News broadcasts in the UK have been leading for the last two days with the tragic event that has engulfed the Amish community.
Foley and the political fall-out is also being discussed, but it gets a second or third ranking to the horror that occurred in that school.
Yet it is not just the horrific details that are being dwelt upon. Today, the newsworthy item coming from Pennsylvania is unique in my experience. The media is focusing on the extraordinary act of forgiveness being shown to the family of the murderer.
It is a touching and deeply moving testimony of peace that is coming out of the USA and one on which I would ask all Kossacks to reflect.
To forgive in such circumstances shows a courage, strength and bravery that those on the Right will never understand and which those on the Left would do well to consider deeply.
It goes to the heart of why the aftermath of 9/11 has been a self-inflicted wound on ourselves by our countries that goes far deeper than anything achieved by the murderers that took control of those aircraft
Whilst I share many of the views of the Amish, I am not comfortable with all of their beliefs. Nor do I romanticise them, as I am well aware that even within their own community there are unresolved problems.
Least of all do I accept their withdrawal from the wider world in which they are equal participants. I do accept, however, that they are trying to make their lives of peace a silent testimonial that is in itself an engagement with a nation that has little understanding of the nature of their inspiration.
I would ask Kossacks to consider what sort of world we might now be in if the instinctive reaction to the events of 9/11 had been that of the Amish? (I should not use the word "instinctive". The grandfather of two of the girls has described the struggle that he has experienced to achieve this state of grace in his heart towards those who have caused him so much pain).
What we got was George Bush strutting his stuff on a world stage that he neither understood nor with which he had any real empathy. We had the immediate rhetoric of revenge, of death and retribution. Nations were identified as the axis of evil and plans were implemented that have now been shown to bring death to the innocent as well as guilty.
I think many in the US were sheltered from some of the horrified reaction in Europe to the language being used by your President at that time. Indeed, he had many apologists over here. "Dead or alive" and many of the other off-hand knee-jerk comments of this intellectually stunted man were explained away. "It is a Texan thing" we were told. "You need to understand the American ethos" it was explained. Even as the war plans were being drawn up, we were asked to ignore the speeches as merely the tools for helping to focus the attention of the American people whilst the real activities of diplomatic statesmanship were supposedly at play behind the scenes.
All today, a slightly overweight, kindly, motherly lady from Pennsylvania has been on our TV screens in the UK. She was a midwife who helped deliver two of the girls. She took the message to the grandfather of them, who is a senior elder of the Amish, that the family of the murderer would like "to visit on the families of those killed". His reply is what the news commentators found so overwhelmingly unlike anything in their experience "I was hoping that they might ask to do so", he said.
This is not a religious matter. It is one that goes deep to all our understanding of what humanity is all about.
Just think what we might now be dealing with if the first reaction to 9/11 had been to invite the Afghan government and all the heads of the Muslim countries to fly to New York and share in the grieving of all those nations, including their own, that suffered the deaths of innocents in the Twin Towers
How much courage, bravery and risk of personal credibility would it have taken for George Bush to have sought for a pause in the shock and grieving of his people to have asked for such a visit? What sort of outcomes might there have been?
I don't know how this diary will play to American ears. I doubt that it will get any visibility amongst the Foley diaries and the disgust that writers on here want to show towards the Republicans for the other events of the last few days.
Please, though, understand that a group of your fellow citizens are being heard outside the United States and their voice is not that of a mythical cowboy calling out another in a western saloon for some wrong that has been committed against him and his family. It is a voice of profound sanity in the middle of a madness that is difficult to conceive.
Be proud and pleased that this other American voice is being heard. It offers more hope to our world than a thousand speeches in the Middle East by Condi Rice.
(Crossposted from ePluribus Media)