Terrorist

Novemeber 18, 2009.  The sun rose at 6:00 AM and greeted the slumbering residents of a New Jersey suburban town with its warm embrace.  At 7:00, approximately 1100 students of the local high school had emptied their breakfast bowls.  At 7:35, they were in school, shuffling through hallways to get to class.  In the mean time, teachers straightened out desks and chairs, anticipating another bustling session in the midst of an even more bustling environment.  Janitors began their grueling work, and the school kitchens came alive with the salty aroma of French fries and hamburgers. Yes, it was just another typical day in West Windsor Plainsboro High School South.  Everything was going according to the schedule.  Then a terrorist paid a visit.  That terrorist was I.


I wore thick sunglasses, a white surgical mask, and a purple hooded shirt.  My objective was not to simulate terrorist activities nor demonstrate my ignorance of Halloween’s actual date, but to challenge the common belief that a masked identity indicates terrorism.


A mask holds many meanings.  It can mean secrecy.  It can also mean sickness.  But many times, people associate masks with illegal activities, the most favorable one of them being terrorism. 


Terrorism is omnipresent.  In the news, we see Al Quaeda militants beheading innocent bystanders.  In the movies, we see Russian extremists hijack Air Force 1.  In the papers, we read about American soldiers getting mangled by the dangerous traps set up by the Taliban.  The motives behind each terrorist organization may vary, but one thing for certain is that all terrorists wear masks.  So says society.


I put on my mask because I wanted to show other people that underneath my disguise I was still Minjeh Lee, a 16-year old Korean American sophomore at West Windsor Plainsboro High School South.  No one believed me.  They all thought I was a terrorist. 

“Who is that kid?  Is he a terrorist?”

“Oh my god, a terrorist!”

“Dude, you look like a terrorist.”

“Why are you dressed like a terrorist?”

“Hey, when’s the next Jihad?”


I didn’t understand.  Why did my mask make me a terrorist?  Don’t non-terrorists also wear masks?  Take superheroes for example.  Batman, Ironman, Green Lantern, and Spiderman all wear masks.  Nobody calls these guys terrorists.  So why did not people think that I was a justice-defending, liberty-loving masked hero?


I walked into my American Studies class to find out why.  My teacher, Mrs. Schomburg made no initial comment on my appearance but stared at me for a good amount of time.  Then she began teaching.  After five minutes, she paused abruptly and asked me to take my mask off.  I asked her why.


“It’s creeping me out.”


I tried to reason with her why my mask should not disturb her in anyway. I was not pretending to be a “creepy” figure nor was I trying to gain attention from other people by blatantly acknowledging my new “outfit”.  I was only sitting in class, listening to her lecture on the Continental Congress.   I also told her that my external appearance had nothing to do with my objectives.


“I don’t care,” she replied.  “You look very intimidating.”


Still, I did not take my mask off.  I just did not understand why she could not disregard my appearance and continue teaching.


“Please, please take it off.”


At this point, I felt compassion for the lady, because from the way she was begging me to take my mask off, she must have found my appearance genuinely frightening.  I acted accordingly, and took off my mask.


The next day, I put on my mask again and went to school as usual.  I had chemistry first.  I walked in nonchalantly and settled down on my desk.  Mrs. Jaworsky, my chemistry teacher, glanced at me and then told me to take off my mask. 


I did not answer her.


“You have to take it off or you will get a zero.”


I still did not take it off.


“Look, you stay here with the mask on you will get a zero.  You really want to keep that thing on, you will have to go the counselor’s office and tell her why you were excused from class.  You will still get a zero though.”


Way to hit my weak spot, Mrs. Jaworsky, I thought.  I did not want to give up on my project easily, but I did not want to take any academic repercussions either.  I thought hard with both hands on my head. 


“Stay here!  Stay here!”  My classmates exclaimed.  The room filled with raucous chants and hoots.  I knew what I had to do.  I took off my mask and stayed in class.


The purpose of transcendentalism is not to conform.  Had I stayed in class with my outfit on, I would have conformed to the desires of my classmates.  Instead, I followed my inner thoughts and concluded that academic excellence was the priority motive.  I took off my mask. 


