John G. Sutton
The absolute horror of the 11th September, when terrorist controlled hijacked planes destroyed the New York World Trade Centre, made me feel physically sick. I had walked by those buildings just a few years ago and their size was simply stunning. Staring up at them with the sun glinting off their apparently endless windows they seemed to epitomise Capitalism and especially Corporate America. Here was the heart of the world’s business community. Those buildings had a certain magnificent majesty and the financial deals done within them influenced the entire planet. I recall viewing the New York skyline from a boat on the Hudson river and my American friend Dr. Lois pointing proudly to The World Trade Centre and saying ‘Look John, those are the famous twin towers, the tallest skyscrapers in New York’. I remember thinking that it looked like The Emerald City from the film The Wizard of Oz. It seemed to me to be the Promised Land where anything and everything was possible. All you had to do was as the wonderful wizard said; believe in yourself, believe in the mysterious magic of New York. That was the somewhere over the rainbow where all your dreams really could come true.
Walking along the relatively narrow streets and bustling sidewalks of Central Manhattan one felt dwarfed by those towering hundred story plus buildings that reached up in twinkling magnificence, almost to the clouds. As I followed the TV news coverage of their destruction I could not bear to listen to the eye-witness reports of people throwing themselves into the air from open windows, let alone watch the TV films of this. The total terror of it all overcame me and I admit to feeling intensely emotional, almost in shock. Who could have witnessed such scenes and not felt a deep sadness not only for the loss of human life but also for the loss of a dream. For I believe that the horrific events of New York on Tuesday 11th September 2001 are the beginning of the end of global ‘peace’ as we in the Western world have perceived it for the last fifty years.
Peace, in reality, is a concept and one that is relative to ones position in time and space. We in the Western developed world have been imposing our version of ‘peace’ on the rest of humanity for decades. Our ‘peace’ involves the uninterrupted supply of oil, minerals, and consumer durables. The real peace, spiritual peace, we seem to have abandoned selecting instead the false ‘peace’ of ownership. How fragile that ownership really is became all too evident when the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Centre tower.
The real truth is that we in the UK should have expected this as we have for many years been acting alongside the USA as though we were policing the world. How many readers of this journal of Spiritualism know that the UK and the USA have been bombing Iraq on an infrequent basis since the end of the Gulf War? Only a few weeks ago UK and USA aircraft set off from British bases and bombed targets in Iraq. How many innocent people were killed we will never know, but there must have been some.
No one can condone the likes of Sadam Hussain and his insane actions. He even used chemical warfare weapons on his own people, the Iraqi Kurds, killing thousands. In his own parliament he is reported to have used a gun to personally and publicly execute those members he considered unfaithful to his tyrannical rule. Even his own family have suffered murders on his instructions. The man is beyond control and has no fear of death, as he seemingly believes he is divine. Yet the UK and the USA send planes loaded with bombs into Iraq and blow up the people that look to Sadam for protection and leadership. Is it not likely that this maniac will one day decide that enough is enough and seek to extract some twisted but explosive revenge on the perpetrators of these deeds? We are not dealing with a Napoleon with Sadam and his like, we are dealing with International terrorists that control countries armed with modern weapons designed and supplied by the West. They have no recognisable codes of honour, no rules of warfare, the Geneva Convention does not bind them, and they act under another authority that is perhaps beyond our comprehension.
There are other sources of International terror than Sadam Hussein. In Libya Colonel Ghaddafi has ruled since his overthrow of King Idris in the August of 1969. I know what this was like as I was there at the time serving with the British Army and we left with a flea in our ears. Now Ghaddafi may seem to us to be a dangerous and unstable character but his regime has brought real prosperity to the people of Libya. If you were a Libyan citizen YOU would support the Colonel. Some few years ago the USA sent aircraft loaded with bombs from a British air base to Libya where they dropped them on Tripoli seriously injuring one of Colonel Ghaddafi’s children and killing members of his household. This was a failed attempt to assassinate Ghaddafi and he was not, by all accounts, best pleased. Ghaddafi’s Libya cannot wage open war with the USA, who could, but there are more ways than one to skin a cat, no matter how big it may be.
But we are not just dealing with omnipotent leaders using military force to maintain their authority and control. We are up against religious fanatics. Totalitarian regimes are now using religiously indoctrinated individuals as virtual automatons programmed to kill. These fanatics may come in many variations, one thing they all have in common is an absolute belief that they are destined to enter their version of paradise because they believe and practice their faith. It matters not if the fanatic is a Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Jew or whatever. All share the same understanding that they have a divine right to enter ‘heaven’ and that their ‘God’ will welcome them. This is clearly evidenced in Israel where the Palestinians are using suicide bombers to kill Jews. These are people that are trained from childhood to believe that it is their destiny to die for their religion and their cause. They wear disguises with explosives strapped to their bodies, walk into a restaurant or perhaps get on a crowded bus and calmly blow themselves and all around them to smithereens. How can the mighty USA armed forces deal with that kind of attack? How can anyone?
In Afghanistan the multi-millionaire Islamic Fundamentalist Osama bin Laden has openly stated that he will use his fortune and his influence to destroy America and all it stands for. Laden has indeed been credited with orchestrating many terrorist atrocities that include a previous bomb attack on The World Trade Centre and the hijacking of planes. When the USA suffered the last major bombing outrage in Okalahoma City some five years ago they wrongly blamed Laden and sent 27 Cruise missiles flying into Afghanistan destroying an harmless chemical factory and its workers along with countless other innocent people. Ian Flemming the author of the James Bond books could not have invented a more diabolical enemy of the West than Osama bin Laden. Yet Laden would no doubt argue that his mission is divine and the destruction and death he promotes a religious duty, a holy war or fatwa.
Despite what has just happened it is my belief that the destruction of the World Trade Centre on Tuesday 11th September and the loss of thousands of innocent lives will herald in a new age of realism and authoritarianism. The idea that the materialistic West can effectively police the world using force has been shattered. The spiritual truth must be that we are now aware of our own mortality. Somewhere over the rainbow is a land that we dreamed of but if our dreams are to come true then we must look within our souls and consider the implications of all our acts for which we are ultimately responsible.