“Good came out of evil” is a commonly heard cliché. I believe it helps us to understand extraordinary and dangerous events and persuades us to think positively. How can we apply this cliché to 9/11? I think evil is always evil; the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were heinous crimes, but the good has been how we human beings have coped with it, both the American people and the Muslims world over. Ordinary Muslims refused to buy into Osama Bin Laden’s ideology of waging war on the West and similarly the West refrained from succumbing to the idea of waging a war on Islam.
Sadly, our government and the American government did make a hasty decision to attack and occupy Afghanistan and later Iraq; both wars have brought untold misery to countless thousands. This “War on Terror” has given me a better understanding of the West. Its people can be trusted to be good neighbours who have a clear sense of justice. I hope people in the West have also seen that ordinary Muslims too can be good neighbours.
