Abuse and Terrorism -The Parallels

Peggy K. Williams

September 11^th is likely to be a date the world will never forget; the date when all America stood in shock as heinous terrorist acts paraded across every television screen in this country.  For days we watched, read, and listened to pieces of a puzzle that many of us could not believe.  Fear gripped a nation that had prided itself in its guaranteed freedoms.  How could this happen?  Why did this happen?  When would terrorist acts strike again?  And where?

For the first time in the lives of millions of Americans we felt fear at home.  It consumed our every thought.  Airlines were shut down.  Other modes of transportation exercised extreme security measures.  Law enforcement agencies even reported a drop in crime activity as this fear spread across our nation leaving no one untouched.  We watched thousands of heros as they came to the aid of innocent victims.  We learned of heroism on Flight 93 where average citizens overthrew the terrorists and caused the crash that killed all on board but potentially saved hundreds or thousands of other innocent people.

Then at the plea of President Bush we were urged to return to normalcy; to return to regular television programing and personal life.  It was during that initial return to normal activity that the local evening news channel caught my attention.  The lead story that evening was a Salt Lake County domestic incident that resulted in a homicide-suicide.  My brain involuntarily ran a comparative analysis.  There was a striking resemblance between the terrorist attack on America and the terror a perpetrator creates in the lives of his/her family.

Immediately came the parallels with economic abuse.  There were also similarities for many domestic violence victims whose abusers profess religious license for their methods of control.  Both verbally, emotionally, and spiritually abuse their targets.  Terrorists and perpetrators destroy property in which they have no vested interest.  Recruiting of the young takes place in both camps.  In fact, the fetus being carried by an abused mother is involuntarily exposed to a predisposition for violence simply because of the fear experienced by the family.  Once born, the pattern in the home reinforces the infant's brain mapping.  Another parallel occurs when both terrorists and abusers profess to be the real victims.  Ultimately, both are willing to kill and die in order to win.

As I continued to contemplate the parallels, however, I realized that victims of domestic violence face at least two fears that victims of terrorism don't face.  One, abuse victims must sleep with their enemy.  And two, victims carry intense fear that they won't be believed should they go public.  Victims don't have an enormous pile of rubble that was once the World Trade Center for evidence of their abuse.

Many of you here today are intimately familiar with this home-grown terrorism we call domestic violence.  Many of you have had difficulty sharing your knowledge of the problem to a majority of Americans who can't comprehend your message.  Perhaps an unsuspected gift of the Twin Towers attack will be an event we can use as front line workers to help educate the public at large.  Finally our citizens have had a taste of the fear domestic violence victims live with twenty-four hours a day seven days a week.  Maybe now we can penetrate the hard shell of apathy.  Could this event be the blessing in disguise which enables Americans to at last comprehend the horror called domestic violence?