***image1:left***Senseless and atrocious mass destruction that visited our native home, Eritrea,  for years has paid a visit to our adopted home, USA, last week.   Eritreans who sought shelter in many lands including this hospitable land, fled from the massacres of Ad Ibrahim through Ona, sh�Eb, the bombing of Massawa, the random killing of Asmara and the recent border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, just witnessed random and horrific death inflicted on their American brothers and sisters in New York, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania.   

This cruelty that has been inflicted on innocent people fills one with rage and grief.    But maintenance of sanity requires hope: hope that those who inflict pain shall be punished and those who suffer it shall overcome it.   Of this grief that conquers humanity, we try to be hopeful.  Hopeful that this violent madness will somehow come to an end.  This madness that doesn�t differentiate between man and woman, child and adult, old and young. This language of terror that doesn�t see anything else but death and destruction. Of this grief we suffer.  And as Eritreans we ask: must this grief follow us wherever we go?

It is very saddening to witness destruction and waste of thousands of human lives. We face it head-on and it haunts us: death is witnessed from our living rooms. Eritreans just barely emerged from a destructive war that wasted �19000� of our best. We are still submerged in a sad period and we are still praying that their death will somehow bring lasting peace to humanity.   Unrelated, but we just prayed and convinced ourselves that their life was paid for the good of humanity. 

Last Tuesday, we watched and the world watched as thousands of people perished in few minutes. Killed for nothing they committed but because some individuals who lost their humanity decided that they have to die. They were earning their bread, going about their business of making a living when their life was snuffed out.  They were feeling safe and secure in this great country called the United States of America when their safety was snatched.  The anxiety and sadness that humanity went through in those shocking moments, and what humanity is going through today, will certainly continue for a long time and, no doubt, the whole world is not going to be the same anymore. 

Extemism: Root Causes 

In the middle of grief and anger, it is understandable that there is little patience for looking into �root causes� and the environment that creates terror.  Eventually, however, experts, political scientists, sociologists, historians will, no doubt, place the focus of their intellect on solving this challenge of finding the root causes if nothing else at least to uproot it.    Fully cognizant that we are not experts and with all modesty we can muster, we wish to share our ideas with our readers.  

We have seen extremism grip the world.   A simplistic answer to the question of �why does evil exist?� is � Because there are evil people in the world.�  The follow-up question is �what breeds evil?�     At the risk of stating the obvious: Islam is not responsible for the insanity of the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon anymore than Christianity is to blame for the Jim Jones cult in Guyana or David Koresh�s senselessness in Waco, Texas.  Don't be surprised if you see few gullible from Belarus, Serbia or North Korea also celebrating as we have seen few naive Arabs.  You don't have to be a follower of this religion and from this region or that religion and that region to be a terrorist:  you only need to be psycho.

What makes people dehumanized?  We have seen terrorism come in many colors and shades.  It uses many justifications for its obstinacy: religious, ideological and historical.   It is religious extremism that bred old forces like The Crusaders and new forces like the Taliban movement; it is ideological extremism that launched Fascism, Nazism, Mao, Stalin, Pinocheot and Mengistu.  It is historical extremism�the tit-for-tat politics of �your great grandfather did this to my great grandfather my son will do this to you��that some nations (Israel, Arab nations, Rwanda, Ireland, etc) cannot escape from.   The presence of extremists group in the Eritrean land should not be seen outside this context.   Our call for �reconciliation� is an attempt to nip extremism in the bud: once a majority of Eritreans have addressed their historical grievances, once they have agreed on a national charter and a constitution that governs the land, then the people, in the voice of their elected governments, can take all measures at their disposal to punish those who choose to work outside the bounds of law and peaceful dialogue.    

In environments created by �strongmen�, tolerance is the first victim.  Only might is right and, some of the aggrieved convince themselves that the only dialogue strongmen understand is force.  From lone zealots to grouped fanatics to organized terrorists to rogue governments, we have seen states sponsoring violence or causing violence to breed.   What they all have in common is this: Fanatic views and extremist opinions are most likely to breed under totalitarian governments and dictatorships.  These types of systems, common in practically every Arab country and sub-Saharan Africa, are chocking the citizens who have no outlets for their grievances which occasionally burst out in the form of coup-d�etats and violence.  We are not far from the truth if we say that injustice also claims a big portion of the terrorism breeding process. This is a problem of humanity; humanity should face it in unison.

