Open Letter to Terry Anderson
Sunday, February 29, 2004
A few days ago I was thinking long and hard about the World, America, and what’s going on all around us. I’ve been feeling frustrated lately. I’ve been paying as close attention as I can to World politics, and in particular my great country, the United States of America. I have a deep and heart wrenching sadness right now. We’re hurting in America. All of us are. We are probably more divided as a country right now then we’ve been since the end of the civil war some one hundred forty years ago.
Somehow a foreign group attacks our country and we fight bitterly among ourselves over it; all the while using that foreign group as a tool in our rhetorical battle of wits. Naturally, since the line has been drawn in the sand, I’ve chosen a side. I've made everything in my life about promoting that side and feeling great distaste for "the other side." But I’ve done some great soul searching as well. Why are we divided? Will it get worse? If we continue down this dividing path, will we find ourselves in another civil war someday? I know I look around I see everyone arguing, I see terror alerts, I see the World community both afraid of and disliking us. I can only come to one conclusion: the terrorists (or the perceived threat of) are now in control of American culture and the American World image. They are defining our national discourse. We are allowing ourselves to be divided while the rest of the World is quickly uniting in their distaste for us.
The core of all this for us, I believe, is that we’ve yet to begin to heal from the September eleventh attacks. The grieving process has eight stages that go something like this: denial and shock, anger, bargaining, guilt, depression, loneliness, acceptance, and finally hope. Naturally, in reality it’s not so linear. We’ll often fall back into an earlier stage. We may even fall back as far as denial and shock.
I’m not sure, as a collective people, America has moved much past anger. And I’m certain our government (and I mean all parties within it) have not moved past anger. My observation is that we dance between anger and denial with a passion sure to keep us from ever getting to acceptance and hope. Grieving takes time. Certainly at this point it’s too soon for any of us to be firmly in the hope stage. But are we even moving to that end? Should we still be stuck in anger after two years and some odd months?
In writing this piece, I guess I find myself in the bargaining stage. I just want to stop being angry, stop felling like I’m loosing everything, stop felling like we’re loosing America. I can say with 100% certainty that no government official from any party has done much to encourage the American people to properly grieve and thus heal. We’ve not been counseled as a collective. President Bush and members of Congress comforted us in the days following the attacks, and did a very good job at it. They brought our collective out of the denial and shock phase. But then they, perhaps caught up in grief themselves, wrapped themselves in anger (sometimes burying it in our resolve, but it’s anger). So our leadership started us down the path to healing, but left us high and dry in the anger stage.
So I was thinking about this and wondering. Who will help us grieve? Who can climb above the fray with empathy for our plight and lead us into acceptance and hope? Who understands the horrors of terrorism and how it relates to American domestic culture? It is you, Terry Anderson, who has the moral strength, direct experience, and insight to help your nation heal. As a Viet Nam era Marine, you understand war. As a journalist, you understand the media’s role in healing a nation. As a former seven-year hostage at the hands of terrorists, you understand the pain their attacks cause. As a man of God, you understand healing and forgiveness (which is often avoided because it gets confused with permissiveness). And as an American patriot, you understand what we all need in order to move through the grieving process and be once again a nation united in the cause of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
So after all these revelations of late, I set out to find you and request that you step up your public presence and help console this nation and lead it into acceptance and hope. To my surprise, you had just decided to enter into public life in Ohio’s state senate (I really didn’t know that until I tried to find you). Selfishly on my part, I’m disappointed that you’re running for a state level office. I really want you on the national scene. However, public life is public life, and I urge you to consider a more noticeable public presence with words of comfort for a grieving nation that is finding it very hard to get past anger (we’re so caught up in anger right now, all we can do is accuse each other of being more angrier than the other!). It will be difficult for you or anyone to offer any objective comfort. For myself, I know I don’t even want to listen to what a public figure says until I find out her or his political alignment. I know I’m not alone in that feeling. To be honest, when I first sought you out, I didn’t know what your "alignment" was. I didn’t care though. I knew what your perspective was as a survivor of terrorism. And it was a voice of reason and resolve.
