We are responding. All of us in some way are reacting to the shaking of our world. I happen to be a list-maker, especially when the world is shaking. This is how I get a measure of control over my own emotions and actions.
I am not any smarter than you are. But in my ongoing effort to love the Middle East and share with my readers the human face of the Middle East, I do a lot of reading and searching and thinking. In the process I have written two lists. What Not to Do and What to Do. Today one, tomorrow the other.
You are invited to respond. Click on the little “Contact” button near the top of my website’s home page and talk back to me. Maybe you can add to my list. I would like that.
- Don’t panic
Nothing basic has changed. The terrorist organization wants you to be afraid. Don’t give them that victory. Don’t even listen to people who are afraid. Fear is contagious, and it is poisonous. It will make you lose your head and do the wrong thing.
- Don’t listen to ISIS
Their messages, whether delivered by videos or suicide bombers, are intended to provoke us. Our natural reaction is to retaliate, and that is what they want us to do. Wherever we drop bombs, innocent people get hurt and learn to hate us, so our bombs become a recruitment tool for ISIS. Young men with nothing big to live for and men with no other way to make a living will join them.
For months the journalist Fareed Zakaria has been telling us that what the organization really wants is for America to send troops against them, to fight them on their own soil, where they believe they can defeat us in battle. And on Nov. 19 the editors of The Nation wrote that so far our military intervention has done more to provoke extremism than to stop it. That happened because we are considered everywhere to be the strongest nation in the world, and a majority of people in the Arab world see us as the major international bully. Careful! Don’t reject that until you think about our involvement in the M.E., starting with the overthrow of the democratically elected prime minister of Iran (because he wanted Iran to own its oil fields) and the installation of the dictatorial shah in 1953 From what I learned living in the Middle East, I understand that anyone who takes on the bully will gain prestige in a wide segment of the population. Just by standing against us they will become heroes to a lot of people.
Another thing ISIS wants is for us to fight among ourselves, about anything, but especially about them. Conflict and chaos open doors for them. The chaos following our invasion of Iraq helped create ISIS. The chaos in Syria gave them opportunity. That’s why they attacked Beirut. Lebanon is already a fragile country that can easily split into sectarian factions. They want the Lebanese to blame one another and the Syrian refugees. They would love for Lebanon to have another civil war, because the chaos would be an opportunity for then.
- Don’t blame all Muslims for the evil of ISIS
Moderate, peace-loving Muslims are their number one enemy. Several times lately they attacked mosques in Baghdad! Islamophobia in the West opens doors for them, like conflict and chaos. It enables them to say to potential fighters, “See the world hates you. Join us. We will defeat them all.” In fact they have made it plain that they do not want Muslims and non-Muslims to live together in harmony. That’s one reason they attacked Paris, to make the non-Muslim French fear the Muslims in their own country. The Muslims will then feel threatened, enabling ISIS to enlist more terrorists to create more havoc.
- Don’t harden your heart toward the refugees
They have fled ISIS because they hate and fear it. They have fled death because they want to live. They have fled the poverty of refugee camps, because they can’t bear to see their children suffer and have no future. For sure, bad people can take advantage of our openness, but it is not right to penalize the innocent majority to protect ourselves from risk. Life is risky, but we can’t let the risks paralyze us.
- Don’t give up your own values
You are a reasonable person, prone to moderation; don’t become an extremist now. You are a dove, don’t become a hawk. You are hospitable; don’t close your doors or your heart. Why should ISIS change who we are? Together we are a nation of immigrants. Our Statue of Liberty, the “Mother of Exiles,” announces our values to the world. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me.”
We must not give ISIS the power to change the great principles of our country.
- Don’t complain about security checks
You want to be safe, so you will have to stand in line, take off your shoes, open your bag, get your body scanned, be interrogated. Don’t even frown.
Tomorrow, same website, same old blogger: the positives, What to Do in Response to Attacks on Paris and Beirut