We believe the whole concept of national interest should be redefined. The old concept that was based on geographical safety of the Cold War is no more valid. The militaristic boundaries of days gone by are not practical. The Information Technology that humanity developed is asking the redefinition of national interests. The civilized state the world has reached and the globalization that humanity has attained dictates the redefining of national interest.

Terror is hatched under dictatorships and mushrooms in the dark absence of democracy. As we have repeatedly said, we call for dumping �real politic� into the ashbin of history and establish relationships based on a nation�s commitment to empowering its citizens.  The Kissinger doctrine of Real politic, basing relationships on personalities instead of people, gives the universe so-called �friendly allies� like Osama bin-Laden, Saddam Hussein, Ferdinand Marcos turn to Public Enemy No 1 in a few years time.    Free and democratic nations should have nothing to do with dictatorships and totalitarian governments. The old ways of �business interests� and �temporary alliances� are too costly to humanity.  The free world should not befriend, trade and exchange diplomats with governments that are breeding grounds for ignorance, intolerance, and subjugation of their citizens. In the name of wrongly defined �national interests�, so many dictatorships were nurtured. In the name of non-interference in the �internal affairs� of other nations, so many tyrants and totalitarian governments are licensed to wreak havoc all over the world and assault humanity.  Looking the other way when totalitarians, authoritarians and dictatorships are holding their people hostages cannot protect national Interests of the free world.

UN: Declaration of Human Rights

Some say that democracy is hard to define.  Who is to decide which country is democratic or not? Who is to dictate the type of democracy a given nation should follow?  Shouldn�t democracy and governance be customized to fit each nation�s particular culture and history?  And if so, who is to decide which is democratic and which is autocratic?

We believe that this is an invalid question because it has been answered by humanity decades ago.  The world has designed a system to standardize its dealings with one another.   All countries have set a system and standards to deal with each other.  In the world of economics, there is the financial standards and transaction system in place.  In transportation, the world has set a system to allocate flying corridors; airwaves for communications and radio are allocated and systematically arranged so that all abide by a standard agreement; there is the Maritime agreement and hundreds of protocols that systemize our co-existence.  Similarly, the civilized world has designed a system, a minimum standard, that all nations must abide by to become a part of the family of nations.   It is called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.   This UN Charter, that all nations are signatories to, could be a good beginning for the foundation of any government.  

Countries that do not abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be excluded from all relations with the World.   Regardless of how �strategic� and rich they are, they should be treated as pariah states: No diplomatic exchange, no financial help, no trading.  Denying them all the benefits that they gain from the world and isolating them totally would go a long way towards solving strategic problems of life in this world.

We understand that some countries, based on religious and other arguments, have reservation on many protocols. Some may even have reservations on that human rights declaration and may want to negotiate its terms with the world community.  However, dictators (and all un-elected governments) should not be authorized to negotiate on behalf of their citizens who never permitted them to speak on their behalf. 

A Return to the Carter Doctrine

In a sense, what we are calling for is a return to the Carter Doctrine.  President Jimmy Carter�s foreign policy, at least on the surface, was based on assessing the human right record of a nation and calibrating America�s assistance on this assessment.  This doctrine may have been impractical in the Cold War and, to be sure, it was not consistently applied but there is no reason now, in the beginning of the 21^st Century, in a world of one superpower that is committed to freedom and democracy that this doctrine should not work.

As for the violence that we witnessed last week, it is deplorable and cannot be justified at all. It is a mad action that needs to be condemned by anyone who has any conscience. Whatever the grievance and the justification, such an act violates humanity and is a call to barbarism. We support the USA and the world to trace the perpetrators of such a heinous act and bring them to justice.

We sympathize with those who lost their loved ones. Our hearts are with them. We pass our condolences to the whole world that was made to witness such a senseless act.  We hope this will be the last such act where life is wasted in the thousands. We hope we learn from such a tragic act and find a better way to keep such violence at bay. We encourage Eritreans residing in the USA to reciprocate the hospitality afforded us by this great nation by donating blood and volunteering for help.  We hope the Almighty will help humanity go through this ordeal peacefully.

We call on the leaders of the Free World, as they go about their business of forming coalitions and hunting down the terrorists, to sternly warn the tyrants known as the �friendly allies� �beginning with Pakistan and ending with Eritrea�to surrender power to the people.   The leaders of the Free World should know, by now, that totalitarian states build terrorists and if, as President Bush says, the world is waging war against terror, then those who create the environment for terror must be removed.