Those using terror as a tool have little in common beyond that

About the Author

Rev. Dr. William C. Imes is the president of Bangor Theological Seminary, which has campuses there and in Portland.

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As we approach the fifth anniversary of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, we clearly have not established a shared meaning for the events of that day.

This is not a question of how we shall observe the day. We will remember the stories of those who died and of heroes both living and dead who responded to the multiple crises. We will honor their bravery and mourn those who did not survive.

We will relive our memories of the day: Moments of shock, disbelief, fear, and outrage. We will be renewed in the patriotism and unity that we experienced then and in the following weeks.

These have been our reactions to that day. Yet it remains true that we do not have a shared understanding of its meaning to shape our continued response. The surprise attack felt like Pearl Harbor.

But it was not an act of war in the basic sense of war, acts of hostility between nations or peoples. America has now declared war on terrorism, but the word "war" is used metaphorically.

A literal war involves a declaration of hostility between nations which manifests itself in armed conflict. We have no nation to declare war against.

If we turned against the nations generating the most terrorists, we would declare war on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, two of our allies.

Terrorism is not a true enemy. It is a tactic. Those using terror as a political tool are a wildly disparate bunch who have little in common beside their use of this tactic.

Indians in Mexico, Marxists in India and rebels in the Congo have no connection to Islam. Some persons would label the enemy as "Islamism," but terrorism is not a trademark of any religious or ethnic group.

Instead of a war we are engaged in a struggle. The word "struggle" sounds too small, but it describes our reality.

Ours is a civil struggle on many fronts. To succeed we will need to use wide-ranging policing actions, intelligence operations and diplomatic efforts to contain and control outlaw groups and rogue states who employ terrorism as their primary tactic.

We will need many allies in this struggle. It is not appropriate to make our armed forces the sole, or even the primary actors, in this struggle.

Stopping outlaws requires the commitment and effort of every one of us. In this regard, with the exception of waiting in long security lines at airports, too little has been asked of all of us.

We are also in a cultural struggle. This struggle represents a complex mix of global economic inequity, daunting population shifts from rural to urban settings, rapid and major shifts in the role of women, and in the power of tradition in people's lives.

A major factor is the clash between civilizations where one's faith determines one's politics, and civilizations where faith and politics are both separate and mixed in a complicated equation.

Religion is part of this struggle but not the defining issue. I am distressed when I hear well-educated people say that religious wars have killed more people than any other cause.

Religions have much to repent. But, historically men looking for the fruits of conquest - whether Greeks, Romans or Mongols - have been more deadly than errant religionists to say nothing of the murderous effects of wars of political succession or the ravages of fascism, Nazism, and Communism in the 20th century.

Religion is not a deadly force. At its worst, it does divide people. At its best, it unites people around the world.

America's great contribution to the world has been its model of freedom of religion: the freedom to believe and practice a religion (or not) while vigorously upholding the rights of others to believe and practice as they will.

The outlaws who attacked America (much more in the vein of Jesse James than Adolph Hitler) spout a vicious mix of political and religious fanaticism. We need to end their outlaw behavior.

But our best response is to be the best place on Earth to be a Muslim, Jew, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or person of any other faith (or no faith).

It should be clear that, rather than political, economic or military domination of the world, our goal is simply to share the blessings of freedom, not by force, but by example.

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