Nearly 150 people gathered at Court Square on Saturday evening for a candlelight vigil the night before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. (Photo by Doug Manners / DN-R)
Lisa Schirch, director of Eastern Mennonite University’s 3P Security and a professor at the school’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, says it’s an important question that’s not being asked enough.
“It’s become unpatriotic to ask why,” Schirch said during a panel discussion Sunday held in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
While al-Qaida’s use of terrorism is unacceptable, the terrorist network does have legitimate grievances that are shared with many people in the Middle East who denounce terrorism, Schirch said.
Those grievances, including criticism of U.S. foreign policy in the region, should be looked at, she said.
“[Sept. 11] has become more than an opportunity to be patriotic and lament” those who’ve lost their lives, she said.
Schirch, who lobbies the federal government for changes to foreign policy, was one of four EMU faculty and staff who participated in panel discussion on how the terror attacks has changed and shaped their work.
Carolyn Yoder, founder and trainer with EMU’s Strategies for Trauma Awareness program, works to end “cycles of violence.”
People who’ve been marginalized or wronged in some way must face their trauma and come to grips with it, Yoder said, otherwise the cycle continues and leads to aggression.
“We must all work together,” she said. “We have to go deep within ourselves to see the divisions in us that lead to war and violence.”
The talk was one of several events the university held in observance of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
On Saturday, EMU’s Center for Interfaith Engagement joined with several other local groups for an hour-long interfaith vigil on Court Square in downtown Harrisonburg.
Several speakers among the nearly 150 people who gathered at the ceremony pleaded for alternatives to war while also grieving for the nearly 3,000 lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001, and for the soldiers who have died over the past decade.
From a small wooden bridge designed to show unity, about a dozen speakers shared reflections, read poetry and played music that highlighted peace over fighting.
Schirch, one of the vigil’s organizers, told the crowd that in the global world, we all have security or no one has.
“We need to be voices calling for this change, a change where the U.S. is a partner, where the U.S. works with other countries to solve problems,” Schirch said, “and a place where the face of the military is not the first one that an Afghan, or an Iraqi, or a Somali, or a Yemeni person meets.”
Contact Jeremy Hunt at 574-6273 or jhunt@dnronline.com
Contact Doug Manners at 574-6293 at dmanners@dnronline.com
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