugees, innocents fleeing violence and terror, need our compassion and hospitality. A world filled with anger and violence needs its most powerful nation to be a beacon of compassion and healing.

We can use our power and wealth to build up, to feed, to heal and to restore. We can follow our highest ideals and be who we really are. Don't let terrorists take that away from us. It's the only way they can win.

Commentary on 11/24/2015

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