Title: Editorial

Before I go further let me make it clear that I believe we must all understand the pain of those hurt by those terrible acts. The damage extends far beyond the immediate friends and relatives of those who died. Loss of employment to family breadwinners is also serious though a less obvious consequence. Then there is the potential (I hope not realised) for deep damage to relationships between minorities in our Western multi-cultural societies. The latter may have many faults but the overwhelming majority try to get along with and even understand those that have different beliefs and customs. This is made much harder when the strident declarations of a minority of religious leaders repeatedly makes headlines.

Problems are worsened by lack of information. Whether people form opinions on the basis of marketplace gossip or urban myths whipped round the World on the Internet makes little difference. We select we believe based on our prejudices.

I do not want revenge, but I do want to live in a World where the concept of suicide bombing of civilians is simply unacceptable. A world in which no religious or political leader would consider any such action as beneficial to their cause. But I would also like to live in a world where different sects of Christendom, or of Islam, or of whatever other broad based belief do not build walls between themselves.

I have thought long and hard about this editorial. The first thing that I had to decide was whether it was appropriate to write on this subject in a specialist publication such as this one. The question I had to answer was whether I was taking advantage of my editorial position by writing about a subject that was so clearly off topic. In the end I came to the conclusion that it was taking advantage but that I had a moral duty to stand and be counted. Sometimes such duty transcends normal rules. The destruction of The World Trade Centre did not change the World but it did wake us up from our complacency and draw our attention to the fact that weapons of mass destruction are not always marked as weapons.

The death toll was so large that most readers will either have lost a friend or relation or know someone who has. I have a sister whose office is in the financial sector of New York. Though her place of work was several blocks from the World Trade Centre, some of her friends worked there. Another of my sisters is married to an ex-employee of Reuters and her husband lost people he knows, not close friends but close enough to have personal impact.

Even those who thought of this as just a news event, something that happened to other people, are finding that the collapse of the WTC towers has sent shock waves through the economies of the World. We live in a highly interdependent world and we cannot ignore our neighbours and live in isolation. If the economic impact misses you, there are other consequences. Already we have had this disaster used by those who would like to see the introduction of ID cards. The proponents of these seem to completely ignore the fact that the more stringent controls that are normal in the US did nothing to prevent disaster. I am waiting for further assaults on our freedom such as renewed efforts to allow security forces to intercept all electronic communications and to monitor and record them. The current political atmosphere makes it harder to provide reasoned dissent.

All those things are obviou, that is not what I want you to think about (more than you would anyway). What disturbs me is the failure of many to think carefully about where evil lurks in our world. We live in a world that is rife with thoughtless tribal conflicts. The people involved in the street of Northern Ireland or Jerusalem are not evil people, badly misguided, profoundly thoughtless or, in a few cases, mentally disturbed, but not evil. The deep tragedy of the events of September 11 is not that 19 evil men killed themselves along with almost 6000 others but that those nineteen were not evil people but people willing to die for their beliefs. Those people were fanatics who profoundly believed that what they were doing was right and good. These were no more worshipers of the devil than the US is some manifestation of Satan. What they did was profoundly evil, but so is every act that nurtures hate. The true evil is wasting the lives of followers as well as those of opponents. Leaders, wherever they may be, who poison the minds of children do not serve the God of Islam, Christendom or Israel.

The suicidal fanatic is a weapon being wielded by others to promote their own agendas. Why have the refugee camps in Palestine lasted through decades? Because it is in the interests of some to keep them, just as it is in the interests of some to foment conflict and war so that they have markets for the weapons they manufacture. .

Have you ever read the early 'Saint' novels? Most haven't and simply have some image of this latter day Robin Hood like character who skirts the law to bring criminals to justice. That is not what the original novels were about. Those were about a dedicated band (five if I remember correctly) fighting against a pernicious , covet international arms aliance that fomented wars to test their products and to make money from arms sales. Those stories were written before most of us were born. Just stories? Well maybe.

Fanatics (of all types) are dangerous because they are impossible to reason with, but far more dangerous are those that use fanatics as weapons, those that use hatred for financial gain, those that use civil unrest as a way to acquire power. The weapons dealers, the drug traffickers, the merchants of hate, those are the people we should be concerned with. Every major religion that I know (and my Catholic education actually encouraged me to learn about other religions) teaches ways of peace. Those that incite religious wars are perverting religion (and, yes, Christendom is far from blameless). Some are gullible idiots but most have a personal agenda that cannot stand examination.

There are many things wrong with our World but failing to take time to consider the feelings of others will not help. Until all people reject hate, we will continue to live dangerously. The nurturing and propagation of hate is profoundly evil wherever it happens. Whatever our race or belief we should recognise that those who preach hate do not represent our best interests.

Let us make September 11 'World Empathy Day', a day when each and everyone of us takes a little time to understand how others feel even if we do not agree with them. A day when we remember how hate can make us do such profoundly evil things in the name of what we value most.

Next time I will write my final editorial before handing C Vu over to a new editor.