Danusha V. Goska

Suffering as Justification for Terrorism

This is Danusha Goska.

I think of Beth. Beth was raped, when she was a little girl, repeatedly, by her uncle. He's now in San Quentin. Beth's adolescence was a purgatory. She ballooned to three hundred pounds. But Beth chose growth. She's now at normal weight, a teacher. She bears no ill will toward males.

I think of Saul. Saul's father was in Auschwitz. He lost his mind there. After release, he had eight children, and tortured every one. He tried to murder Saul by burning him alive. Saul used heroin for years. But then he chose change. He's now a counselor, and a social activist.

I think of the peasants I knew in Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia. They lived through Communism, Nazism, the contemporary Arab slave trade, the caste system. They responded with the labor union Solidarity, with women's credit unions, with art and music and culture, with heroes like Vaclav Havel and the Dalai Lama.

Every day now we are told that terrorism is justifiable and inevitable because some people suffer.

But terrorism is not inevitable; its cowardice and nihilism are repugnant to most people; while some Muslim leaders cultivate it by offering pensions and promises of paradise, and by refusing to denounce terror.

Suffering doesn't cause terrorism. "Life is suffering," as the Buddha said. We don't get a choice about that. We all, though, whether beggar or king, get this choice: the choice between doing right, and doing wrong. And terrorism is wrong, and slick apologetics can't make it right.

For Speak Your Mind, this has been Danusha Goska.

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