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“There's three of us who are going to do something about it."
"There are places where history is inescapable, like a highway accident-places where geography provokes history."
- Joseph Brodsky
Language fails to describe the place where one of the darkest events in the history of human liberty took place.
‘Kill one, frighten a thousand" is the totalitarian and terrorist watchword.
As the only survivor of the Iron Curtain Crossing, I know that it is possible to frighten millions. I also know too well how for years and years excuses for communism were offered and accepted, and a policy of appeasement was adopted.
In the effort to defeat terrorism, individuals and nations must not be content to preach from the sidelines.
The same type of effort that was put together to get rid of communism is required now. No shelter for terrorism must be allowed to remain no quarter can be given, or the plague will resume with even greater fury.
Why am I proud to be part of our human race despite the barbarism I witnessed? Because I read a story in the paper saying how moments before the San Francisco-bound plane went down, businessman Mr Thomas Burnett of San Ramon, California, called his wife, telling her he feared the flight was doomed but he and two other passengers planned to do something about it. Mr Burnett and his friends were not willing to lose freedom without a fight.
As a result, the last of four hijacked planes advances toward an unknown but surely populated destination, passengers huddle together and plot resistance against their captors, an act that explains why the plane failed to reach its target, crashing instead into an empty field outside Pittsburgh.
The many ways some people found courage and others came together to help one another may be the only redeeming factor of this horrible deed.
Watching this week’s tragic events unfold filled me with intense feelings of sadness, anger and powerlessness.
No matter how much we try to be deep, we try and try ... it dawns upon us that no one can really comprehend what happened to us on 11 September 2001. It was too big, too sad.
It is now our responsibility to make the world become a safer and better place. One and all of us need love, care, prayer and our own personal ways of showing defiance and that we will not accept defeat.
Nothing is Impossible.
A captain on United's Flight 564 had this to say recently on the public address system:
"I want to thank you brave folks for coming out today. We don't have any new instructions from the federal government, so from now on we're on our own.
Sometimes a potential hijacker will announce that he has a bomb. There are no bombs on this aircraft and if someone were to get up and make that claim, don't believe him.
If someone were to stand up, brandish something such as a plastic knife and say 'This is a hijacking' or words to that effect here is what you should do: Every one of you should stand up and immediately throw things at that person — pillows, books, magazines, eyeglasses, shoes —anything that will throw him off balance and distract his attention. If he has a confederate or two, do the same with them. Most important: get a blanket over him, then wrestle him to floor and keep him there. We'll land the plane at the nearest airport and the authorities will take it from there.
Remember, there will be one of him and maybe a few confederates, but there are 200 of you. You can overwhelm them.
The Declaration of Independence says 'We, the people' and that's just what it is when we're up in the air: we, the people, vs. would-be terrorists. I don't think we are going to have any such problem today or tomorrow or for a while, but some time down the road, it is going to happen again and I want you to know what to do.
Now, since we're a family for the new few hours, I'll ask you to turn to the person next to you, introduce yourself, tell them a little about yourself and ask them to do the same."
Under communism, samizdat magazines used to misquote the German anti-Nazi activist, Pastor Martin Niemöller.
After one of the darkest events in the history of human liberty I want to take a liberty to misquote Pastor Niemöller.
First the terrorists came to kill the Americans
and I did not speak out ( or do anything to help) — because I was not American.
Then they came for the English
and I did not speak out — because I was not English.
Then they came for the French
and I did not speak out — because I was not French.
Then they came for me, the Slavic born exile, —
and by then there was no one left to speak out for me.
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