This morning, as I drove them to school, my two teenaged daughters were remembering where they were seven years ago when the attacks came. They were about the same age as I was when we learned that John F. Kennedy had been killed. Both are moments seared in memory and transformative in the tragic pain of a nation. I suspect that is how my parents felt when they learned about Pearl Harbor.

In the Bible, seven is a sacred number that signifies completion. So how should we regard the tragedy of September 11, 2001 seven years later? Certainly we should be respectful of those whose grief was so great that is seems more like yesterday than seven years past. They deserve our prayers and tender thoughts. We also should remember those whose lives were cut short that day. Their deaths deprive us all of the promise of their lives.

In addition, I think seven years is long enough to gain some perspective and to ask some of the tough questions we were not able to ask in the pain and shock of the moment. You know the questions; they have lingered at the edge of your consciousness for a long time. Maybe you even dared to ask them in the presence of people you trust enough to be vulnerable with. However, the tough questions have never been asked aloud in the public discourse of this nation. Given our leadership in Washington, and our President’s pride in being non-reflective, that is not surprising. Now an atmosphere of partisanship has been created that will ensure that any politician who dares to engage the tough issues is certain to be painted as unpatriotic and un-American.

Who would dare to suggest that Americans take this anniversary to ask ourselves what we did to create such virulent hatred that 19 hijackers were willing to die and murder to punish us? No answer could ever justify their actions, of course, but being unwilling to ask the question ensures that we only continue doing whatever we did that created such hatred. Are we ready to ask if the attitude of ruthless vengeance that followed those events was really right? I mean, 3,000 innocent Americans died on September 11, and, subsequently, our military has killed tens of thousands of innocent children in Afghanistan and Iraq. Do we really feel their lives are worth so much less than New Yorkers? By massacring innocent civilians in Muslim nations are we really making our own children safer?

Seven years ago, the world rallied to our side. "Nous sommes tous Americans"—We are all Americans—read the headlines in French newspapers. Could different leadership have brought the world together to address the core issues that feed terrorist hatred or that create the conditions in which it flourishes? Would Muslim extremists find recruits or an audience if the world regarded Western nations as kind, benevolent and generous rather than as selfish, materialist consumers? What if we had spent trillions of dollars eliminating poverty and disease in the Muslim world?

I guess the hardest question of all in this election year and on this anniversary is this: Do we end up with the leaders we really deserve? If years of therapy taught me nothing else, I know that true transformation must begin within. Tragedies can be the motivator to change, or they can reinforce our defensiveness. Which one happens is always our toughest choice.

Blessings,

Michael Piazza
President, Hope for Peace & Justice