Terrorism: How to End it

As human beings we have grown accustomed to dealing with problems too late. In fact we don’t even label things as “problems” until they become problematic enough to affect our lives negatively. A broken headlight is not a “problem” until it gets dark at night. A neglected child is not problematic until he commits his first crime or turns to drugs. An imbalance of national wealth is not a “problem” until very poor people steal your money so they can eat. In other words, we have become used to procrastinating and letting problematic situations build up. If you think about it, everything we label as a “problem” is not even the problem. They are all the consequences of those problems. A neglected child is the problem- not his drug abuse. An imbalance of wealth is the problem- not the crime on the streets.

Oddly enough we have decided that the best way to deal with problems is to deal with its consequences. A neglected child turning to drugs faces punishment for using drugs, but he’s still neglected. A poor man who steals a car faces jail time for his crime, but he’s still poor. What we are doing is not dealing with the root of any problem we face, but yet we pretend not only to understand it, but also to solve it. This is like cutting your grass really really short every week so the weeds stop coming back. You haven’t even tried to dig up the roots. We must stop dealing with the consequences of problems and begin by understanding the problems themselves. That is, of course, if we decide we want long-term solutions to problems and not just temporary fixes.

Now what does this have to do with Terrorism? After all, you are reading this because you wanted to know “How to End Terrorism” right? Well let’s say you are driving down the freeway and your car runs out of gas. You wouldn’t label this a “car problem” or a “driving problem” now would you? You needed gas, but yet you denied your precious machine the fuel that flows through its veins. How could you? Running out of gas was the consequence of your neglect (or cruelty, if you ask me). Now it’s too little too late, because you are already late for work. This, my friends, was a preventable situation. Terrorism too, is a preventable situation. When 9-11 happened I thought it would become a call to world education. I thought it would become a “hey look at your gas meter!” type of call for the US.

Unfortunately this call did not happen. We decided instead that understanding the problem was going to require too much effort and opted to go ahead and solve it. We opted to solve the problem we didn’t understand. Attack Revenge Attack. Who are the terrorists? Why did they do this? …who knows. In the few years that have followed those events we have been bombarded with assumptions and misconceptions regarding what “they” think. The 2-second attention span of the average US citizen can only hold the notion that “They hate us”. Why? How? For how long? Who knows. I tell you now that what drives this conflict, and every other one on this planet for that matter, is a subject Americans have learned to be very touchy about. That subject is belief. Belief is the gas that fuels this fire. It has political consequences, economic consequences, and causes war. We have to deal with belief to prevent its destructive consequences. We cannot solve a belief problem economically. We cannot solve a belief problem politically. We absolutely will NOT solve a belief problem through war.

Now before you throw your hands up in the air and say “How can we possibly deal with the beliefs of the entire world??” I tell you this: the United States of America is a place that now holds millions of people coexisting with other people of completely different backgrounds and beliefs. As a planet we now have a technology that connects the whole world in a way never before possible. Look around you skeptic, everything you see was at some point in history “impossible”. Let’s not make the foolish mistake of thinking that a united world is impossible. “Hard”-maybe, “Complicated”-maybe, but impossible? No. Are we so immature a species that we have yet learned to coexist peacefully as a planet? We have already done so as separate groups (nations). This shows some maturity. The US, being the most economically powerful country in the world (and this does not make us smart so please let’s get off our high horse), should be setting the example of peaceful life and economic structure. How do we expect other nations or groups to implement our way of life when they see us as moronic and ignorant. (Go watch the fine example of American life we sent to the world with the movie “Jackass”). How do we expect other nations to support our way of life when we constantly bully and economically strong arm countries into doing what we want. I thought 9-11 would shed light on all of this. I thought 9-11 would burst the “bubble” that Americans live in. I thought people would say “oh my god, MY country is supporting dictators? I had no idea”. I believe that information is what is going to give way to a better understanding of the problem (remember the problem is Belief).

If we keep treating the consequences of the problems, we will be trapped in a never-ending cycle that won’t bring us any closer to peace. War will go on and on (sound familiar?), because war is the result of the problem and not the problem itself. In the words of john Lennon “Imagine there are no countries, it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope some day you'll join us, and the world can live as one”.