On Faith
Rev. Mike Young
Tragic memorial
time for reflectionA minister friend and I called the list of colleagues to see if there was interest in an interfaith activity in response to the first anniversary of Sept. 11th. We have gotten ambiguous responses. A few have said "Yes." But there is an awkwardness about it not there a year ago.
The tentative yes is in support of the interfaith community and in favor of remembering the victims and their families. The awkwardness is a response to deeply ambiguous feelings about appearing to support the administration's intentions in Iraq.
Part of that awkwardness is our memory of the lingering pain of the last divisive war fought by the United States. The Vietnam conflict split families, congregations and denominations. Some of us, in those days, fought largely unsuccessful battles to maintain a distinction between opposition to the policy makers of the war and support for the horrible decisions that had to be made by the men and women in uniform.
We do not want to go through, or see our congregations and our country go through, that agony again. Principled issues of pacifism or patriotism quite aside, we are acutely aware of the damage posed to our most intimate communities by the prospect of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
To make matters worse, over the past year a part of al-Qaida's vision has become clear. Its vicious strike at the symbols of U.S. power and the consequent tragic loss of life was intended to precipitate war between Islam and the West. They imagined the United States would react in its usual ham-fisted fashion and the nations of Islam could not but respond. The target of the terrorists of 9-11 was not only the United States but also the more moderate governments of Moslem countries from North Africa to the Philippines. Al-Qaida envisioned the fall and transformation of these regimes in reaction to U.S. military response.
Instead, what happened was a relatively surgical response aimed carefully at terrorists and their allies.
But there has not been the conflagration between Islam and the West envisioned by al-Qaida. Yet.
The United States currently seems set upon a path of "regime change" in Iraq that will be very difficult to back away from. But if any act runs the risk of the larger Middle Eastern war sought by al-Qaida, this would be it. In the minds of the masses of Islam, the invasion of Iraq would justify all of al-Qaida's anti-western rhetoric.
As a result of that uneasiness, most of our 9-11 memorials will be to make our sanctuaries available for quiet times of reflection and prayer. No stirring speeches or martial music, but prayers of anguish in the face of deep tragedy.
The Rev. Mike Young is pastor of First Unitarian Church of Honolulu.
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