ON SEPTEMBER 11

On September 11 I took breakfast at home with some friends, watching the phenomenon of global television. What seemed like a fortuitous event or at least incomprehensible suddenly he turned into hell after the impact of the second plane into the other tower of the World Trade Center. After convinced that this was a meticulous and perpetuated with cold concoction attack, eventually became weightless. Uncertainty supplanted watches. Then, the information was confirmed a third attack, this time against the Pentagon. And later, the rumor of another fallen into the open air. Enough nuances to recreate the Dantesque hell. Expectations of how many attacks were still missing, who they were and where they come occupied the minds. Plus any vagary was overshadowed by the drama of the structures on fire, people trapped, firefighters, police and rescue workers doing the impossible. Until every effort was vain and souls of thousands were filled with death, death to dry, watching live the last gasp of the towers before becoming inert, like a tomb formed by a pile of charred rubble and twisted metal.

The world learned that there was an organization that had not heard, called Al Qaeda. And soon their leader, Osama Bin Laden, would be the most wanted person on the face of the earth. Terrorism as Hamas or Hizbullah, which strikes Israel, may have targets in trans-Atlantic lands. That the Taliban could acquire renowned not only for their dynamiting antiques Buddhists in Afghanistan, but to trigger a war between continents on Asian soil.

President Bush convened a great cross later. His invitation was only heard by Britain and Spain. His former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and former president Jose Aznar still fail to explain the rationale for their decisions. The truth is that the massive weapons of Saddam Hussein, which were the pretext for riding all military mobilization, nothing was achieved. Not only they never appeared, but they never existed. Geo-political imbalances that would serve for the monstrosity, between the intervention and the withdrawal of troops, the so-called Islamic State. In places like Algeria and Syria called "Arab Spring" (the "misnamed", according to Father Rodrigo Miranda, Chilean missionary in Aleppo, Syria) only served to remove the bars of excuses to precipitate chaos.

While the eyes of the world focused on the Middle East, Latin America was no longer the backyard of Uncle Sam to become invisible. And the left mushroomed across the continent. Both left and right-thinking more obtuse left, defiling the first because of the second. In this different world coordinates it was filled with threats, political radicalism and religious fanaticism. While politicians, who should be serious politicians in countries with consolidated democracies, fell into disrepute. The world economy shrank when the housing bubble burst in the United States. When you want the doldrums, Spain and Greece represent a heavy burden of instability. And the Brexit fits stroke under the European unionism.

How could fall into the abyss size? Of course that is impossible to analyze in a few lines, or consider having the expertise to such an enterprise. However, to say something, own print all these years and follow the news, would not hurt. Maybe, in strictor sensu own Herculean task of a multidisciplinary team. But something can be said to justify these characters.

The world waged an ideological positions and the Cold War. So the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and, behind this, the Soviet bloc in 1990, perplexed more than one. The globalization of the free market, in its boldest neoliberal version (and maybe wild), it was imposed as the only viable alternative. It was time for the yuppies. The economic criterion was thinking that exceeded the historical enemy of Communism, it was a matter of time constantly expanding comfort zones result of the imposition of Western institutions. Nothing could resist. Ideas (and ideologies) were in decline, as late-season deals. Silicon Valley technology flooded and changed the culture. Computers were the first step towards a revolution in computing. Time and space to be narrowed simply by-products of Postmodernism. Rationalist seriousness apparently firmly sustained atheism left the seat to religious experiences and avant-garde experiments, of course, highly marketable. The primacy of emotion became the new dogma to follow. Plain and conventional religion criticism and reason were retreating, also pushed by scandals of different colors (perhaps by waiving the right to make room for the drives?).

This layer of tranquility, supported more arrogance than in reality, that September 11. Woke vanished tragically reverie which had fallen people. The economic criterion was not as absolute or generalizable. Thought, religion, nationalism and various “raigambres” (roots: roots. Issues that are difficult to eradicate, firmness that rely on their substrate) have enough to unleash the worst nightmares specific weight. But can also, at least the thought and religion, prop towards new conquests, such as peace and ecological balance.

