The quick succession of five loud booms reverberated against my
bedroom window. I woke instantly, realizing exactly what had caused
the noise.
Bombs. Terrorist bombs.
The quick succession of five loud booms reverberated against my bedroom window. I woke instantly, realizing exactly what had caused the noise.
Bombs. Terrorist bombs.
Living in London where I once worked as the bureau chief of an international news service, I never quite got use to the constant threat of IRA bomb blasts. The explosions that shook the fashionable district of Highgate were the closest I’d ever physically come to terrorism. Compared with other terrorist activity, the damage done early that morning was minimal. A young girl was hit by flying glass as she delivered newspapers in the shopping village of Highgate. Several storefronts had to be rebuilt.
The real impact of terrorism is far more sinister. Terrorism is a battlefield of the brain. It’s psychological warfare.
A few months after the Highgate bombings, I rode on a London Underground train that stopped at Charing Cross station. A public announcement told passengers to immediately exit the train and leave the station. We all knew the reason – a bomb threat.
As I made my way down the Strand in search of a double-decker bus, I passed a rather ordinary-looking sidewalk trash can. Instantly, my heart quickened. I’d never been afraid of a public waste receptacle before, but I quickly moved away from it. My mind perceived it as an explosive threat.
Terrorism seeps its way deep into the depth of our psyche. It festers there, feeding on the anxiety of a possible clandestine attack. With the tragedy in Beslan coming shortly before this weekend’s third anniversary of the 9/11 attack, the world is confronting yet another irrational act of terrorism. What is in the mind of people who would too willingly kill Russian children and their parents?
Some people have called the Chechens’ brutal act “inhuman.” The opposite is true. The history of civilization proves terrorist violence is all too human.
We homo sapiens have a rather nasty habit of killing off – in mass quantities – individuals of our own species. No other animal has developed this brutal custom.
The strange thing is, it goes against natural selection. Evolution eventually weeds off the face of the Earth species who develop this trait.
So if war and terrorism are not part of our genetic code, why are human beings so particularly prone to committing these violent acts? The answer might be in a concept of mental conditioning called “pseudospeciation.”
This $5 word literally means the creation of a false species. The term was coined by psychologist Erik Erikson to describe how humans can imagine distinctions between people when there truly are no real differences.
“They’re not our kind,” pseudospeciation allows us to tell ourselves. “It’s OK to kill ’em.”
Murderers undergo pseudospeciation when they kill. They see their victims as less than human. Soldiers throughout history have also been trained to practice pseudospeciation. It’s much easier to shoot a “nip” or “gook” or “kraut” or “paddy” or “kaffir” or “dhimmi” or 1,000 more dehumanized “others” than an actual human being. Nations also develop pseudospeciation attitudes during wartime. This mass conditioning comes through propaganda in the media and by governments, emerging again and again in a cycle of social reinforcement. And the people making up Al Qaeda and the Chechen rebel movement also adopted pseudospeciation – the kind of indoctrination that made it alright in their poisoned minds to fly a plane-load of people into a skyscraper or detonate a bomb in a school gym filled with children.
But history shows us that if we can see our enemy as inhuman, we can also – over time – see their common humanity, too.
Consider the following countries: France, England, Germany, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Russia, Italy, Japan and Vietnam.
All were, at some point in history, America’s enemies. All were once hated by us. We now consider them our nation’s friends. There may well come a future time when we’ll also see Iraq, North Korea and Afghanistan as America’s friends. But first, we must rid ourselves of our pseudospeciation views of these nations.
One way is increased international travel. Americans who travel overseas open their minds to other cultures and lifestyles. This fosters more understanding between nations.
“Sister City” programs are also part of the solution. The South Valley communities of Hollister, Gilroy and Morgan Hill have expanded global awareness locally from their Sister City relationships with towns abroad.
International games and cultural exchange programs create friendly competition and a dynamic exchange of arts and entertainment. Study abroad programs and foreign exchange students help young people develop an appreciation of humanity’s diversity.
International relief programs foster good will among the nations. Technology such as the Internet, films and TV educate us and expand our awareness and respect of foreign cultures.
Genetic research helps us truly see that – at the heart of our being – our DNA coding proves we’re more related than we’d ever thought.
There are two possible solutions to permanently ending war and terrorism. The first, of a symbolic nature, is found in a valley called Megiddo in Palestine. This historic place is where some folks believe all the armies of Earth will gather for the war that eventually ends the world. “Megiddo” gives us the word “Armageddon.” Global nuclear Armageddon is a sure way to permanently rid the world of all violence among humans.
The second potential solution is also symbolic. It’s found a few miles down the road from Megiddo in a country village called Nazareth. It’s the hometown of a Jewish philosopher who, facing the violence of Roman soldiers, gave people a simple message: Love your neighbor.
It sounds simple. But if practiced by all people – and all the neighbor nations of Earth – that simple message might be the key to eliminating our human tendency toward pseudospeciation.
We’ve heard the bombs of terrorism reverberating against our global bedroom window. I hope they’ve shook us awake to realize a fact vitally important for the survival of our species: There is a dignity in our common humanity.
