Heart of Darkness

Seeing the images of the school massacre in Russia leaves me filled with anger, grief and hatred. I have no answers to this violence. I know only that the dead and wounded were guilty of nothing that warranted their fate. They were just a convenient target for zealots who have no humanity. The smoking ruins of the school in Beslan, the bodies stacked on the grounds of the local hospital, the vacant eyes of the survivors are as haunting as the scenes from the 9-11 attacks in the US. Once again, bystanders become the victims of a mindless ideology that justifies any action, no matter how heinous.

I am embarrassed to be a member of the same species as the attackers. I want to hunt them down, kill them and piss on their corpses. I would have gladly joined the crowd who beat one of the fleeing attackers to death. By their actions, the attackers have placed themselves beyond the pale. Why should I care what happens to them? They certainly demonstrated no such concerns when they carried out their attack. My thoughts and feelings today remind me how easily I can succumb to hatred, how right that hatred seems in the aftermath of such a tragedy.

But part of my brain will not let the moment pass without warning me about the fruits of hatred and the unending spiral of violence that it spawns. I am reminded that, as vile and despicable as the school takeover and massacre were, they were the twisted consequence of violence and hatred that preceded it. Something twisted the minds of those attackers and allowed them to believe they had the right to put innocent civilians at risk. The attackers were, as much as I don’t want to believe it, human beings capable of rational thought. Something made them think that their actions were both necessary and justified.

In Chechnya separatists have challenged the authority of the Russian government and its policies toward that region. They challenge the corruption and self interest of officials installed by and beholden to Russian, not Chechan, interests. But Russia, for all of its post-Soviet changes remains highly centralized and undemocratic. Most recently, the world witnessed a presidential election in Chechnya where only candidates acceptable to the central government in Moscow were allowed to run for office leaving Chechans with little choice in the matter. The closed election was just one more action by the central government in a series of actions that leave Chechan nationalists little choice but to fight. And so the spiral begins. And it doesn’t end until all parties to the dispute firmly reject violence.

Governments around the world firmly state that “We will not negotiate with terrorists”. And they are absolutely correct in their resolve. The men and women who held those schoolchildren, parents and teachers hostage deserved nothing less than the death that came to them. They merited no compassion or concern. But they are a warning sign that something is terribly wrong, that something justifies the most criminal acts in the minds of their perpetrators. A government that protects its people will not only defend against these crazed attackers but will also look past their insanity to discover the “why” behind it. In the end, the only policy that will work and will not lead to more violence, to more bombings and hostages, is a policy that offers non-violent opportunities to resolve longstanding disputes and grievances.

And that means that governments around the world must begin to listen to the people whose lands they occupy and whose resources they covet. Those who would use violence against civilians have nothing to say or offer in this process. But the attackers represent, albeit in the worst possible manner, a dispute, some injustice or historic cause. The world ignores those underlying causes at its peril. Yes, we have every right, a duty, to strike back at those who attack us in the name of some cause but in doing so, we must recognize that until these wounds are fully lanced, they will continue to fester.