Last year I made my Pipe Dream debut in the Sept. 11 issue with an article entitled, “A rap battle for the masses, and for your wallet.” It was about the marketing ploy by Kanye West and 50 Cent to generate interest and hopefully more album sales. I briefly mentioned how this undermined the anniversary of 9/11, but did not go into further detail. To tell you the truth, I also had an article about Sept. 11, but chose to submit the rap article instead because I doubted my ability to portray the tragedy respectively. I was right.
It was filled with angry retorts toward terrorists with emphasis on their cowardly attack on innocent civilians, questions about the misuse of a religion for violent acts and the response of the U.S. government. As I read that article, I began to see my own ignorance. All those ill-advised comments of nuking the Middle East I agreed with, laughing at the public humiliation of a Muslim by a random Spanish man in a van yelling, “The guy in the bright green turban got a gun,” all the unspeakable and gory torture techniques I said I would use on Osama bin Laden if given the chance and the paranoid racial profiling I did at the airport before I got on my international flight to Korea in the summer of 2001. The immense hatred I felt for these terrorists was what made me no better than them.
This past Thursday marks exactly seven years since that solemn day in September, and it took me that amount of time to finally find the answer I was looking for. That hatred is never productive, no matter how justified it may seem. I no longer want retribution. I no longer want revenge. I could care less if we find Osama bin Laden and what we would do to him once he’s found. I’ve done the hardest thing I could ever imagine I could do: let it go. It may seem impossible and possibly even un-American, but I will no longer subject myself to hating an enemy who welcomes it.
Will capturing, torturing and killing Osama bin Laden really justify anything? Will it justify all the attacks on Arab community centers, mosques and businesses by Americans with Molotov cocktails, bricks and bullets? Does it absolve the assault of someone using a 2-foot machete on a gas attendant he thought was Arabic? When do the ends justify the means? I will tell you when: never.
Life is much shorter than we may realize. We can be taken at any time and anywhere. It is a waste of energy and time to hold any animosity, especially for seven years. As cliche as it may sound, I have always dreamed of living in a society where race, culture and creed do not divide, but unite. I would like to see it before I pass. Some may call me an idealist; others may call me a traitor. But I know what I am: at peace.