Americans must unite in aftermath

Holmes is a graduate student in critical studies in theater.
E-mail comments to [email protected].

By Brian Holmes

It is a mere five minutes from my apartment to St.
Victor’s Catholic Church, and in that short time, I passed a
handful of people in shorts and sandals, perhaps on their way to a
late brunch or a day at the beach.

But this was not like any other Sunday morning. I had just come
home from St. Victor’s, where our community had been stricken
by the violence that has reverberated across the country since
Sept. 11.

Four of the people on the planes that hit the World Trade Center
towers were members of our parish: Berry Berenson, Ron Gamboa,
Daniel Brandhorst and David Brandhorst (Daniel and Ron’s
3-year-old son).

I didn’t know any of these people, but their loss last
Tuesday has transformed the space that they, like so many of my
neighbors, visited every week.

In the sanctuary of the church, there is now a table with four
votive candles, next to an American flag.

The words of the Mass ““ familiar to me all my life ““
were heavy with meaning. The monsignor ““ old enough to
remember Pearl Harbor ““ couldn’t help his voice
cracking in the usual prayer “for all those who have
died.” Earlier he had almost broken down, as many of us did,
at the end of the Gospel reading, the story of the Prodigal Son, as
the father explains his joy at his son’s return: “For
this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and now is
found.”

We always hear this parable on this Sunday in ordinary time, but
this Sunday those words are vested with new meaning and new
importance. From watching the endless news reports, we know the
jubilant relief of those families whose relatives were late for
work on Tuesday, where for some, a quarter hour’s tardiness
meant they could come home that night. For too many other families,
the most unspeakable grief is only allayed by the uncertain hope of
such a homecoming.

These words are just as important for the rest of us, whose loss
is not as personal but just as intense. In the parable, the son has
lost half of everything the father had, but his father still runs
out into the road to meet him. It is a call for a new beginning, of
family united together with the petty misdeeds of the past put
aside.

We have a tendency in this country, for better or worse, to
classify each other based on race, class, gender, sexual
orientation, age, religion, ideology, disability status or national
origin. But the immense numbers of victims cuts across all groups,
all classifications.

How can we comprehend what has been done to us? There have been
comparisons to Pearl Harbor, but at the time, the rest of the world
was already at a war we had stayed out of; Hawaii was not yet a
state; and the casualties were mostly military. There has not been
a foreign attack on American civilians since the War of 1812, and
only at the height of the Civil War were there days that the sun
set on a similar number of casualties on American soil.

I have been thinking about the Civil War since Friday, when the
very moving memorial service at National Cathedral ended not with a
call for peace and healing, but “The Battle Hymn of the
Republic.” It was at first a beautiful and fitting moment, a
sign of our national spirit ““ particularly to see that those
whose ideology I do not agree with, as aggrieved as the rest of
us.

But what I found chilling was the end of the song, the last line
of the last verse, which is about the sacrifice of Christ:
“As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men
free.” The words of history have been blasted back to life.
Everyone is flying the flag, wearing patriotic ribbons; young men
have been rushing to military recruitment offices, eager to make a
sacrifice they could not have imagined last weekend.

So what are the rest of us to do? I suggest we look again to the
Gettysburg Address: “It is for us the living,” he said,
“to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us …
that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion …
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in
vain … that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of
freedom … and that government of the people … by the people …
for the people … shall not perish from the earth.”

The context is different. In those years, America was at war
with itself. These days, the perpetrators do not hold our values
dear, but they attack from within, trying to turn our freedoms and
way of life against us. We do have a need for heightened and
smarter security in our airports and other public places. We need
our intelligence agencies to infiltrate the terrorists’ trust
when possible, and further protect us by sealing off our weak
points before they can be penetrated.

But it is up to the rest of us to defend our freedom and way of
life by living it every day. Some of these terrorists lived within
our borders for years; they went to Kinko’s and Mail Boxes
Etc., like so many of us. But unlike the rest of us, they lived our
way of life with the most perverse evil in the hearts waiting for
the day to carry out their elaborate plan.

So what can we do, especially those of us who are young adults
and perceived by so many as apathetic, uninterested citizens? I
have come up with a few suggestions, which I offer in the spirit of
increased devotion:

1) Help out. In the days and weeks to come, there will be a
continued need for blood and money.

2) Speak out. Our first freedom is the freedom of speech. This
is no time for silence or solitude.

3) Go out. We cannot be frightened away from gathering in
public.

4) Be vigilant. By looking out for each other’s safety, we
can avert future attempts, no matter their scale.

5) Be tolerant. Note that I warned against suspicious packages,
not suspicious people. There are reports of some Americans
insulting and assaulting other Americans because they come from the
same part of the world as the terrorists, or because they practice
the religious faith that the terrorists mangled to justify their
evil actions to themselves.

We must stand by our friends and neighbors who are Muslim and
Arab American, and speak out against those who would let their
prejudice turn their thirst for vengeance on their neighbor. We
must stand together now more than ever before.

6) Be calm. When the weeping lets up, it seems that the minds of
many turn to anger, and then vengeance. I find this very
disconcerting. Those of us who are Christian should keep in mind
that wrath is one of the seven deadly sins, one practiced by the
terrorists on Tuesday. We cannot be reduced to that level of
action. The Bush administration seems to be planning our response
with a measure of calm, which I find very reassuring. We must seek
justice, not vengeance, or else we betray the very values we seek
to defend.

7) Register to vote. If you are old enough to die for your
country, the argument went, you should be allowed to vote. If a few
hundred more of us had voted in Florida last November, we might
have a different administration navigating the crisis now.

8) Get involved. Most of us have never started anything. Mark
Bingham, one of the passengers who thwarted the terrorists’
plans for United Flight 93, took initiative throughout his life: he
started his own public relations firm, and also started the first
gay rugby league in San Francisco, fostering a sense of
togetherness for those in his community.

Whether volunteering or playing sports, we can all do something
to break out of our usual routines, meet new people, and join
together once or twice a week to celebrate our spirit. Our drawing
together, whether for work or fun, will prove our resilience and
our greatest strength: our openness to each other.

There is another way we can get involved. As young Americans, it
is difficult for us to have a voice in the political process. Our
political parties and politicians have always been more interested
in the issues that matter to those older than us. And in this time
of war, as in such times past, it is the older Americans who will
ask the younger Americans to fight to the death to defend our
freedoms. As young Americans, our voices must be heard now more
than ever.

By involving ourselves in the engine of democracy, we ensure
that it will continue to run and power our freedoms for the
generations to follow.