Terror & the Last Enemy
9/11 & the Way of the Cross
by James M. Kushiner
I will never forget the images of terror I saw on the morning of September 15, 2001. On September 6, I had left Chicago for Scotland to join a group of Orthodox Christians from the British Isles on a pilgrimage to the island of Iona, and thus on 9/11 was living in a remote retreat center without television or radio.
I heard about the terrorist attacks only by word of mouth on 9/11. I only saw newspapers the following day. It was not until the following weekend that I had access to a television, when I arrived back on the Scottish mainland and checked into a bed and breakfast in Dumbarton, my mother’s hometown on the Clyde.
Burning Symbols
I studied the image of impressive twin symbols of commercial and political strength standing side by side, towering over a river that flows into the Atlantic Ocean nearby. Two plumes of smoke rose up following an attack by devotees of terror and destruction with no respect for the lives of the innocent. Many inhabitants died. Some survived the attack, and 200 of them were carried off into slavery.
Slavery? That morning I found myself in Dumbarton Castle, studying a modern artist’s rendering of the Viking sack of Dumbarton in 870.
In my room the night before, I had seen on BBC television for the first time the images of the World Trade Center towers burning and falling to the ground—the parallels between the images were stunning.
Dumbarton Castle sits on twin plugs of volcanic basalt rising up on the Firth of Clyde where it flows out toward the Atlantic. The ninth-century fortress depicted in the painting was the capital of the kingdom of Strathclyde, and Vikings from Dublin found it an irresistible target.
The Vikings were the terrorists of their time, raiding and burning villages and killing and enslaving people all over the coasts of Europe, though they terrorized for plunder and territorial gain and not religion or ideology. No one was safe from their attacks, and no one knew when they would strike. Even the strongest could lose their families, property, and their own lives in a few hours.
Even the beaches of tiny Iona have soaked up the blood of those slain by Vikings. They first attacked Iona in 794 and badly damaged the monastery, returning seven years later to gut the abbey, and again five years after that, when they put to the sword 68 monks near what is now called Martyrs Bay.
James M. Kushiner is the Director of Publications for The Fellowship of St. James and the former Executive Editor of Touchstone.
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