Letter of the Day - Balanced response to terrorism needed

THE EDITOR, Sir:

FIRST OF all let me express my deep sadness over this unbelievably cruel disregard for life, the most precious gift in the world. I just hope that this atrocity does not evoke a knee-jerk reaction of undirected animosity. These terrorists need to be confronted and brought to justice but we also need to examine ourselves and ask why it is a people have come to harbour such strong hatred towards the USA. To be prepared to commit suicide and by doing so to kill thousands of people is the expression of an unusual degree of fanaticism and hatred.

What the world as a whole needs to ask now, is from which environment is this sort of animosity born. Is it one where children are born into violence and grow up under the constant threat of bomb attacks? Now things seem set to only get worse as the divide between Arabs/Muslims and the West grows. Are we simply reaping what we have sown but tenfold? What has happened is indefensible and unforgivable. However let the wake-up call be one that leads to peace, one that leads to the realisation that there is something fundamentally wrong with the world. A world in which a man is judged by his possessions and not the content of his character. A world in which children starve to death in Africa every day. A world that can allow one man to become so rich that his personal wealth could wipe out Third World debt.

If this atrocity acts as a catalyst to racial antagonism spiralling into Muslim versus the West, we have a bloody future ahead of us. Our history of religious crusades proves this. Let's not forget that it is only a small fraction of Muslims that are radical extremists and so too was the Christian Oklahoma bomber. Already there are reports of attacks on a school bus of Muslim children in Australia. Lord knows what could happen in America. This is how a Nazi state is started and wouldn't it be ironic if we who condemn the atrocities performed by the Nazis, in turn, were to commit these same atrocities to the Muslims. For often it is the case that the beaten child becomes the child beater.

The majority of Afghans are uneducated and poverty-stricken, already caught up in war, oppressed by the Taliban regime. Let us break this cycle once and for all. Let us not be brought down to the same level as the terrorists. Fundamentalists tend to flourish in this kind of environment.

What we need is a balanced response. One that is firm and condemning of this atrocity, but one that does not destroy the lives of innocent people creating another martyr.

The sad truth is homo sapiens have simply not evolved quite as far as we would like to give ourselves credit for. To world peace.

I am etc.,

ROY McGREGOR

MB BS BSc (Hons)

FRCS (I) FRCS (Eng)

London, England

Via Go-Jamaica

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