September 14, 2001

Right Action
George Cappanelli

Words - powerful, disturbing, thought-provoking words – so many have already been attached to this tragedy that has brought all of us not only great pain and suffering, but ushered in a new age – as rife with enormous peril as it is with yet to be explored possibility.

Many of the words- especially those I have received in e-mails over the course of the last few days - have touched me deeply. In fact, they, more than the press headlines and hours of television commentary have given me cause to stop, reflect, pray, weep and to evaluate the range of my own feelings - and these run the gamut from disbelief to rage, from sadness to silence. Of particular importance, many of these e-mails have reminded me with stunning accuracy that my thoughts and words of this moment can add substantially to the chaos or to the healing and that it is my choice which contribution I make.

So these words issue from that place of awareness. They are my attempt to reach out across the physical distance that separates me from you to touch you with a phrase that has been echoing in my mind all day. It has come up as a statement, a question and a prayer. Right Action! What is Right Action? May I be guided to Right Action?

As I wrestle with this phrase I am aware that beyond my desire to defend myself from those horrible images - to protect myself from my suffering with the illusion that relief will come from naming an enemy and then striking back, what I need most is prayer. Prayer in the sense of active presence in the silence. Prayer in the sense of active listening for inner guidance and wisdom. Prayer in the sense of being awake in this moment that is so overwhelmed with the flood of feelings, thoughts and emotions.

A memory keeps coming up along with the phrase - Right Action. I am in the back seat of a towncar crossing Los Angeles at 5:00 AM. It's September, 1985. I am sitting beside Bishop Desmond Tutu. We are going to a television studio for a Today Show interview. At the time I am the Director of The International Integrity Program and he, in addition to being the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize is the recipient of our annual International Integrity Award. As we ride along through the darkness we talk about South Africa and the many challenges he faces there and I ask him how he can speak about the atrocities that have been visited on his people with such a sense of patience and understanding. He turns to me and in that remarkable lilting accent says, "George, I feel sorry for the whites. Have you ever considered how afraid people have to be to commit those kinds atrocities? Do you know, I think if I were white and thought I was loosing everything, I would be afraid too."

As I rummage around in search of understanding Right Action, I am very grateful for those moments with Bishop Tutu and hope that this memory will be stronger than my fear and my desire to encourage striking out too quickly to relieve a suffering that seems too monstrous to bear.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said something Tuesday that also seems to be an important part of Right Action. He said that those of us in the free world should collaborate to eliminate terrorism.

Others have been calling for justice in other forms. While still others counsel patience, forgiveness and understanding. Each in their own way contributes enormously to the dialogue.

Still my question remains. What is Right Action? Part Bishop Tutu's grace of understanding, part Tony Blair's eloquent good advice, part the sage counsel for patience and forgiveness so many have expressed. But my soul demands something more in the definition of Right Action.

My disbelief watching the World Trade Center's collapse challenges me to find a deeper meaning and motive for this horrific birth of this new period. Surely…clearly… there must be more here than the tragedy perpetuated by the mad actions of unnamed sociopaths and the opportunity to find and punish them. Surely there must be more here than the flexing of our muscle - no matter how desired or just the reactive flexing might appear.

Right Action it seems to me does, indeed, involve a new world coalition, but not comprised of just of the usual suspects and cronies - the free and wealthy nations. The coalition needs to include the disposed and aggrieved, the struggling and the anguished as well.

Yes, we need to end terrorism, but in all of its forms. We need to route out and eliminate the ugly, retributive form of terrorism that sends men to hurtling through the air toward buildings crowded with people or out on to city streets at rush hour to die in the fraudulent belief that God - any God - would celebrate and reward one of his children for slaughtering others of his flock.

But terrorism does not either begin or end there. Terrorism must be eradicated in all of its forms. The economic, technological and territorial terrorism that grants some the right to prosper while sentencing others to deprivation, illness, suffering and loss. Terrorism in the form of beliefs that elevate one version of God over another. Terrorism that grants rights to some and denies them to others. Terrorism that pretends that the an artificial boundary of land or water or the color of someone's skin, their ethnic, religious, sexual or philosophical preference, or the accident of their birth geography is sufficient cause to declare them unworthy, untouchable or inferior.

