Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller followed today with a press conference, complete with photographs and descriptions of seven individuals whom they believe to be terrorists. Ashcroft said that Al Qaeda plans to “hit the United States hard.” He said high-profile events this summer like the upcoming G-8 summit and the political conventions provide “especially attractive targets.” But “soft targets” such as shopping malls have also been mentioned. And let’s not forget the possibility of chemical or biological weapons.
At a news conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday, one of the officials said that this climate of fear, of color-coded alerts, of frequent on-guard-for-terrorism announcements is the “new normal” for life in the 21st century.
Of course, there are no details about where, when or how this attack might occur … only that it might. So we should all be afraid. Very afraid. Oh, but wait–the federal and state governments have said not to be afraid, to go about our daily lives, our usual business, just stay alert for anything that looks out of the ordinary.
What looks out of the ordinary is the whole world right now. There is nothing “normal” about living in fear. I don’t want to get used to that; I don’t want to accept that things have careened so wildly out of control, fear is our reality and our legacy. I realize that we need to be told if there is any indication that terrorists are planning to do anything. (Remember when “chatter” was an innocent word for shallow conversation, not a spy word with frightening implications?) I certainly don’t want my government to withhold or minimize information. But what I resent is the assertion that this is “the new normal.”
Fear is one of the most powerful emotions we have, and definitely the most toxic. To live in a state of fear is to live on half beam–extinguishing the brightest and best parts of oneself. Fear envelops, suffocates, siphons off oxygen, kills hopes and drowns dreams. It may be true that there are risks of attacks by deadly poisons, but the poison of fear will get us first and will spread out across many generations.
I’m not naive enough to believe that if we say, “No, we won’t accept this as normal,” Al Qaeda operatives will throw up their hands and say, “Oops. Sorry. Changed our minds. We’ll go home now.” But I do believe that by refusing to accept fear as our lot in life, we can hang onto something essential in ourselves, something strong and bright and hopeful.
There are still people alive who remember a time before much of the world hated us, before we had grown so frightened that we installed elaborate security systems in homes, before school shootings, bombs planted in public places, ex-employees returning to massacre those who were once their co-workers (“going postal” is actually a fairly new phrase in our vernacular). There are even people who recall a time when doors were sometimes left unlocked, “road rage” was unheard of and summers rolled by with easy long days and cool blue evenings. Many of those people are dying and taking their memories with them.
What happens when there isn’t anyone left who can remember a time before fear? How do we raise future generations to be the best they can be if we tell them that it’s “normal” to live with terror nipping at their heels? What’s to stop us then from rumbling into one war after another because we can’t come up with a reason not to?
That’s the thing about fear–it devours the most precious parts of the human spirit. It empties out hearts and clouds minds … and whispers a chilling message–that there is nothing left to lose.