Behind the scenery of idyllic tranquility conflicts based on years of humiliating contradictions they were generated. Explain, of course, is not justified. In the World Trade Center innocent people died. But the incubus was brewing by the imposition of a culture that considered itself as superior and, of course, wanted to export its institutions and subdue peoples for their interest. This was considered serious conflicts could be generated only between developed countries, Teutonic, not barbarians of any other race or consideration (excluding China). Then, in the Middle East the most belligerent premises of the Koran to justify the use of force is exacerbated, in proportions not known conventional terrorism or leftist guerrillas. And the moral condition of the West, by its decision or lack of decision, was making his temper or his "soul" dwindle under the influence of the blandishments of pleasure and the smallness of thought. The taming of the West to abide by the dictatorship of single thought, the dictatorship of capital, makes this may fragment into its cohesion and integrity. In technological terms, the West remains a formidable enemy but perhaps no temple or conviction to move, for example, ground troops. To relativize values, alliances are absolutely pragmatic. The interest makes everything flow from one side to the other, depending on the time and convenience. And this has to do with the Christian tradition.

Non simplify or not to impose, the situation of the West reminds me of the parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk. 15: 11-32). A son asks for part of his inheritance to the parent and partly to distant lands; there squanders his goods to stay in the “carraplana” (in ruins). The atrocious hunger pushes him to pursue one of the vilest offices for a Jew: feed pigs. Not only that, but you want satiated by eating what they eat them: it is about to become one of them (this contemptuous not only indicates a degradation of the human being to a condition animal subsistence, but "pig" is a pejorative with which the qualified Jews to the pagans, in terms of divine remoteness). Then think (oh, blessed right!) in the workers of his father and says they are better than him. And he plans his return to be nothing more than another laborer. When the father arrives he receives it, it entertains, it wears finely with rings and sandals and kills the fatted calf, to summon party (which contrasts with the husks that the pigs ate). The older brother became angry, does not seem fair, and refuses to enter the parental home. The father argues with him and seeks to convince him: everything about him is he (the father is not reserved anything for himself), so, but apparently did not know it, at any time could have organized a party with friends. And if the father is happy, it is because he has recovered well to her younger son lost-found, dead-alive again.

West has been pushing aside their Christian tradition. It is true that it was given to fanaticism and wars. But the most genuine impulse has been to great saints, men and women: A Martin Luther King, Dieterich Bonhoffer and his wife or mother Teresa in Calcutta are inexplicable if overlooked their faith. The same quest for freedom, equality and justice has to do with the Christian matrix of these companies, although having renounced religion. And one of the most beautiful values, that have spread with an indescribable respect for receiving cultures, has been the faith. That faith gives us the God revealed as the merciful father in the parable, which is not imposed, but respects the decisions of his son. That is not indifferent, so craves the ability to wrap and reflection (of reason) of his youngest son, but does not go out to look for (Christ goes to look for who can on their own not to return, as the lost sheep, but the Father is maintained on the perimeter of the house but rolled outward). Hence a genuinely Christian attitude is proactive and not tax. It is open to dialogue and learn from other cultures and religions. Contact different from what mercy and not imposed hegemonically. Respects and values ​​the stories, although the youngest son has been more adventurous and the most correct eldest son. The fortunes of younger brother allow the greatest fall into account what the Father is.

For the Christian, and it could be for the Western world, if it recovers its roots, fraternity is possible only if the differences are accepted, in the house of the Father, and relationships are rebuilt. The fraternity is recovered in the shadow of parenthood. No orphanhood in the fraternity, but fatherhood is momentum and dynamism of fraternity, to overcome whatever stand, but without canceling the other.

It is true that the armed response, in many cases it is difficult to circumvent. It is true that on one side of the scale weighs the death of innocents, authentic genocides. It is true that the West mutes the persecution against Christians, in and out of their land. It is true that the dogs of war get huge profits of these conflicts, which are laboratories of experimentation step sophisticated and lethal inventions. But diplomacy cannot be silenced. Collaboration as a service is still a good cover letter. Service to the neediest, the last, the outcasts, is a good diplomatic embassy Perhaps it was not for the Church in the person of Teresa of Calcutta? In some part of East, it is not linked up with some of the West?