Since this is also a public letter, I will point out the great patriotism you have. When you were a hostage, a good many people wanted to do whatever it took to get you out. A good many people were concerned that President Reagan and then President Bush (the first) were not doing anything to get you out. I guess we all also felt that you’d be equally troubled that your government had abandoned you. However, when you were released you sternly told the World (paraphrasing here), "You don’t negotiate with terrorists, and it was completely appropriate for Presidents Reagan and Bush to not offer anything in exchange for my release." Wow. No one in the World would have faulted you for being angry and bitter about your seven years of terrorist captivity, even if they disagreed with it. But being a patriot first, you let the terrorists know that they had lost. As the longest held hostage you were the "last man standing" that virtually ended the practice of hostage taking by terrorists. Not because you endured the captivity, but because in the end you let them know that it didn’t work. You held them responsible and stood proud that no one gave in and bowed to their demands. You understood more than most of us that part of the terrorists’ goal is to divide us. You let them know it didn’t work. And you forgave them.
Because I couldn’t find a direct audience with you, I’ve made this letter an open letter in public. I think this turns out to be a better idea anyway. But in the interest of full disclosure I should let the reading public know that I’m not a Democrat or a Republican. I am, however, a proud liberal with no party affiliation. I don’t want a country that is all liberal or all conservative or all anything. I want a country where there is respectable and peaceful debate on such issues and we cancel out each other's extreme element. The moment that balance tips and debate becomes a contest to belittle and silence the opposing view, rather than discuss it, America will cease to exist. I feel we’re running that risk right now. With the national debate getting more and more ugly at such a rapid pace, we may very well find ourselves engulfed in civil war in the next 10 to 20 years.
Terry, please help us find our way out. You’ve managed to find your way out, and even make peace with yourself. Your experience lead you to a deep relationship with God where no terrorist has the power to run your life or control your anger – and no government has the power to manipulate that anger to promote its political agenda. Let’s be honest, both the Democratic and Republican leadership have gone down the road of exploiting our anger. I forgive them of course, as their own grieving process blinds many of them.
Somehow a foreign group attacks our country and we fight bitterly among ourselves over it; all the while using that foreign group as a tool in our rhetorical battle of wits. Naturally, since the line has been drawn in the sand, I’ve chosen a side. I've made everything in my life about promoting that side and feeling great distaste for "the other side." But I’ve done some great soul searching as well. Why are we divided? Will it get worse? If we continue down this dividing path, will we find ourselves in another civil war someday? I know I look around I see everyone arguing, I see terror alerts, I see the World community both afraid of and disliking us. I can only come to one conclusion: the terrorists (or the perceived threat of) are now in control of American culture and the American World image. They are defining our national discourse. We are allowing ourselves to be divided while the rest of the World is quickly uniting in their distaste for us.
The core of all this for us, I believe, is that we’ve yet to begin to heal from the September eleventh attacks. The grieving process has eight stages that go something like this: denial and shock, anger, bargaining, guilt, depression, loneliness, acceptance, and finally hope. Naturally, in reality it’s not so linear. We’ll often fall back into an earlier stage. We may even fall back as far as denial and shock.
I’m not sure, as a collective people, America has moved much past anger. And I’m certain our government (and I mean all parties within it) have not moved past anger. My observation is that we dance between anger and denial with a passion sure to keep us from ever getting to acceptance and hope. Grieving takes time. Certainly at this point it’s too soon for any of us to be firmly in the hope stage. But are we even moving to that end? Should we still be stuck in anger after two years and some odd months?
In writing this piece, I guess I find myself in the bargaining stage. I just want to stop being angry, stop felling like I’m loosing everything, stop felling like we’re loosing America. I can say with 100% certainty that no government official from any party has done much to encourage the American people to properly grieve and thus heal. We’ve not been counseled as a collective. President Bush and members of Congress comforted us in the days following the attacks, and did a very good job at it. They brought our collective out of the denial and shock phase. But then they, perhaps caught up in grief themselves, wrapped themselves in anger (sometimes burying it in our resolve, but it’s anger). So our leadership started us down the path to healing, but left us high and dry in the anger stage.
