PHA-Exchange> Aftermath of 11 September

[Andrew Chetley]

Sir John Sulston, the eminent scientist who led the team mapping the Human
Genome and who fought to ensure that there would be free access to the
genetic map, shared some of his feelings and thoughts about the World Trade
Center atrocity in London's Evening Standard newspaper on 19 September 2001.
I think they have relevance for all of us who are struggling with how we can
keep attention focused on the underlying causes of global terror, and to
encourage solutions that support people.

'My daughter lives in New York on the Upper West Side and my grandson, my
relatively new-born grandson, is in day care eight blocks from the World
Trade Center. They are fine, absolutely fine, but you can imagine it was a
pretty dramatic day trying to get through on blocked phone lines. I say all
that because I am absolutely at one with them. My daughter is an American
citizen, a dual citizen, lives there with her American husband. So all of
that is clear.

' On the other hand, I cannot help, in my heart of hearts, relating this to
the way both the American and the European military industrial complexes are
treating the rest of the world. Although you cannot say if we are all
liberal and kind there will not be any nasty Afghan terrorists around, on
the other hand, it is very clear to me that Western policies are driving the
world further and further apart in terms of rich and poor, and causing large
groups of people in the world to have justifiable resentments. These are the
people who feed the terrorists. The terrorists themselves are beyond the
law. They are going to try and do nasty things anyway; there are bunches of
people who genuinely do go morally wrong. I do not in any way condone flying
planes into the World Trade Center; but what I do say is, in Bush's words,
these people would have nowhere to hide if we tried to make the world a
fairer place.'


Andrew Chetley 
Programme Director, Exchange 
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