WASHINGTON — The terrorists struck a symbol of our military might on Tuesday, and they struck a symbol of our economic prosperity. But the symbols of our most fundamental strength — our democracy — they failed to reach. The flight apparently intended for that purpose crashed in rural Pennsylvania, thanks, it seems, to acts of bravery we can only imagine.
So the Capitol and the White House and the Washington Monument remain, unscathed. And the question is: How do we ourselves best protect and sustain our democracy now?
I have been struggling with this in a personal way because, on the morning of this atrocity, I was writing a column I could not write today. I was scolding the president of George Washington University for planning to close his institution, and send his students home, during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings scheduled to be held here in Washington late this month.
"If the campus is functioning, we add a complication to anybody worrying about how to handle crowd control," said the university’s president, noting that police had asked him to get students off the campus, which is blocks from the World Bank and IMF headquarters.
But surely, I wrote in the column, we are valuing disruption-avoidance too highly, and engagement in civic life too little, when we build nine-foot fences in the hearts of our cities and send college students home during meetings of great public import.
So many protests and demonstrations, I wrote — struggles on behalf of civil rights, women’s rights, environmental responsibility and responsible behavior abroad — have helped make this nation what it is. We must not so eagerly protect our institutions that passionate views cannot reach them, nor so readily signal to our students that their views count less than their security.
I killed that column — on the day that our inability to protect our institutions from monstrously passionate views had such devastating effect. And now it appears that the meetings themselves may be canceled.
Still, I can’t extinguish this conviction that the dictates of democracy mustn’t be muscled out by security fears even — no, especially — in the aftermath of these awful terrorist acts. Otherwise, the changes we make in our lives will surely constitute our own assault on our way of life — not an assault that melts a huge building, but one that slowly and hardly visibly erodes our country’s foundations.
Of course, there are some responses so clearly reasonable that we must pursue them unhesitatingly. We must do all we can to find those responsible for this terrorism and bring them to justice. We must determine whether our intelligence services are all that they can be. Is our money being spent wisely? Are our efforts outdated?
We must tighten airport security in every reasonable and promising way. Armed marshals on at least some flights may be a good idea.
We should consult with other nations, many of which have been living for years with terrorism, to shape our responses.
The tone of our response matters, too. The sight of one man after another going before a camera and sternly using phrases such as, "Make no mistake about it," only raises in my heart the fear of all the mistakes we’re likely to make.
The way we are seen abroad matters enormously. When we appear, as we have too often in recent months, to have little regard for the views and priorities of other nations, we fan the flames of international resentment caused by our solitary superpower status. We are widely, and often senselessly, despised. We can’t make that go away, but we can make it worse.
George W. Bush expressed this powerfully when he was running for president. "If we are arrogant," he warned, "they will resent us. If were humble, but strong, they’ll welcome us."
As we recommit ourselves to patriotism — to a richly deserved love for this wonderful, wounded country — we mustn’t forget that, while our military and economic strength keep us flourishing, the nation’s heart and soul are its love of liberty and justice and freedom.
When the steps we take in response to our wounds curb our freedoms, still our voices, cushion the powerful from challenge — or make security the goal that always trumps all others — we’ll ill serve the memory of those who died in that plane that never reached its target in Washington.
Geneva Overholser can be reached at The Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-9200 or overholserg@washpost.com.
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