Thee Morning Inspection

Terrorism spawns victims and survivors (of all kinds)

Carrie Lemack has not heard her mother’s voice in 9 years, 7 months and 23 days. In fact she will never hear the voice of Judy Larocque or see her infectious smile. Judy’s dead. Judy Larocque was on the fateful American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles, hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists and deliberately crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre in New York as part of the 9/11 attacks.

Al Jazeera interviewing Carrie in the aftermath of Barack Obama announcing the death of Osama bin Laden, asked if the news brought closure. Carrie responded, ‘No, there’s no way you can get closure when your loved ones have been brutally murdered’.

Carrie’s comments come at a time when the entire United States of America is erupting in euphoria. While the political ramifications are being debated in some quarters and questions regarding end and means are tossed around and commented on, especially in the context of human and political costs, not to mention the pertinent issues of oil-prerogatives and the war-necessity of the arms industry, this visible and even jingoistic joy expressed by a nation that was shocked out of its skin and largely ignorant of crimes committed in its name elsewhere is understandable.

War on terrorism

President Barack Obama has told his people that the world is safer now that US forces have killed bin Laden. No one can fault citizens of that country who abhor terrorism for feeling relieved, especially if they are insulated from the darker truths of the ‘War on Terror’. Osama bin Laden is the name associated with 9/11 and the citizens of the USA have not forgotten and indeed have not been made to forget this fact.

Rescue workers at 9/11 terrorist attack on World Trade Centre in New York. Pic. courtesy: Google

Sober America will wake up soon enough and realize that wars are easy to start but hard to end, and that this is true for just wars (even if only on paper) such as the war on terrorism and unjust wars like that of invading Iraq to look for ‘weapons of mass destruction’. And yet, this moment of relief and perhaps even (perceived) closure should not be grudged. The al-Qaeda was not vanquished along with bin Laden and even if this killing points to such an eventuality, that road is clearly long and arduous. Still.

Few survivors

Carrie’s observations were appropriately sober, rational and most importantly flagged issues that appeared to have been un-scripted in the celebrations. She was less emotional than pragmatic: ‘It is not a celebratory moment...my mom is still not here’.

She is not the only one who lost loved ones in that attack. She’s not the only one who lost loved ones in terrorist attacks or ‘counter-terrorist’ attacks. Carrie Lemack is a name whereas there are millions of people like her who have names only as far as those near and dear to them are concerned. We know the name because she was one of the founders of the Global Survivors’ Network. She advocated for the creation of the 9/11 Commission and for passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. She is also the producer of ‘Killing in the Name,’ a 39-minute documentary about Ashraf al-Khaled, a Jordanian Muslim whose 2005 wedding in Amman was bombed by an Al Qaeda suicide terrorist. He and his wife lost 27 members of their wedding party, including three of their parents.

Carrie knows about victims. And survivors. We too, here in Sri Lanka. This morning I received an email about a book launch, retired Senior Superintendent of the Police, Tassie Seneviratne’s ‘Human Rights and Policing - Reminiscences of My Police Days’.

A note on the event had been penned by Kumudini Hettiarachchi in the Sunday Times. There is mention of a constable by the name of R.M. Tennekoon Bandara who had been one of the few survivors of one of the most horrendous examples of summary execution. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which engaged in ‘talks’ with the then government, surrounded the police stations at Kalmunai, Akkaraipattu, Samanthurai and Pothuvil. The then President had urged the officers not to engage the LTTE but surrender to them. In the name of peace, they were gunned down mercilessly. Constable Bandara had escaped by submerging himself in a lagoon infested with large buffalo-leeches and covered with water hyacinth.

Human shield

There are survivors of all kinds. All the innocent Tamil civilians, over 300,000 of them, held hostage by the LTTE and used as a human shield and subsequently were rescued by the Sri Lankan security forces in May 2009, are survivors. Every citizen of this country who do not have to wonder if their children will come home or indeed if they themselves would survive the day to see their children again are survivors. Every mother and father whose child was forcibly taken by the LTTE and then turned into a ‘child combatants’ also fall into the ‘survivor’ category. Every child who does not have to suffer such a fate today is a survivor.

So too every Tamil; whether politician, intellectual, academic or anything else; who opposed the LTTE but had to remain silent. The near and dear of those who did and paid with their lives, they too are survivors. Everyone who survived the death of those who fell in the inevitable crossfire and also those who were victims of unconscionable indiscipline and insanity on the part of troops, especially in the early days of the conflict, also make a list.

They all have stories. Different stories. All these stories have one thing in common, I believe. Today, although they do not live in Paradise, they have moved out of the hell that is fear. There are all kinds of closures. Some ‘closures’ are impossible. There are after all children who are not here. Mothers too. Fathers. Friends and lovers. Here in Sri Lanka, though, we can be thankful that the chapter on terrorism is closed. Into the foreseeable future the number of ‘survivors’ will not rise. Not so in the case of the United States of America or the unhappy lands which for valid and ridiculous reasons have been turned into battlefields.

Security forces

Carrie Lemack said that the focus should be on telling the stories of survivors of terrorist attacks around the world. That’s an Oscar winning documentary waiting to be made, a Booker Prize and many doctoral dissertations.

It is a necessarily sober and probably a sobering exercise. I am a survivor. So too every member of the Tamil National Alliance. Everyone of us have cause to lament, regardless of political leanings and preferred outcomes. We also have, for the simple fact of being and that of having space to criticize, reason to be thankful. We can all thank the security forces.

There will always be Judy Larocques and Carrie Lemacks. There are victims who died and victims who survived.

There are ongoing wars and those that have ended. There’s reason to lament and reason to celebrate. There is reason to be thankful. Reason, too, to have perspective and a sense of proportion. [email protected]