On the morning of September 11, 2001, Phyllis Rodríguez (b. 1943) returned home from an early walk along the Bronx River to find a frantic message on the answering machine from her son Greg: there had been a terrible accident at the World Trade Center where he worked, he was okay, please call his wife Elizabeth to tell her. Over the next few days, as it became clear that their son was not okay, not hurt or missing, but one of thousands killed in an act of terror, she and her husband Orlando (b. 1942) found the astonishing strength, in their grief, to speak out against the “direction of violent revenge” in which the nation seemed to be heading. In the letters that follow—the first written on September 14, the second a few days later, both circulated widely by email at the time—they foresaw the wars to come, and took their first steps to urge a different course. (Years before, their son had volunteered for CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, hoping to end the war there.)
The Rodríguez family has been working for peace ever since. Together, they helped to found September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group that seeks “to break the cycles of violence engendered by war and terrorism.” Orlando, a professor of sociology and criminology at Fordham, has taught courses on “Global Conflict: War and Religion” and “Terrorism and Society.” Phyllis has formed an unlikely friendship with Aïcha el-Wafi, mother of convicted Al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, pleading at his trial that he be spared the death penalty. In Our Son’s Name, a documentary about their journey, premiered in February 2015.
OUR son Greg is among the many missing from the World Trade Center attack. Since we first heard the news, we have shared moments of grief, comfort, hope, despair, fond memories with his wife, the two families, our friends and neighbors, his loving colleagues at Cantor Fitzgerald / ESpeed, and all the grieving families that daily meet at the Pierre Hotel.
We see our hurt and anger reflected among everybody we meet. We cannot pay attention to the daily flow of news about this disaster. But we read enough of the news to sense that our government is heading in the direction of violent revenge, with the prospect of sons, daughters, parents, friends in distant lands dying, suffering, and nursing further grievances against us. It is not the way to go. It will not avenge our son’s death. Not in our son’s name.
Our son died a victim of an inhuman ideology. Our actions should not serve the same purpose. Let us grieve. Let us reflect and pray. Let us think about a rational response that brings real peace and justice to our world. But let us not as a nation add to the inhumanity of our times.
Dear President Bush:
Our son is one of the victims of Tuesday’s attack on the World Trade Center. We read about your response in the last few days and about the resolutions from both Houses, giving you undefined power to respond to the terror attacks.
Your response to this attack does not make us feel better about our son’s death. It makes us feel worse. It makes us feel that our government is using our son’s memory as a justification to cause suffering for other sons and parents in other lands.
It is not the first time that a person in your position has been given unlimited power and came to regret it. This is not the time for empty gestures to make us feel better. It is not the time to act like bullies. We urge you to think about how our government can develop peaceful, rational solutions to terrorism, solutions that do not sink us to the inhuman level of terrorists.
Sincerely,
Phyllis and Orlando Rodríguez