Six months later, the outrage dims

This week marks six months since the horrific terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Millions of us - in the United States and throughout the world - remain in mourning. Millions of us are still reeling from the blows, emotionally, psychologically, ideologically and spiritually. Many of us have been forced to reexamine our world views, even as too many of us have altered our routines to respond to the terrorist threat.

Alas, among many Americans living in Canada, we have noticed that while we continue to mourn, too many Canadians are back to business as usual, mindlessly criticizing the United States, and foolishly deceiving themselves that these attacks were not directed at them as well.

In various conversations I have had with American students at McGill University over the last few weeks, the comments and complaints have been remarkably uniform. All acknowledged how moved they were by the initial Canadian response. The personal condolences, the public ceremony on Parliament Hill, the generalized outrage, were greatly appreciated. One student recalled how grateful she was that all the American students studying at McGill received a letter from the principal, Bernard Shapiro, offering emotional support and inquiring whether any students needed additional financial support in the wake of the destroyed businesses, the ailing industries. Such a gesture was particularly appreciated on a campus that more frequently feels big and anonymous than warm and cuddly.

And yet many of these students report that within a matter of weeks, such sentiments had disappeared and such gestures were all but forgotten. Instead, the blame-America-firsters came to the fore, claiming that "America got what it deserved." One student said her economics professor repeatedly wasted class time with tirades against U.S. foreign policy, despite the fact that the course had nothing to do with the United States. Another noted that more of her Canadian professors complained publicly about the great scandal of the second semester - the Olympic figure skating brouhaha - than had complained about the great trauma of the first semester.

It bears repeating that the terrorist attacks were so evil not only because of their scale, but because of their pointlessness. Attacking civilians on a commercial jet, destroying office buildings, murdering thousands of innocents, simply to spread fear and pain, are crimes, not acts of war. Many of the people caught in the wreckage were foreigners and immigrants, Muslims and Hindus, rich and poor. The deadly infernos did not discriminate.

The continuing mystery surrounding Osama bin Laden's motives speaks for itself. Some experts insist he intended to take down the United States, just as he believed that Muslim resistance in Afghanistan took down the Soviet Union. Others say that he was most motivated by the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia - a presence that allowed the United States to go to the aid of another Islamic country, Kuwait, and continues at the request of Saudi Arabia itself.

All these theories, as well as the wackier ones that connect these acts to American missteps in Latin America, or generalized Third World issues, too often end up rationalizing and justifying bin Laden's evil acts. It is, of course, important to explain what motivates these hate-filled Muslim fanatics, but a search for explanations need not become an exercise in finger-pointing. And it is morally reprehensible to blame the victim.

Moreover, it is downright delusional to believe that these hate-mongers are as discriminating as many Canadians would like to believe they are. These fundamentalists view the West as fundamentally evil, they view democracy as fundamentally flawed. That is why they would view explosions on Canadian bridges, in Canadian neighbourhoods, as "victories" as well.

Canadians need to understand that niceness as a foreign policy does not work against evil fanatics. Moral equivalence is a form of moral blindness and a recipe for Western defeat in this unsought and unpleasant war. Canadians need to learn that terrorism as a tactic needs to be condemned unilaterally, in all forms, in all contexts. Those who think that America "got what it deserved," those who try to justify Palestinian attacks on Israeli pizzerias because the motivations are "political," those who claim that if we respond too aggressively "we might be next," are stuck in "September 10th," the new American shorthand for those who are out of touch.

The lessons of Munich, 1938, need to be relearned. Calls for appeasement and a commitment to peace at any price can prove very costly indeed when the enemy is ruthless, engaged, evil and determined. It is precisely a country like Canada, with the credibility it has built up for two decades as a peace-loving nation, that must rise up and lead during these difficult times. And it is time for Canadians, even in the university, to rethink their instinctive distaste for American assertiveness, and realize that all Westerners, all good liberals, all democrats, must mobilize and fight the evil that seems to be running rampant in the Middle East, in Southern Asia, and among too many people here in North America as well.

- Gil Troy is a history professor at McGill University.