9/11 - Which Anniversary Will You Commemorate?

Five years ago...

I was a student at the University of Arizona.

I was opposed to the Bush misAdministration and everything they stood for.

I was anti-war and Pro-Peace.

I was proud of my culture and family roots.

I was aware that we were going to enter a dark time in history.

I knew Iraq would eventually be dragged into this regardless of their involvement with 9/11.

I cried, I mourned, I prayed.

Today I still do all of those things and believe in the same things I did back then, but I never could've fathomed that the aftermath would involve

• Torture
• Political calculation that put more value on a brain-dead woman than the drowning of an American city
• Tax policies that would ultimately lead to serious efforts to gut the social network of the poor.
• Justification for white America to finally erect the wall they've been fantasizing about for centuries between the U.S. and Mexico.
• Mobilization of armed troops in my backyard alongside vigilantes.
• De-hooded Klansmen in the guise of credible news commentators on national television and radio.
• fill in the blank, there are plenty of other examples
  

George Bush and his minions like to say that it took a "failure of imagination" for the government to stop 9/11 (and the flood of New Orleans).

I consider it a failure of imagination to fathom how evil this government would become once they realized they could bring their ultimate wet-dream to reality by standing on the rumble of the Twin Towers and the bodies of thousands of human beings.

My imagination for Peace, though, is limitless, and today rather than reliving the horror of September the 11th, 2001, I will honor a different anniversary that this day signals:

Exactly 100 years ago — September 11, 1906, to be precise — this day also marked the birth of satyagraha, although the term itself was coined at a later date (see box).

Over the next century, satyagraha — which literally means the force born of truth and love or non-violence — has been put to test in different political theatres around the globe.

[snip]

"If satyagraha worked against the British, why can't it work against the US?" Ahmed also feels that ultimately the US failure to control Iraq is due to its inability to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

"More than the insurgency, it is the silent resistance of the common Iraqi that is the biggest worry of the US. And it is this struggle that could ultimately lead to US withdrawal," he says.

In that sense, another version of Gandhi's non-cooperation movement continues in Iraq.

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To all of my fellow Peace-builders both here and abroad: Namaste