Adrian Haymond E-mail comments to
Haymond at [email protected].
Click Here for more articles by Adrian Haymond
When I saw the planes fly into the World Trade Center towers, it
shocked me with alternate feelings of utter amazement, complete
horror and deep sadness.
The fact that a jetliner full of people was rammed into a
building at such speed that the damage resembled exit wounds from a
bullet keeps playing back in my mind even now. As one tower fell,
followed by the second, it felt as if a part of me ““ and a
part of America ““ was lost.
A symbol of American power and vibrancy was destroyed by the
acts of single-minded people who declared war on an unsuspecting
populace. Much like the New York skyline, the American psyche will
never be the same.
As I watched the scenes replay on television, another feeling
began to take over ““ a feeling that I did not want to
acknowledge existed within me. A deep-seated type of anger began to
seethe within.
This was not the explosive, volcanic kind that comes from
knee-jerk reactions to events, but a more dangerous and frightening
feeling that could easily turn into hatred and intolerance of
everything not American.
And who in America can blame me?
My country was attacked and my brothers and sisters (white,
black, Asian and others) were attacked and killed. Our own planes
were used to destroy our symbols of military and economic power,
and we could do nothing to stop them.
As events unfolded, it was only the sheer heroism of another
doomed load of passengers that perhaps saved the White House from
annihilation. And then to see Palestinians dancing in the
streets and passing out candy over the snuffing out of thousands of
lives was almost more than I could handle. It’s a blessing
that I do not tend to act on my first impulse, and as time has gone
by, the bubbling, boiling anger has been replaced by a desire for a
return to normalcy.
But it will never be “normal” again, because events
have been started that will continue to reverberate for years to
come. As this realization slowly comes over me, I begin to fear.
 Not fear of more terrorist attacks ““ I assume they will
come and we will deal with them.
No, the fear is due to what I’ve seen on television, what
I see on the Internet chat lines, what I hear on the radio, and
what I’ve observed at various times in our nation’s
history.
I know that many in this country and around the world will turn
their anger toward innocent people of Arabic descent and of the
Islamic religion . I can foresee harassment of women and children,
bombings of religious centers, and attacks on people based on how
they look.
 The Associated Press People make their way amid debris
near the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11 after one of
the most horrifying attacks ever against the United States. I can
see irrational people arguing that anyone with Arabic descent
should have their citizenship revoked and be deported
immediately. In short, I foresee a battle-scarred nation
overreacting to the immense tragedy that has just unfolded before
our very eyes.
Before we go down the road to intolerance and retribution, we
must ask ourselves if we want to become our enemy. To me, those who
committed this ghastly crime against humanity will not see Allah in
paradise, but will burn in the deepest hell, because only the most
warped will see the killing of thousands of innocent people as a
ticket to glory.
It boggles the mind that there will be some who will anoint
these terrorists as “heroes,” calling them “brave
and courageous” in the battle against “the great
Satan.” To an extent, I understand the reasoning behind
targeting the Pentagon, a symbol of America’s military, but
why kill so many civilians and destroy a completely civilian
building? To prove a point?
All it proved was that these sick minds completely misunderstood
what Americans are made of. But if we are not careful, our
minds will follow the same warped reasoning as the
terrorists’, and we will not be any better.
Already, people are calling for massive attacks on countries. A
news poll on ABC showed that the majority of people in this country
would attack another and not care about collateral damage (a
euphemism for the unfortunate killing of civilians).
The reasoning? This is war.
Already, there have been reports of bomb threats to mosques and
Islamic centers in Texas. Even as far away as Australia, the
repercussions are being felt; reports have come on radio stations
that buses carrying Islamic children were stoned. In Atlanta,
those of Arabic descent have taken a low profile, staying off the
streets.
Somehow, this is reminiscent of some of this country’s
darker chapters. We should not let our anger ““ as justified
as it may be ““ cause us to indiscriminately cancel the
freedoms of entire ethnic groups or put their lives in peril. We
should learn from the Japanese internment camps and the oppression
of African Americans to guard against the tendency to cause harm to
innocent Muslim/Arab citizens and residents.
Instead, we should react only when the facts dictate it, and do
so in a reasonable manner. Bombing the Arab world out of
existence, as some people have clamored for, will do nothing but
harm America’s long-term health and destroy whatever chance
we have for obtaining help and assistance from other nations to
combat terrorism.
Our major objective should be eliminating those responsible and
standing against those who would harbor such monsters.
The terrorists were not brave; they were cowards hiding behind
an ideology. They were not saints or heroes, but more closer to
brainwashed rogues and devils who are utterly selfish and callous.
They were not smart, but manipulative and evil. They merely saw an
opening and imagined doing the greatest damage while exploiting
that opening.
And they certainly did not plan well, for they did not know that
instead of disintegrating the United States, such an attack will
only galvanize this country. After this, there is no black, white,
yellow or brown; there is only one America facing its enemies.
But if we allow our feelings of grief and anger to destroy
innocent people in the process, then the terrorists did win after
all. Let’s not give them that satisfaction.