“It’s the rule,” Mrs. Jaworsky said.  “You can’t wear anything like that in school.”


Why? 

Because it obviously means you’re up to no good with that thing on your head, you pesky terrorist.


Her harsh blue eyes seemed to bore that thought into my head.


My friends thought I was terrorist.  My teachers thought I was a terrorist.  Pretty much everyone in WWPHSS thought I was a terrorist.  I only had to put on a mask and shades to enjoy such a grand conviction.  I came to realize that people associate masked figures immediately to terrorism because society makes them believe so.  The media shows countless images of battered streets and destroyed buildings, followed by even more images of masked men with guns and knives.  The media pumps fear into people by consistently channeling information of the latest terrorist activity on screen.  Even the Board of Education prohibits the wearing of hoods in campus.  Why?  It is because they are afraid.  They are afraid that a hooded or masked student will come to school and shoot everyone, because that is what hooded and masked people do on the television.


What is surprising though, is that not all terrorists mask themselves. The men who were responsible for the 9/11 bombings did not wear masks. They were dressed like average businessmen.  The men who bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City were not masked.  The gunman Charles Carl Roberts did not wear a mask when he held the Amish school kids hostage.  The two boys who wreaked havoc at Columbine High School did not wear any masks.  They headed right in with their guns and shot at everyone.


If my peers and teachers at WWPHSS had reasoning skills, they would not have associated my disguise with terrorism.  Instead, they blindly believed what society told them to believe.  Mrs. Schomburg’s remarks and Mrs. Jaworsky’s icy looks were not derived from their thoughts.  They were reflections of society’s stereotype on terrorists.  If I were an actual terrorist, I would not have elaborated my appearance in such a way to draw so much attention.  That would have greatly hindered my motive in destroying the school or kidnapping a faculty member (hypothetically, of course.  I would never do such things).


Fear of terrorism comes not from a genuine fear of terrorism, but from the crude images that society provides for the masses to absorb.  Because of this irrational fear, people continue to believe society, as if believing is the only protection from harm.  Yet, people “must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but explore if it be goodness” (Emerson, “Self-Reliance”).  They must see through the masks and the headscarves and find out for themselves what truly defines a terrorist.  Once they realize the true characteristics of a terrorist, they must work to understand the mindset of a terrorist.  Through peaceful negotiations and tolerance, the violent urges of even the most vicious terrorist can be pacified.  It has been proven that FBI agents were able to extract much more valuable information from terrorists and terror suspects by speaking to them in their native tongue and treating them with respect, than the CIA who tried to milk the information from the terrorists through water-boarding and other forms of torture.


As the project came to a conclusion, I realized that transcendentalism was an impractical and overly idealistic concept for the 21^st century.  I certainly agreed with the idea of self-reliance and some parts of civil disobedience, but I noticed that the general concept of transcendentalism did not stress the importance of being compassionate towards other people.  I am not one to ask, “Are they my poor?” (Emerson, “Self-Reliance”) when I am asked to donate for charity.  I took off my mask when I realized that I was tormenting my teacher. 


I had stood up for my beliefs at the expense of making others feel uncomfortable. When my peers avoided me and called me terrorist-related names, I held my head high and thought myself as a rugged individualist.  As my experiment progressed, no one accosted me.   I certainly did not like that.  I learned that I greatly appreciate human interaction.  I realized that I am much more sociable than I thought I was, and preferred developing friendships to obsessing over personal convictions.  Emerson said, “It is easy in solitude to live after our own, but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude” (Emerson, “Self-Reliance”).  I am not courageous enough to follow this philosophy at a daily basis, and I certainly do not wish to alienate myself from other people just to convey my sense of self-reliance and civil disobedience.  I love my friends and I love life too much to become an insensitive hermit.  After all, even the most self-reliant person cannot do everything on his own.  His nonconformist ideas will not take care of him when he is ill, but his friends and family will.  Sorry Waldo.  I think it is time you went looking for a different audience.