Together, We Can Defeat Terrorism
Someone assaulted our community early Monday morning. A pipe bomb stuffed with nails damaged an entrance to City Hall and scattered shrapnel across Post Street and into Riverfront Park. The 3 a.m. timing indicates the terrorist may have tried to avoid hurting a large number of people. Yet, the bomb clearly was designed to inflict horrible human suffering.
Why? What’s the point? What sort of rage makes a person fabricate a bomb and leave it where it may kill or injure passers-by?
No one knows. An anonymous bomb carries no message. Even a bomb that does come with a message is inherently irrational, alienating rather than persuading. The Unabomber hated technology, but technology continues. The robbers who set off pipe bombs at a Spokane Valley bank and newspaper office earlier this month left behind some white supremacist ravings, but banks and the news media carry on and the mainstream of public opinion was alerted that neo-Nazis are a menace.
As we saw after the Oklahoma City bombing last year, most Americans unite in the face of terrorism - against the terrorists.
By choosing to attack City Hall, the Spokane bomber targeted the place where our community gathers to govern itself. It is true that we argue there, and it is true that some of the good people employed at City Hall make controversial decisions. But it is a terrible mistake - and a dangerous number of Americans these days have made it - to convert disagreement over policy into a seditious, generalized hatred toward our government. We look to city government for essential services, including the apprehension of violent criminals.
It was reassuring Monday morning to see city volunteers and professionals move smoothly through the paces of an anti-terrorism plan, checking systematically for clues and other explosive devices.
It is tempting to want more aggressive powers for the police, especially as domestic terrorism crops up elsewhere around the country. But the intrusions, restrictions and suffocating fears of a police state are exactly what we must continue to avoid.
What we need is a fresh commitment to democracy and community. Pitted against a city full of neighbors who are united by the determination to build and improve and carry on, fear and hatred will fail.
Pipe bombs can’t educate children, heal the sick, build bridges, comfort the weak, plant flowers or fill the streets with a river of joyful Bloomsday runners, 50,000 strong. In tens of thousands of ways - as many different ways as there are people - each of us must refuse to let hate win, and together, we must keep at the daily tasks that make our society work.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board