Serving Bread

(Part 3 in an occasional series. Read Part 1 and Part 2)

There are two realities in our world. Our (American) reality and our opponent’s reality–and they seem very different. When we think about our enemy, for the most part we think about the terrorists. We think about the sour apples who have hijacked entire countries, cultures, or even religions. We think of leaders and governments. In the US, we don’t think of our enemy the poor peasant farmer in the back-country of Afghanistan, or the widow in a small town in Iraq.

Our enemy sees us very differently. When they think of the enemy, they may think of Bush and Blair, but they also confess that Americans and Westerners are the enemy. When terrorists wage an attack against Americans, they are looking for civilian targets. It’s not just because civilian targets can render more pain and are easier than military ones, but because in their worldview and reality, civilians count as the enemy.

Now I recognize that as Americans, we are not totally innocent. Our military has targeted civilians (whether intentional or not is up to debate). But at least the rhetoric and the public outcry is far greater here than in most other countries. Many Americans still remember the images taken after the Mi Lai massacre in Vietnam.

I appreciate that our American political culture allows and is more sensitive to how we talk about our enemy and that we frown upon the death of civilians. Most Americans do not celebrate in the streets when they see pictures of civilians who are accidentally killed in military action. As Americans, we also have a privelege of living in a multi-cultural society where we know Afghani or Iraqi people. We recognize that war is complicated.

When we moved to the US from Lebanon in the 5th grade, I was placed in an English as a Second Language program. My class would have made the United Nations look like a homogenous group. My first friend and best friend for the next several years was a guy by the name of Ronnie, a Jew who had just moved from Haifa, Israel (a stone-throw away from the Lebanese border). Months before, we may have been cursing one another’s country and people, yet we were now enjoying a friendship. It is experiences like that, that have served to create a culture in the US where most people will not stand at characterizing an entire people as our enemy.

That experience, however, is not common for many other countries who are the US’s enemy. In humility, we need to ask the questions along the lines of “Why do they hate us?” Is it something about our culture? about our policies? about our exports? The problem is that there are few people who are having that discourse in the public arena. We (the civilians) are someone’s enemy. When we begin asking those questions, and understanding the answers to those questions, we will know the deeper roots of why we are at war. We are at war against an enemy that most of us can only describe in vague terms (they are the terrorists, right?). When we understand our enemy and its cause, we can bring change that would increase and guarantee the peace and security, both for Americans and for people abroad.