On Christmas Day, a man flying from Amsterdam to Detroit attempted, unsuccessfully, to light an explosive and take the plane down. He claims he was working for Al Qaeda. This news has really upset me, for a number of reasons – both obvious and not so.
I hope one day for same safe, secure world that everyone hopes for. Free of extreme poverty, starvation, illiteracy, racism, torture and other human rights abuses and terror. When I hear stories like this, I get sad about what it really means – the current state of our world, and what the outcome of this news will be. Will a people be vilified? Perhaps. And what will that mean? Legislation laced with prejudice and racism? The minaret ban in Switzerland gave me heartache. The racist islamophobe who called Islam the new plague in Europe gave me heartache.
Or will it just mean more war – more seemingly unending, seemingly unwinnable wars? More US based intervention? Intervention called humanitarian, yet called so in vain? I would call it US led, except when other countries “pledge” troops in numbers so minuscule my first instinct tells me it’s a joke, it really is a US intervention…with a few hundred other troops woven through the ranks. I read somewhere that the success rate for US intervention was somewhere in the twenties. Can we still call that success?
The selfish side of me rolls its eyes knowing there will be “heightened airport security.” I don’t claim to have all the answers. I like to leave space to allow the experts to talk and do. But I am someone who flights commercial airlines quite frequently and, OMFG, which airport security official let the man through with an explosive? And was it the same person who was so adamant about me throwing out my Creme de La Mer a few months back? Or the one who overlooked the two bottles of hand lotion, just barely oversized, I accidentally left in my handbag?
Perhaps I cannot really grasp what’s going on, perhaps I’m unable to see the forest through the trees. But this isn’t working for me. And it doesn’t seem to be working for the world.
I trust you, Mr. President. I trust your judgment and that of the people with whom you have chosen to surround yourself. But when will this be fixed? No, that’s not what I meant to ask. WILL this be fixed? Can this be fixed? No political spin nonsense. Just honesty. Are we going in the direction of peace, resolution? I can wait forever if the answer is yes, but the problem is it doesn’t seem to be.
xo
J. Justine



















