Yesterday, I heard the news of the terrorist attacks in Brussels and it sent a shiver down my spine, not just because it was a cruel and terrible event, but also because it was a frightening reminder of one of my past lives. For many years I worked in study abroad, often on-site in Europe. Whenever terrorists struck, it was a horrible day for those of us at study abroad sites, even if our campus was thousands of miles from the attack itself. Yes, we felt sorrow for the victims, but we also had to work to assuage the panic of students and parents who would become quite freaked out, even hysterical, fearing for their own lives and for the lives of their children. How many parents did I have to talk through their intense panic, however understandable? Your child is safe and sound, yes I'll have them call you, no they don't have to stop their studies and return on the next flight home, yes it will be OK. During that worst semester, that time I was at NYU in Florence when the 9/11 attacks were unleashed upon us, I had the responsibility of fielding all the phone calls from worried parents from across the globe for the rest of the semester. One parent called because she had heard that the Italian Red Brigade of the 1970s had re-formed as a response to 9/11 and was bent on harming U.S. students in Florence and she wanted me to move her son from an apartment off campus to a room on campus that would be safer--this turned out to be an assertion in which no one in Italy could find one ounce of credibility. Another day, a small plane crashed into the Pirelli Tower in Milan. Within minutes, dozens of calls flooded my cell phone and our office, certain that a round of Islamic terrorism had been unleashed in Italy. Turns out it was just a pilot who had a medical issue or some sort of non-terroristic problem. Yes, their concern was understandable, but at what point do we choose to become brave? At what point do we refuse to become terrorized even if we might face risk to our own personal safety? At what point do we reject the calls of those who wish to take out their revenge on even peaceable members of a particular group or religion?
Coincidently, today I received my online version of Portland Magazine, quarterly magazine of my alma mater. In it, I think, just might be some words that could inform us during these times, help us to consider our response to these events. In this newest edition (Spring 2016 issue, page 3) accessible from the front page of the UP website (up.edu), is an article written by Michael Bendine, UP Class of 1968, who is the retired Director of the Cambridge Muslim College in Cambridge, England. In light of recent terrorist events, I think it's an article that every American should read, every Christian should read; it is an article that serves as an essential reminder of truths with which many of us may or may not be familiar. Below is a link that can also connect you to the article (which was originally printed in the Winter 2009 issue of the same publication).
https://www.up.edu/portlandmag/2009_winter/islam_txt.html
After reading Bendine's article, consider this: What response should we take toward March 22? Do we follow the guidance of those who advocate torture or police action against entire neighborhoods of a particular religion? Or do we follow the path of Bendine, of Gandhi, of Martin Luther King Jr.?
What should we do when faced with evil and violence and the hopelessness and despair which spring from them? I don't know exactly. But, I do know what we should not do. Let us all struggle to find the path that leads us to what we ought to do as ethical, peace-loving people and fight with whatever courage we can muster to avoid mimicking our enemies and surrendering to the temptation of committing the kinds of atrocities that those who believe in goodness must never advocate.
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