So I was thinking about this and wondering. Who will help us grieve? Who can climb above the fray with empathy for our plight and lead us into acceptance and hope? Who understands the horrors of terrorism and how it relates to American domestic culture? It is you, Terry Anderson, who has the moral strength, direct experience, and insight to help your nation heal. As a Viet Nam era Marine, you understand war. As a journalist, you understand the media’s role in healing a nation. As a former seven-year hostage at the hands of terrorists, you understand the pain their attacks cause. As a man of God, you understand healing and forgiveness (which is often avoided because it gets confused with permissiveness). And as an American patriot, you understand what we all need in order to move through the grieving process and be once again a nation united in the cause of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
So after all these revelations of late, I set out to find you and request that you step up your public presence and help console this nation and lead it into acceptance and hope. To my surprise, you had just decided to enter into public life in Ohio’s state senate (I really didn’t know that until I tried to find you). Selfishly on my part, I’m disappointed that you’re running for a state level office. I really want you on the national scene. However, public life is public life, and I urge you to consider a more noticeable public presence with words of comfort for a grieving nation that is finding it very hard to get past anger (we’re so caught up in anger right now, all we can do is accuse each other of being more angrier than the other!). It will be difficult for you or anyone to offer any objective comfort. For myself, I know I don’t even want to listen to what a public figure says until I find out her or his political alignment. I know I’m not alone in that feeling. To be honest, when I first sought you out, I didn’t know what your "alignment" was. I didn’t care though. I knew what your perspective was as a survivor of terrorism. And it was a voice of reason and resolve.
Since this is also a public letter, I will point out the great patriotism you have. When you were a hostage, a good many people wanted to do whatever it took to get you out. A good many people were concerned that President Reagan and then President Bush (the first) were not doing anything to get you out. I guess we all also felt that you’d be equally troubled that your government had abandoned you. However, when you were released you sternly told the World (paraphrasing here), "You don’t negotiate with terrorists, and it was completely appropriate for Presidents Reagan and Bush to not offer anything in exchange for my release." Wow. No one in the World would have faulted you for being angry and bitter about your seven years of terrorist captivity, even if they disagreed with it. But being a patriot first, you let the terrorists know that they had lost. As the longest held hostage you were the "last man standing" that virtually ended the practice of hostage taking by terrorists. Not because you endured the captivity, but because in the end you let them know that it didn’t work. You held them responsible and stood proud that no one gave in and bowed to their demands. You understood more than most of us that part of the terrorists’ goal is to divide us. You let them know it didn’t work. And you forgave them.
Because I couldn’t find a direct audience with you, I’ve made this letter an open letter in public. I think this turns out to be a better idea anyway. But in the interest of full disclosure I should let the reading public know that I’m not a Democrat or a Republican. I am, however, a proud liberal with no party affiliation. I don’t want a country that is all liberal or all conservative or all anything. I want a country where there is respectable and peaceful debate on such issues and we cancel out each other's extreme element. The moment that balance tips and debate becomes a contest to belittle and silence the opposing view, rather than discuss it, America will cease to exist. I feel we’re running that risk right now. With the national debate getting more and more ugly at such a rapid pace, we may very well find ourselves engulfed in civil war in the next 10 to 20 years.
Terry, please help us find our way out. You’ve managed to find your way out, and even make peace with yourself. Your experience lead you to a deep relationship with God where no terrorist has the power to run your life or control your anger – and no government has the power to manipulate that anger to promote its political agenda. Let’s be honest, both the Democratic and Republican leadership have gone down the road of exploiting our anger. I forgive them of course, as their own grieving process blinds many of them.
All Content © Jason Mott 2004. All Rights Reserved.