Yes, we need a world coalition to fight terrorism - the physical, assaultive kind we witnessed Tuesday and also the emotional, intellectual, economic, technological, scientific and religious kind far too many of us support and exercise unconsciously every day.

Right Action also seems to require a different kind of dialogue - deeper, more honest, fair and decent, and certainly far different solutions. As I realized Tuesday, the actions of just a few can bring out world to a painful halt. Grounding aircraft all across America and in many other countries. Closing financial markets and national borders. Sending rational beings scurrying for cover and receptive to the diminishment of individual liberties and rights. Truly a few disrupting life on every level. Truly just a few people in this intricately interconnected, interdependent world and we are all irrevocably affected.

So it seems that whatever new form of dialogue we create, whatever solutions we uncover, they must issue not from the exclusive and selective, but rather from the collective wisdom available on this planet. To me this not only speaks to the process but requires that voices from all sectors; voices that include a wide representative range of grievances, options and recommendations must somehow be included.

Above all Right Action seems to me to mean that whatever we do - from this moment on - we must do it from this awareness that a collective consciousness exists. We must recognize that if we are ever to hope to see people of different needs engaged in a a true and honest dialogue, then we must give them hope that the their issues and concerns, their pains and sufferings, their dreams and longings can find purchase and ultimately promise on this planet.

Right Actions will involve, it seems to me, finding solutions that require concessions, reparations, sacrifices, forgiveness, apologies, patience and, above all, understanding. And this must be true for each of us - not just the disposed or the unfortunate or the less powerful.

I believe, as Einstein said, that we cannot find solutions to the issues that underlie the dissention, hatred, pain and suffering on this earth on the same level as thon on which we have created the problems. We must go to a higher level, to a place from which new perspectives can be gained and perhaps it is to that level that the pain and suffering of this tragedy can lead us. Perhaps this opening - as painfully torn as it has been - need not close with the hunting down and slaughter of the few who perpetuated it, but rather will go on and on in honor of those lost their lives on Tuesday and those whose lives hang in jeopardy every day.

The press calls this an Attack On America and speaks of Acts of War. If this is true, then we should certainly honor those who have fallen in this battle with new ideas, new hope, new commitment to a deeper and more humane dialogue. And above all, it seems to me that we should honor them by creating a world in which this kind of travesty will no longer happen. A world that is committed to following up on the dialogue with real, honest, and heart felt actions that reduce and where possible eliminate the suffering that goes on each day in all parts of this planet.

While the world may be made safe temporarily by the hunting down and punishing of those who have planned this catastrophic event, surely it must be clear to even the most angry among us that until the beliefs that drive them are identified, understood and addressed others - others even more dedicated and heinous in their intent - will rise in their place. The history of our planet is indeed the history of our unwillingness to grasp this simple fact. This does not mean, of course, that we should not identify and appropriately punish those who resort to such violence, but it does mean that we much do even this in a different, more accountable and responsible manner.

Above all, it seems to me, Right Action requires a new kind of leadership. Clearly the leaders who are now in power - in every sphere of influence from the public to the private sectors - must move beyond the posturing and the isolation and admit that there is much that they do not know and cannot do - either alone or even yet in collaboration. They must be willing to enter again into the experience of learning to discover new competencies, new strategies and, above all, new ways of accessing their own ignorance and of contacting the source of their own deeper and truer wisdom.

It is not hard and it need not take very long. There are so many among us who have the ability to share their learning with leaders; to support, guide, encourage and teach those currently in power so that those who come next to wear their mantles will do so with a greater ability to guide us through the challenges that lie ahead, to encourage, motivate and lead us by example to a place and time in which each of us in this human tribe can inherit and experience the wonder and grace of being human.

So these are some of the elements that are beginning to be a part of my definition of Right Action. I apologize if it has taken me a number of words to get there, but perhaps these words will prompt you to shape a definition of your own. Perhaps they will also encourage us to work together to evolve a definition of Right Action that we can all support and practice in the days and years ahead.

May we each find, in the silence of our being, the voice of wisdom that resides there and may we each have the courage to allow this wisdom to guide our actions.

George Cappannelli (Infoco1@aol.com)
The Information & Training Co

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