Likovich: The only way we can let the terrorists win is if they get fear into our hearts. If it

Likovich: The only way we can let the terrorists win is if they get fear into our hearts. If it comes to the point where their attacks on us are working, that we disrupt our daily lives, we live in fear of what could happen, then they've accomplished their goal. ... I won't sit around and live in fear of what can happen. I'm not going to change my daily lifestyle.
Redmond: I think it's brought us together instead of, their goal is to divide. The biggest thing I've seen is a lot of patriotic things kids want to do.
Gillespie: In my business of real estate ... it's been very remarkable. ... I had contracts pending, sales pending, and all of a sudden everything came to a standstill [after Sept. 11]. People were stunned, they were scared, buyers I mean, sellers. People didn't meet their contractual obligations. There was a lot of pain and heartache. ...
Subsequently, though, starting about December, people got their strength back, mentally, psychologically ... financially, they weren't as afraid to move forward. They started closing the deals they had postponed. Instead of being adversaries, buyers and sellers, I see them being extremely cooperative with one another. I think people are just in a more cooperative mood, just a more peaceful mood, not as antagonistic. I see a whole other attitude. Business is brisk.
Plichta: Another thing that was interesting was the increase in spiritual awakening and awareness throughout the world. Things that before were said in public that would have been forbidden, were OK now: to pray in public, to mention the name of God in public. That was refreshing.
Ort: I work with people who are homeless. Really downtrodden. Working with my clientele, for a lot of them, [the terrorist attacks] simply didn't register. They were interested in their problems, and I mean, it was going on on the television right in front of them. It did not register. Not that it had no effect, but it was just not an issue. I don't think a day goes by where it doesn't pop into my head at some point. For these people I work with ... I can't say it made no impact ... but for them, their lives have gone on just as it did before.
Stevenson: There is such a thing as a world view and such a thing as a U.S view. I think, before [Sept. 11], most of us were stuck in a U.S. view. We think we're going to change the world to measure up to the U.S., and it's not going to happen. I think a lot of views have changed since Sept. 11. We in the United States have lived in affluence. It's kind of like a fairyland existence up to that point.
I agree with Chris and Art. It has affected us spiritually. I've noticed there's a change in sensitivity in people I would call secular. But for religious people, there wasn't that much change. ... They have their moorings. They're established in what they believe. If you're a nominal Christian ... that's another story. Those firmly rooted in their faith have come out of this. For myself, I don't think there was a great change.
Likovich: When something like this happens, we all search for the answers to why it happened.
Floyd: Going along with what the minister just said ... we were always, in the United States, never made to feel vulnerable. Even after the Pearl Harbor attacks, it was one incident. We were still safe. But here, they don't feel safe anymore. We begin to feel what people in Ireland have felt for many years, what people in the Middle East have felt for many years.
I had occasion to travel in Europe, I guess, about 1994. I was taken aback when I was in the airports because their police had semiautomatic weapons. ... This was something normal for them ... for years people have lived with this kind of violence, but we haven't. We've been sheltered from it -- even after Oklahoma [City]. It still wasn't viewed so much as an act against the United States. It was just a little crazy McVeigh guy running his truck into a building. It should have been a wake-up call then that things were changing.
Things have always happened to America. We had to change our lives. But we managed to go ahead, and we adjust. Once again we have to adjust. We seem to make it through. ... You can't quit doing what you're doing ...
I lived in New York ... up until 1997. I was there when the twin towers were hit the first time, OK? I remember the changes that occurred. It didn't stop me from going down to the twin towers. You adjusted. People didn't stop going. People didn't stop working. I still shopped there. I still rode the subway underneath. It didn't change; you adjusted. I think that's going to happen in this country. ...
I had colleagues that I know worked [there]. I've been a big chicken. I kinda am afraid to call certain people because I don't want to hear that they were in the twin towers and they didn't get out. Everybody is not wanting to ask. I'm just afraid that I'm going to find out that somebody I know perished. That will be hard for me.
FEAR
Wolfson: Two things bother me. One was, not only I believe the loss of innocence for our nation, it's for my children. That upsets me, and I'm furious. I still can't get over it.
We were watching on New Year's Eve, the ball coming down. Usually, we're all excited. My little girl is 12 years old and there was no excitement there. Her concern was for the people in New York City. She was scared something was going to happen to them. To see that in my child, that's what kills me, that's what hurts me, tears me apart.
I believe that the U.S. is being as naive as it has been previous to this. ... The police can't be everywhere ... I believe if we don't wake up and start watching what's going on and be more aware and be more cautious ... we're going to have something else happen. I think it will.
