Human = Human, =/= American, =/= Indian

My friend's topic on terrorism (9/11: An Indian perspective) made me respond in the following manner. Here is the opening post to this topic. My friend (http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=38223781391) says....
"9/11 was horrific. Innocent live were lost - of all religion, of all nationalities. Estimated death toll was over 6,000. We still have horrifying pictures of it impressed in our minds. It was undoubtedly very traumatic. And no way can it be justified.

More importantly however, it happened in American soil.I hear this all the time "This was an attack on the World", "This was not about America, it's against the free world!" or even get asked all the time, "Was that not a big deal in India for you guys?" "We were devastated! Weren't you??" "I still remember what I was doing at that second, dont you?" "Shruti how are you so passive about this!" When I dont really know how to respond to all of these, I get told "Well you hate America ..."

It would be pretty frustrating when someone tells me "You hate America." This is actually disrespectful since even though I live here and consider myself as American as anybody else, the connotation behind the above statement completely voids me being American and my respect for America as a country.

I understand the fragility of the situation. I am a brown person, I was not here when the terror took place. Anyone who was here in person understands the emotion much more than me. So when I don't exhibit as much distress and emotion as the person who was actually here whenever the issue is brought up, there is a possibility that I will be accussed of not being sympathetic enough, since "I don't know!." That's ok, but calling me a hater means you are accusing me of being morally wrong. This is unacceptable.

I guess there is nothing I can do about it but hope and try to explain to him/her that I understand that innocent and helpless people were made victims of a group that is collectively weak, unintelligent and ignorant. I would also make it known to him/her that whenever I see something like this on tv, it infuriates me to my limit regardless of caste, creed, religion or geography of the victim. There is nothing else I can do to explain my emotion against terrorism. But calling me un-American by assuming I don't care about lives lost in America as much as I would care about lives lost in India is just plain disrespectful. I respect this country as my own and I have no reason to have a bias for either.

It is true that I am connected with India to a deeper extent emotionally since my childhood and most of my life was spent there. But this does not mean I am immoral. Moral values of a good citizen usually stay the same in most societies.

Violence is an attribute of the weak.

Violence and using force are for the weak. I have noticed that when I have a problem I want to resolve, I can almost always use violence and brute force to achieve this end. Now, this may create more problems in getting to the desired solution but no one is to say that I won't be using violence to climb these newly created rungs of the problematic ladder. Maybe I successfully do climb this ladder to the very top, maybe I don't. But in any case, my focus today is not on the violence but on me, or any person for that matter, that uses violence to achieve his or her ends.

Basic violent thinking is "I create BANG....I get attention, I get what I need." How can you call this way of getting attention and realizing your ends weak? I call this weak because it is an easier way that might be favorable for one, but is harmful to many. This way is tried as a substitute to the other way where you don't really see the result in the near future, but you don't see immediate and moral harm to humanity as well. It is a difficult feat to accomplish. A weak person is easily apprehended. In this case, he is scared of the fact that he does not have an immediate result. A weak person lacks confidence in himself. In this case, he is inconfident of his capability of achieving the result that might not be immediate.

For example, I want to create my own traffic signal system that I see more sense in than any other. I am a powerful personality that has almost unlimited access. I decide to start my system in the new island that I have secretly discovered. Now the island already has a democracy, so I need to convince the majority that my system works better than whatever they have. I get about 90% resentment since they are unwilling to change their customs. Me and my 10% clearly see that ignorance is holding people back from seeing what I see. I tell myself, "If only they could see what my new system can bring to them...." I have two options here: Either I can shoot some of them down and apprehend a society unwilling to accept, or I can try to keep persuading them and finding more ways to make them see sense.

If I used the gun, they would accept my system almost immediately (considering I am more powerful than any force on their island) and would then see the sense I was talking about. But the sense would come at a cost of the human beings that were shot down in the beginning, and this would be a permanent dent in my effort that will never be repaired (You can't bring back dead people to life). When I try to use the other way, I see little, if any progress for the next year. But I know what I believe in is correct, and if implemented, it will work towards the greater good without any moral disobedience or dents. So I decide to find ways to get support by small scale demonstrations and such. I am now about 85 years old and on my deathbed and still the persuasion exists. There is little visible change in the traffic system as I say my final goodbye. But whatever little progress I made does pay off in the long run and the traffic system changes. And the society realizes what it should've realized 100 years ago.

In both cases, I am working towards what I believe is right. When I use force to impose this belief, I am not strong enough, or not capable enough to solve the problem without killing or hurting my own kind. If I die without seeing results, I would be incapable of making the society realize something good instantly. In either case, I would be weak in one way or the other, right?

Not really. The first alternative resulted in death of a human being. This would mean I was weak as I was not able to respect an individual's basic right to live against the power of a gun. Also, the fact that I decided to kill a particular human being over another is not justified. Considering the killing was meant for the future betterment of the society as a whole, why did person A have to die in particular over B? There is no sure answer. There is no justification. You are weak because you will be unable to explain the widow why she in particular had to become the widow against her will.

For the second case, I have not inflicted direct harm on the society. Yes, a lot more people died due to the bad traffic system that I was unable to change compared to the few that would've died if I were to pull the trigger a couple times in the beginning. But I am not directly responsible for this loss. I was strong enough to respect the right of an individual human being over the power that I had at my disposal. What happened to the society was a result of the decision of the society. It was in my hands to try to convince them while respecting their individual rights which I did.

There are other points at which it can be further reinforced that a violent action is a weak action but I will hold off on formulating this any further since it is 0442 and the fact that long walls of text are usually not very much appreciated.