Sunday, August 24, 2003
(12:49 PM) | Anonymous:
Terrorism
In case any of you don't know, I recently took a trip to michigan for several weeks, and just got back a week ago today. Of course, since the power outages were everywhere as I was flying back my mother and dad were unusually concerned about me flying. And this fact had terrorism on the brain.
I got to the airport about 3 1/2 hours early, only to sit in a line for 3 and 1/4 hours and just barely make my flight. While waiting I talked extensively with a surgeon from Ann Arbor who was trying to get to the Caymans on his vacation. When he found out that I have this obscure notion of one day teaching, he went on to tell me all about how he dreams one day to teach when he has enough money put away to support his two young kids through college. I later met his kids as they came to take his place in line while he went to try further to get tickets to "somewhere south" so that he could eventually connect on his vacation. Even though the line was long and there was no air conditioning on a 90 degree day, the kids played and sang songs and everything else little kids should do. Eventually their dad came back and said "Sorry kids..we gotta go" and then leaned over to me and said "Man..we're screwed.." I assume that there was no possible way to get a ticket to anywhere in the south since the line had made them miss their first flight.
After that I had a chance to talk with two sets of grandparents who were bringing their older son (probably in his 30's) on his flight back to Seattle. It was somewhat comical seeing the typical bickering that can go on between two sets of older people in pretty hot weather with no circumstances. When I asked what the son did, he didn't get a chance to answer due to both sets of grandparents going on endlessly and constantly correcting each other about the computer work he did for some software company out there.
On my first flight to Chicago I sat next to a mom and her little girl. The mom was a single mother who appeared to be in her 40's, the daughter was probably 4. They were flying back to Albuquerque where her mom played violin in the New Mexico State Symphony. We had a chance to talk extensively as we sat on the runway for about an hour before take-off, due again to complications from the power outage. At one point the little girl began to tear up some styrafoam peanuts and throw them all over, until the mom said she was going to pretend that she didn't know her daughter. The daughter picked up on the word "pretend," and begged to "play that game...the game like you don't know me." So we spent the rest of the flight talking about the "bad and messy" little girl over in that seat across from us, until we landed and I had to change planes.
On the flight to Saint Louis I sat next to two black girls who were going on vacation to see their grandmother in Dallas. They were two of the most well-spoken and polite kids I'd ever met, and they even let me play "The Incredible Hulk" on their gameboy, which was ever so fun.
Sitting next to me on the plane to Oklahoma City was another software developer who was some higher-up for whatever the main conference-call software is in the US and had a meeting right here in OKC. He asked me about a "top 10 pubhouses in the US" article in the special "Airway Magazine" provided by Southwest. Number 5 on the list was Bricktown's own Tapwerks, and although I don't drink, I humored the guy by telling him they had the best beer around, and they microbrewed..and something about hops. I acted like an authority on the issue even though I've only reason I've ever gone in there is to get my parking validated. But, heck, I gave the guy something to actually go do in Oklahoma City, which unless you are a big rodeo fan, is a rare occurence indeed.
With all the talk of terrorism going on in the background, I had to wonder what was going through the minds of the terrorists on 9/11. What if there had been the same sort of massive delays at every turn that day? I wonder if they had the same chances to talk to people that the delays gave me, could they have still gone through with it?
Or would they even have had the chance to talk to people? I recall one person saying to me "If there's a middle-eastern person getting on your flight..just get off." Regardless of the fact that I would have had to have waited around 3 weeks to actually board a flight, this statement is obviously hurtful and ridiculous. I wonder, if I had been Middle-Eastern instead of a pale white boy, would any of these people have talked to me? I think the kids still probably would have played with me, because they're children and don't know any "better." But outside of that, would I have gotten anything but frightened stares?
The thing is, I might be far too optimistic, but I just can't believe someone so shown humanity as I was that day could go through with flying that plane through a building. I don't think that any great need to make a point known can hold up to raw human-ness looking you in the face and offering you their gameboy, or asking about the best bar, or playing games with their kids, or seeing their vacation plans crumble.
Perhaps to one with a mission so firmly in mind as the terrorists of 9/11 these encounters only would have increased their hate. Maybe they would have seen the surgeon with the freedom to vacation in the Caymans as another sign of absurd American wealth. Perhaps the single mom would show the lack of American family values. Perhaps the little girls travelling alone would show disregard from the parents, and maybe the guy looking for the best bar while supposed to be "working" would be another sign of American debauchery, with all of these things needing to be taught a lesson. Perhaps all these lessons do need to be learned, but none are more important than the humanity displayed. And I know how ignorant and naive I am. I know that I can't possibly understand the durress that the people who commit terrorism have been put under watching their families die and formerly prospering cities put to ruin by some ignorant American policy, and then having this hatred being used, encouraged, and enhanced by a leader with something to gain by anti-American sentiment. But still I have to hope that humanity, even when it is brutalizing, bullying, shocking and awe-inducing in its violence, is still humanity, and still worth more than the idea of revenge or making a point.
The thought crossed my mind that I should write a book about a terrorist having these frivolous, meaningless conversations with people on his way to set off some sort of bomb. In the end, however, I think that it would be very anti-clamatic as I couldn't bring myself to write him/her going through with the explosion. It'd be a "boring" ending because there's no fireworks or explosions, nothing to grab the attention, just someone walking off a plane, or walking away from a building with a bomb still attached to their chest or whatever.
And that's the thing, it's not just the terrorists who fail to see the full value in humanity. The book wouldn't sell because the American people wouldn't buy it.
If I were asked to write a sequal off the first book, it'd have to be a prequal, which would sell even less and have the same plot. It'd be an First World superpower's president in some foreign, probably middle-eastern country. He'd be walking around, and masked so as not to be recognized, and he'd barter with someone over the price of chicken, talk to someone he rode next to on the bus, somehow just keep having these inane and meaningless conversations which hold all the meaning of the world. And perhaps in the end, he'd go back to his country and decide not to pass whatever policy would bring unending hurt, disillusionment and terror to these people.
But, then again, I'm pretty sure that plot has been done before, in Disney's Alladin and Alladin II: Jafar's Revenge, if nothing else.
