Thinking after Terror: An Interreligious Challenge

Abstract

One of the images broadcast on the Internet in the aftermath of 9/11 was that of a face peering through the fumes and ashes, rising like sacrificial smoke from the twin towers. This, we were ominously informed, was the visage of Bin Laden: the enemy who was there and not there. The face of an unspeakable, inexplicable, unlocateable terror which was now suddenly, mysteriously, crossing our radar screens. Here was the epitome of all those impure substances that infiltrate our being: nicotine, drugs, alcohol, the AIDS virus; or more ominously still, the anthrax powder filtering through buildings and letter boxes. Like planes slicing through air-conditioned offices of a New York high rise. Like terrorists impersonating law-abiding neighbours next door. This horror of horrors was threatening to invade the very borders of the nation, the frontiers of the state, the precincts of our cities, the walls of our homes, the skin of our bodies — spiralling into the core of our being. This was one particular phantasmagoria of terror in the wake of 9/11.