Beyond September 11: Justice through outreach

AS THE FATHER of an 18-month-old son, the events of September 11 and the military action that followed have touched me in a profound way. The experience of this epic tragedy has caused my thoughts to turn most directly to justice and even extracting vengeance on the perpetrators and their benefactors. However, thinking about my son and the life that lies before him has brought me to focus more on the longer-term place of the United States in the international community. Need we ask ourselves so quizzically why many people around the globe dislike or even detest us and what we stand for, to the degree that this type of attack is not only plausible but likely? Surely we can appreciate the perspective of the many disenfranchised residents of developing countries who see the United States as the worlds' only economic and military superpower, largely disinterested in the suffering in their respective homelands.

What will I tell my son when he is old enough to comprehend these events? At this point I am not sure I know, though I do have three general thoughts. First, the taking of approximately 3,000 innocent lives on September 11 changed our nation, made us stronger in some ways, but more dramatically hurt us as people who see themselves as champions of freedom and good in the world. Second, as a country, we should all strive to better understand how the world perceives us, and that, like all peoples, we tend to remember well our nation's successes and minimize our failings. Third, loss is universal and we should all work to avert future tragedies. We must do this through a strong homeland defense, through open dialogue with our international neighbors, and through a foreign policy that reduces the real and perceived barriers between the United States and its allies, and those who do not populate the westernized world. We should recognize that while we perceive many to be fundamentally different from us, it is also true that that many see the world in fundamentally different ways than the citizens of the United States.

Despite the bleak outlook during this time of war and upheaval, we have cause to maintain an optimistic view about the long-term vitality and security of our nation. I hope that as members of the human service community we all seek to be a positive force in the national discussion that continues on the tragedy of September 11, and the actions that have emerged from it. In the field of human services, we are often asked to serve as "the angels of our better nature," offering a societal conscience check when the tide of public opinion may be so strong in one direction. We must continue to speak out on overt actions such as infringements on civil liberties, stiffening of immigration policy, the use of ethnic profiling, and the like. We must also work to soften the more subtle effects on the mindset of our country, the rush to generalize, overreact, and the general hardening of our national heart when it comes to dealing with those "who did this to us." In this way, the helping professions can seek to facilitate both a national healing and an international reconciliation, something that brightens the future for all the world's children.

Robert L. Fischer

Senior Research Associate

Center on Urban Poverty and Social Change

Case Western Reserve University

Cleveland, OH

Copyright Families in Society Mar/Apr 2002
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved