Somebody has cried

Hartley Neita, Contributor

Many people, the world over, have been crying since last week Tuesday at the seemingly senseless destruction and mass murder of over 5,000 persons in New York and Washington. It was even more brutal when we reflect on the fact that the men who were the immediate cause of this horrific conflagration, committed suicide when they cold-bloodedly murdered the crews and passengers and the people in the buildings they destroyed, with the planes they converted into bombs.

At the risk of offending the many who are eagerly waiting for President Bush to pull the trigger in revenge, I invite you to reflect with me on thoughts which have been passing through my mind during the more recent days, once the initial shock passed.

To us, from the background of what has been portrayed as a Western-world philosophy, it is impossible to understand the motivation, which can impel men, young men at that, to end their lives in this horrible manner. True, it has been said they believe that what they have done is the ultimate victory for their faith, and their reward will be the welcoming arms of seven virgins in the immediate hereafter ­ a most tempting vision for men like me. But, they never gave thought to the fact that they have been programmed to do so by old and sex-weary men.

More so, too, their masculine conceit should have been pricked by the thought that the young women of their faith have not been persuaded to become self-propelled human bombs with the promise of seven, more or less, virile males waiting to offer them the joys of Paradise.

To be serious, however, we must not ignore the fact that while to us they are terrorists, the more extreme members of their faith regard them as heroes. A sad thing to consider.

So, many thousands are crying and mourning today. But many, too, have wept and wailed all over the world in the past, caused by men who were also fighting for a cause. And right or wrong depended on which side of the fence they stood. The difference, of course, is that the vast majority of the previous deaths and destruction were not seen immediately, in living colour.

There was Joan of Arc. She was burnt to death by men who, let's face it, were terrorists. Nowhere, however, have we ever read that flowers were placed at the site of her burning by a weeping mother or father.

There were the three little girls bombed to death by the Klu Klux Klan in a Church in southern America some 40 years or so ago. Their families still cry today. And what about the men of Sharpeville in South Africa who were shot dead when they dared to protest against the system of Apartheid? Mothers and fathers, and brothers and sisters still weep when they remember that brutal tragedy.

Here at home, there were the Green Bay deaths and the men who threw babies in the Orange Street fire 30 years ago? There were also the men who shot and killed some 10 persons 20 years ago - because of the maltreatment of a Rema girl by her boyfriend from Rose Town? Mothers and fathers still sob and moan at the memory.

The family of Abraham Lincoln cried. And so too have the families of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Until today. Were their deaths not the acts of terrorists? And did not their murderers believe their reason was right and good?

How many died in Grenada, and how many people of that island still cry? There were also the millions of Jews of Europe who were killed to ensure they could not contaminate the Aryan blood just by their presence on the same plot of earth. Gallons of tears have been shed during the past 60 years. Pearl Harbour was bombed, and in response two cities in Japan were decimated by the hydrogen bomb. Hundreds of thousands died, and those who lived saw their skins melting from their bones.

George William Gordon's wife cried. So too, did relatives of Paul Bogle and Sam Sharpe.

You see, terrorists have come in all forms and shapes, with reasons known and sometimes unknown. Remember, too, that a mother cried when her Son was nailed to His death by terrorists two thousand years ago. His words then were:

"Father forgive them. They know not what they do."

Can we say or do the same? No. We are not yet ready. Only when we match 5,000 of theirs with ours.

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