I have been silent the past week or so. This silence seems to overtake me every year right around September 11. I try not to focus on my internal emptiness, but maybe I should. I really am not aware of my self-imposed isolation until this period of grief has passed.
This year, with the killings of the US Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens and 3 other diplomatic officers, my sadness has turned to anger. Not at the Libyan people. But rather at my own people. How insensitive and arrogant can we be?
I was raised in Mexico and spent most of my young adult life in Europe--Northern Spain in the Basque Country. I love the Pais Vasco, I love the people and the way of life. That said, the period of time that we lived there was the epicenter of the Basque Terrorist Movement (ETA). And our project was one of the main targets of ETA. (Subject for a book)
We learned to be very careful and sensitive to the Basque sentiments and to guard our speech.
Our diplomats are in similar situations throughout the world. It was unconscionable (sp?) for any individual, especially an American, to post a video mocking Allah and the Muslim religion. To put our fellow citizens in such danger during the period surrounding September 11 shows the lack of respect for other humans that is so rampant in the world today.
But to have a Presidential candidate take this tragedy to an entirely new level and politicize it for his personal benefit ---I am speechless.
What happened to our diplomats was an international tragedy and not a moment in time to be politicized.
As a nation we need to learn the meaning of respect in all of its different manifestations.
Mary
