Terrorism and the Survival of the Species Essay -- September 11 Terror

Terrorism and the Survival of the Species   Terrorism is simply a violent form of political communication. The message of kinsfolk 11, 2001 ran as follows America, it is eon you learned how implacably you are hated. The airplanes used were the terrorists version of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles aimed at Americas innocence. That innocence, the terrorists loudly declared, was a luxurious and anachronistic delusion.   A year afterwards the attack, one is free to taste the bile of its atrocious ingenuity. It is already stock(prenominal) - but stringently necessary - to emphasize that such a mise en scène would have embarrassed a studio executives storyboard or a thriller-writers notebook (What happened today was not credible, were the words of Tom Clancy, the agent of The Sum of All Fears). And yet in broad daylight and exuberant consciousness that outline became established reality decennium dollars worth of box-cutters produced ten million tons of rubble.   Several lines of US policy were bankrupted by the events of September 11, 2001 among them national missile defence. Someone realised that the skies of America were already affluent with missiles, each of them primed and cocked.   If the architect of this destruction was Os... ... from above will fill the source of all terror from below unhealed wounds. This is the familiar motorbike so well caught by the matter, and the title, of VS Naipauls story, Tell Me Who to Kill.   Our best destiny, as temperamental cohabitants, is the development of what has been called species consciousness - something over and above nationalisms, blocs, religions, ethnicities. During this time of incredulous misery, I have been trying to apply such a consciousness, and such a sensibility. Thinking of the victims, the perpetrators, and the near future, I felt species grief, then species shame, then species fear.