THE EDITOR, Sir:
THE EVENTS of 9/11 are being re-played and the victims remembered and mourned. Let us consider these two scenarios:
1. Little Charles (Chuck) Goldstein is 6 years old this year. He was 5 when his mother came to collect him from his school in Washington on that fateful morning of 9/11. She told him that his daddy would not be coming home that day in fact he would not be coming home ever. Some evil men, she told him, had killed him when his office building was destroyed by 'terrorists' from a land Chuck had never heard of.
He was devastated. He loved his father so. In the ensuing weeks, many officials visited his home. His mother was granted a hefty compensation package by her husband's employers. Little Chuck is secure in that the family has been able to move into a bigger more luxurious home. He is assured of funds to pay for his college education. His mother had even received a letter from the President expressing condolences on the death of his father. However, all this means very little to Chuck. He only wants his dad back.
2. Little Hamid Mohammed is also 6 years old. He was 5 when his mother sent him on an errand in the village in the remote hills of Afghanistan. Whilst in the village he saw people running frantically trying to find a safe place. There were explosions. A thick fog encircled the village. He found a safe place under an abandoned building to hide. When the dust settled, he ran as hard as he could back home. However, to his horror he found that his little shanty home and all the homes nearby had been destroyed. There were people crying in the streets, some bloody from flying missiles and stones. Little Hamid could find his parents nowhere. He searched until nightfall, but could not find them. He sat huddled and cold that night, trying to find food, but without much success.
For the next three months Hamid lived on the streets. He had no food and had to beg from strangers. One year later, little Hamid lives in an orphanage. He has no one to tuck him in at nights no one to say "I love you". Hamid had never heard of the United States, nor George Bush Jr. But yet he has been victim of a vicious attack on his village by the United States. But no one mourns for Hamid on the anniversary of 9/11. No one stands for a minute's silence at the commemoration of the death of his family.
By sheer fate Chuck was born in the United States and Hamid in Afghanistan. Is one of these children the child of a lesser God?
I am, etc.,
DOREEN MORGAN
Lakehurst Drive
Kingston 8
