Most of us will recall where we were on 9/11.

I was in my studio when the announcement came and, like so many others, knew the world would never be the same again. That afternoon I collected my six year old granddaughter from her after-school club. As we drove away, slowing down at the T junction, a boy, brown skinned (Asian, British Asian, Muslim, who knows) of about eleven, still in his school uniform, was sitting on the road sign. He looked me straight in the eye and grinned. I guess that boy will now be in his twenties. Was he a jihadist Muslim in the making? I’ll never know.

Well the world hasn’t been the same. The bombing of Iraq and Afghanistan, supposedly in order to destroy Islamist jihadists then called Al-Qaida, has probably led to the rise of an even more extreme group in ISIS. Western cities have been attacked by suicide bombers and in our own country we see reports of increasing attacks on innocent Muslim people, usually women wearing the hijab.

People look at what’s happening in the world today and many point to religion as the cause of the world’s conflicts both past and present. Wherever you look, religious persuasions have always been used to justify wars and hateful actions with both sides often believing that ‘God’, ‘Allah’, ‘Jehovah’ – or whatever name they might give to their version of the Divine Creator – is on their side. We have always been adept at creating a god in our own image.

It is said that fear is the opposite of love and that hatred is a symptom of fear; the fear of the oppressed and the fear, and perhaps guilt, of the oppressor. If we use the mountain as a metaphor for the Divine Creator, we are all coming up the mountain from different sides, different cultures and belief systems, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist etc that at the ‘extremes’ of the mountain are totally ‘foreign’ to us (how language can be so loaded and appear politically incorrect!) Following that metaphor, it is as we draw up to the Light at the top that differences fade away and there is no longer a place for the shadows of fear and hatred as we see each other as brothers and sisters in the light of Love. In today’s world the top of the mountain seems a long way off.

What can we do about it? Not a lot you might think as we leave our elected leaders to argue it out whether more air strikes and bombing or troops on the ground are the best option against Muslim jihadists in Syria. In the words of the song, ‘Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me’, this is the only place we can start. If life is about anything, it’s about learning to recognise our own personal shortcomings, prejudices and fears, challenging them, and bringing them to the Light.

Going back to the boy on the street sign. Every child will pick up all sorts of things from us adults, including our prejudice and fear. They will accept, and may later reject, many of our interests, opinions, loves and hates. It is up to us to question the influence we have on them, encouraging them to see all sides of a situation (the mountain) and hopefully give them a ‘leg up’ to a higher starting point on their journey towards the Light.

Copyright 2015 Carole Lacy