In My Opinion: An Attack on Civilization

The barbarous events of September 11 were an attack on ordinary people, working people, and on civilization itself.

Some of their faces and stories are found on pages 6 and 7 of this issue - the victims from our own CWA family. We mourn for them and pray for their families. And our hearts also go out to others who lost friends and loved ones in these tragic events.

Together with more than 6,000 other people these members merely went to their jobs that morning, or boarded airliners for business or holiday trips. And in the span of an hour and 25 minutes they were all dead in four monstrous acts of calculated cruelty.

It also was ordinary working people who were the heroes in the aftermath of the devastation of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the plane crash in Pennsylvania. Fire fighters, police, and emergency medical personnel in New York were joined by rescue workers from all over America.
What we saw as we grieved in the days and weeks after the terrorist assault was a stirring example of Americans at their best. The financial capital of New York, often viewed as a symbol of greed and selfishness, is now a symbol of the opposite - of caring, of selflessness, even, quite literally, of self-sacrifice.

Across the nation, people gave blood, donated money for the victims' families and offered help any way they could. It was a coming together of the American community.

It will help sustain us in the post-September 11 world if we can continue to nurture that concept of the American community, of our interdependence, and also of the progressive values behind our conviction that we are a moral world leader as well as a superpower.

The attacks of September 11 were certainly an act of war, committed not by another nation but by an organized terror network whose global reach few of us realized, and whose cold capacity for mass murder shocked the civilized world.

The president and our congressional leaders are taking exactly the right approach in moving to eradicate this menace. We face a fanatical, completely ruthless enemy that cannot be appeased or negotiated with. Besides bolstering domestic security, it is clear that we have to go after these terrorist groups around the world and root them out. That means building alliances and winning support from NATO and the United Nations, which wisely we are doing.

The terrorist leaders surely counted on a strong reaction to their atrocities, and they no doubt hope that military action stirs up further anti-American resentment and hatred and fosters political instability in the Middle East and Central Asia. Therefore, it's vital that we continue to draw a distinction between the forces of terror and the civilian populations of countries such as Afghanistan who themselves are brutalized by these people.

Terrorism breeds in an atmosphere of hatred and ignorance, which in turn is linked to conditions of terrible poverty and suffering. While the administration has ruled out "nation building" as part of this effort, certainly we are going to have to find ways to help improve conditions for the peoples of this region - and above all, not leave them worse off as a result of our actions.

Is there a role for organized labor in this war on terror? Yes, I believe so.

The worldwide labor movement has always been a powerful force for freedom and human rights, and the mortal enemy of totalitarians and hate mongers, from Hitler and Stalin to the Osama bin Ladens of today. Significantly, it was the rise of the Solidarity union movement in Poland that breached the Soviet Communist grip on Eastern Europe, heralding the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

The network of unions around the world, including the Islamic world, represent an important channel for countering - worker to worker - the demonization of America, and indeed of modern civilization, by the radical elements who have perverted the basic tenets of a great religion.

And unions around the world stand with us. Take a look at CWA's Internet site at the address shown on the front cover. There you will see some 200 messages received from unions and activists from Iceland to Pakistan, from every region of the world, deploring the September 11 attack as an assault not just on America, but on humanity.

You will see that millions of unionists already are enlisted in the war against the enemies of liberty, democracy and human rights.