Beslan, September 3rd 2004

AP wire photo

Donations to the victims of the Beslan hostage crisis can be sent through International Foundation for Victims of Terrorism - http://www.moscowhelp.org/

It would be wrong to think that because Russian and Soviet governments have demonstrated remarkable power to create terror and fear in their subjects they would provide their heirs with the appropriate abilities to respond to terror. If this were true, then Russia would stomp out global terrorism almost singlehandedly and we would all lay glowing tributes at their door.

I'm not qualified to do anything but throw my own opinions around as to why the situation happened in such a chaotic manner. Russia has been suffering for years from budget cutbacks and scant funding for their military. Few of them have undergone any sort of anti-terrorist training and hostage situations are not a priority on the training list when there's hardly enough money to buy bullets and food. That said, I think it would be wrong to lay all the blame with the FSB and the military. They are not fighting the war they expected to fight, and their opponents are hardly using a reasonable playing field. The dreadful denouement of the Beslan situtation was probably as much accident and chance as it was planning.

What happened in Beslan was not the act of an organized resistance group fighting for seperatism and their own manifest destiny. What happened in Beslan has already happened in America.

If the men and women who took the school hostage had any political goals, they were secondary considerations. One simply does not take hundreds of hostages and refuse offers of humanitarian aid during the negotiations if one is intent on gaining international support. What we saw here was not our traditional sort of terrorism, where governments employ shadowy police or snipers hunt politicians through gunsights. Welcome to the new world, where the primary goal is no longer the message, but the fear. What on earth could shock a world after we saw planes pulled from the sky and used as weapons? The logical answer is something even more cruel, more careless of basic human values. Children make a sensible target because they are both smaller, weaker and presumed more innocent.

The targets are no longer confined to the people who make policy decisions or enact them. Anyone can be a target. That is why terrorism works, because it seems to strike at random against both the culpable and the innocent alike. It has been moving in this ugly direction for decades, though we didn't realize where it would end up.

Much like the situation in Israel, Russians in the past few weeks have endured a terrifying set of random-seeming attacks. Suicide bombers brought down two planes, and a subway car. Over the past two years there have been a rising number of such attacks, including the disasterous theater seige in Moscow. In Beslan, both the random and the premeditated came together in a resounding explosion of violence and death. The first day of school was chosen because it is a popular celebration in Russia, and the school was certain to be crowded with children, families, and teachers. These people were not chosen because of their political importance, or strategic value. They were chosen because their deaths would be the most gruesome. Their deaths would cause the most horror, the most shock, and the most terror.

The war on terror is misleading. We are not fighting an army, a country, a dictator or a spiritual leader. It is a war against an idea, against a cultural meme. We stand as much chance of winning a war against an idea as we do of winning the war on drugs. It's guerrilla warfare taken to a new level. How do we fight this? By stepping out of our little comfort bubbles, by paying attention to the entire world instead of our sphere of influence, by acting with some kind of care and consideration for the long term consequences of our actions. We have to educate our children to be better people than we are now. We have to teach them to care enough to try and change the world.

I won't go into why we pay more attention to dead Russian children over dead Nigerian children or the host of attendant issues on that score. I will say that I'm writing about this now because Russia has always meant something to me from afar. I studied about the Soviet Union and the Russian empire with a passion because it seemed to encapsulate the entire history of the world from politics to art and magic. The literature made me passionate, and the history made me care about more than just my own world. Russia was one of my first loves because it had everything.

This is the world we live in now.


AP wire photo

(no subject)

I had expected to be at Cate's by now, but I'm still in Austin. Stupid flasher, stupid car dash, stupid broken turn signal. And dear lord above it's humid out there. I stood outside for five minutes and I'm drenched in sweat.