Page 113 - Age of Peace Goodword.indd

It All Depends on

the Angle of Vision



he English poet and religious writer Frederick Langbridge
T(1849 – 1923) says in one of his poems:
‘Two men looked out from prison bars, one saw the
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mud, the other saw the stars.’
In looking at any event, there are evidently different angles
from which to view it. The opinion one forms depends upon
one’s standpoint. Viewing from one angle can make a person
positive, while viewing from another can make him negative.
This phenomenon is aptly illustrated by the event of 9/11
in the USA. Certain Muslims, who viewed America from the
negative point of view that it was an enemy of Islam, wanted
to teach it a lesson by carrying out a suicide attack on its
soil. On September 11, 2001 a group of terrorists hijacked
four passenger airplanes, two of which were crashed into the
North and South towers of the World Trade Centre complex
in New York City. Both the 110-story towers collapsed and
the resulting fires caused extensive damage to surrounding
buildings in the WTC complex.

Some time after the attack on the World Trade Centre, I
participated in a conference of the Nuclear Disarmament
Forum held in Zug, Switzerland on October 12, 2002. In
the speech which I made on that occasion, I referred to the
horrendous September 11 attacks and while speaking about
this incident, I started to cry. I also wept in my office in New

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