(EDITOR’S NOTE:  This column first appeared shortly after the 9/11 tragedy in 2001.  It has run every year since, with the author’s updates.)

Cantankerously Yours

To all the grandchildren in the world

By Wendell Abern

Dear Grandchildren Everywhere,

          Today, I am writing to apologize to all of you.

          Usually, I try to write funny things.  But I can’t today.  On September 11, nine years ago, a few evil men stole some airplanes and flew them into buildings, killing thousands of people.  And this month, memorials throughout the country will mourn those who lost their lives.  Reminders of that horrendous day make it too hard to think funny thoughts.        

          Instead, today I want to apologize to everyone in your generation from everyone in mine. 

My generation inherited two world wars that killed millions of people.  We should have learned something from those terrible wars, to make the world a better place for you.  We didn’t … and we didn’t.

And so, it would be hypocritical for me to offer any advice to you.  I can, however, tell you some of the lessons we should have learned … that every generation should have learned.  None ever has.  I hope yours will.

We never learned the one thing that every human being on earth has in common:  none of us asked to be here.  We had no say in the matter at all.  But once given the gift of life, no one should have the right to take it away.  Yet human beings kill other human beings every day.  Every hour.  Every place on earth.  And too often, in the name of some –ism, or –ology, or –ocracy.

One reason for this is because of another lesson no generation has ever learned about its leaders:  how to tell The Good Guys from The Bad Guys.

That is just as dumb as it sounds.  But see … we never understood how badly we want to believe in our leaders.  Our presidents, our prime ministers, our priests, our rabbis — any of our leaders.  We want them to be smart, to be fair, to be honest, and always to be right. 

But our leaders are merely human beings.  They make mistakes, just like we do.  They are wrong sometimes, just like we are.  Yet we continue to endow them with kindness, intelligence and righteousness, whether they possess such qualities or not. 

Another reason we never learned how to tell the Good Guys from the Bad Guys is because history is written by the winners. 

Many centuries ago, a man named Alexander led an army that conquered other countries.  Some history books still refer to him as Alexander The Great.  No history book tells us what he was called by the thousands of widows and orphans his marauding armies left in their wake.

          If Germany had won World War II, the madman Adolph Hitler – arguably the most evil human being who ever lived – would be portrayed in today’s history books as a dynamic, righteous leader.       

Because we want so badly to believe in our leaders, we seem to be willing to do anything they ask.  Our leaders discovered long ago that by using the hatred of others, it is easy to galvanize us in a common cause, which almost invariably leads to mass killings.

Many in this country balked at the Vietnamese War because we didn’t understand who hated us.   Conversely, if our government had declared war on Iran after zealots had kidnapped 52 Americans, everyone in the country would have backed our leaders with fervent jingoism.

          My personal belief is that there is nothing as beautiful or sacred as a human life.  Any human life.  Yet, at some point in the history of our civilization, our leaders decided that our beliefs were more important than our lives.  I’m not sure just when or why this happened, but that has never changed.

          About seven thousand years ago, there were almost 27 million of us listening to a few leaders, telling us to go kill each other in the name of some  -isms.

          About five hundred years ago, there were now 450 million of us, still listening to a few leaders, still telling us to go kill each other in the name of some new -isms.

          Today, there are more than six billion of us, still listening to a few leaders, still telling us to go kill each other in the name of some –isms.

          When does it stop?  When do we stop killing each other?   

More than 150 years ago, a man by the name of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said, “What we learn from history … is that we never learn from history.”  That is just as true today.   How pathetic. 

And because we never learn, we keep repeating past horrors.  Today, more than 60 years after the unspeakable atrocity known as The Holocaust, after a weary world swore, “Never again,” after a United Nations was created to bring peace to the whole planet, genocides continue to flourish. 

Ethnic cleansing seems to occur every decade or so.  As I write this, the slaughter of innocent people continues in Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, all in the name of some –isms. 

When will it end?

Another important lesson we never learned:  don’t stop questioning just because you believe in something.  We have survived on this planet because of our brains.  We are not as strong or fast or agile as most other animals on earth.  But we are smarter.  Our brains are our most potent weapon.  And we should never stop thinking. 

Yet somehow we always do whenever we are told that what we believe in gives us license to kill other human beings.

Well, almost always.

Mahatma Gandhi tried mightily to bring people together with love instead of hatred.  So did Martin Luther King.  So have a precious few others.  Unfortunately, too many leaders have discovered that hatred works better. 

But I believe there are glimmers of hope; that the current president of my country, Barack Obama, is one of several world leaders trying to temper centuries-old conflicts with dialog instead of dogma … that they are sincerely trying to give you a world with much more love than hatred.  I hope your generation can help them succeed.  

And finally, here is a lesson we all should have learned in kindergarten:  there is only one planet that supports life.  This is where we all have to live.  It’s not as if we have other options, like when we want to move to another neighborhood.  There is no other neighborhood.  This is it.  We should be taking care of this planet.  And I must admit, your generation is doing a much better job of it than mine did.

I hope you can start to turn other things around also.

          Most of all, I hope you can start to stop the killing.  It will take many, many future generations for genocides and wars and mass killings to stop.  But it has to start sometime.  I hope it starts with you.  I hope you can make the world a tiny bit better.  And a little bit cleaner.  And much safer.  And that your generation, and all the generations thereafter,  never has to experience another 9/11 tragedy.

          I hope when you are my age, you never have to write a letter of apology to all the grandchildren in the world.

Sincerely,     

Wendell Abern

Wendell Abern can be reached at [email protected].