Plichta: There has to be a fine line between becoming paranoid about everyone that we see, every action, opening every envelope and walking around scared, vs. an awareness. It's a very gradual thing. I have every confidence the government is doing what they can. I just don't want to live paranoid. ...
I have two daughters who are 15 and 17. The weekend after [Sept. 11], we were attending a festival at Blossom, a praise gathering. Their concern was, "What if they fly bombers into Blossom Music Center?" That never would have crossed their minds before. It's up to me, then, as a parent to say, "That's not going to happen" ... to allay their fears that not everyone in the world is going to be driving planes into every major event that is going to be happening in the world. We need to be aware, but we don't need to be concerned and live in that environment.
Cameron: I pray that in America, that we are one country, and we will go on living our lives and not live in fear. It's my responsibility to keep my house a home and bring up my 2-year-old daughter, understanding there are risks out there, but also understanding that you are a woman and have rights and you go on and live your life accordingly and not live in fear.
Ayoub: I can understand your fear ... if we keep closing the gates from people coming in, what you're doing is keeping yourself inside. You keep yourself inside more and more and more and you start feeding off your own fear.
You start with yourself. If you're convinced I can walk out of my house today and, if whatever happens, I am leaving this earth a happy person, a satisfied person ... I think people can walk freely, comfortably. I will not shut myself inside my house saying, "I'm afraid."
[Someone] said people started getting interested in other people's cultures [after Sept. 11]. This is a personal perspective on it. I don't know if interested would be the correct word. I'm sure it didn't start out that way; it was fear. I'm being as honest as I can be.
I was coming to this session and I'm thinking, "How much can I say, what can I say?" This changed my life a lot because, they say it's the land of the free, freedom of speech and all that, and I absolutely admire that and that was one of the great reasons why I came over here [from Lebanon].
Before, you sit down and talk at a conference like this, you didn't even think twice about what you were saying because people accepted what you said. And if they didn't agree with it, they still absorbed it and let it go ... now, if I bring up a subject and somebody doesn't like it ... there's going to be a personal fear growing in that person of me. ...
The only thing that I fear is people just locking up on themselves, because that's the worst thing you can do. That's exactly what was planned. People are going to be afraid. They're going to go sit in their homes and nobody's going to come out. You break your society from within. Communication becomes reduced. Social interaction becomes reduced. There is no society anymore. It just breaks and breaks and breaks, and everybody becomes afraid of the other person. There is no trust anymore.
PATRIOTISM
Floyd: Also, I'm afraid that, because of this really big swell of patriotism, we have to be careful that we don't mix patriotism with a hard-nosed view of freedom. It's like, "Well, you're patriotic as long as you don't say anything that we don't like," you know? Because right now, we're all on the same page.
Likovich: I don't know if any of you see this, but just being in school, I'd like to call it almost a fake sense of patriotism.
There are people who are truly patriotic, like myself, and stand for the national anthem at basketball games, and I stand there and I look at the flag and I meditate on the flag. I think about my country. Yet, we have other people who sit there and talk. This kind of bothers me.
Ayoub: It's sad that it took something this huge for people to go out and put their American flags on the poles. I live in the dorms [at Youngstown State University]. I used to have my [Lebanese] flag up, and when this happened I just took it down. It was only out of respect because of what happened. I passed by my friends' rooms, and none of them had flags. And then, all of a sudden, you walk through the hallways and it's on every door.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, I'm just saying, why did it need something that huge to bring that out of you?
ADJUSTING
Wolfson: I don't believe it's fear I have for my daughter. I was little during the Cuban missile crisis. That wasn't something you comprehended because you didn't see it. You didn't see planes going into buildings and realize people were being killed. This is what our children have seen. You know? And then they played it constantly, over and over.
Floyd: That didn't help. It was all you saw.
Wolfson: I was encouraging my kids to play video games. They saw people being hurt. Their loss of innocence is so much different than what I experienced as a child, you know? I mean, they actually saw people bleeding and they heard how somebody was being hit by body parts.
Ort: It wasn't a movie.
Wolfson: And my daughter is old enough and bright enough she comprehended, she knew what was happening. I'm not saying that we live in fear and hide in our houses. What I'm saying is, don't be so naive ... I'm not saying to be paranoid. I'm just saying be cautious.
Gillespie: I agree with you, Sandy, about the children. I think we have a real job to do with our children.
When JFK was shot, RFK was shot, Lee Harvey Oswald was shot, Martin Luther King was shot -- one day my daughter said to me, she was young then, and my mother-in-law had died; I came home from the hospital and I said, "Grandma Gillespie died," and my little daughter looked at me and said, "Who shot her?" That just took so much out of children at that time.
And now, yesterday I picked up my grandchild in Austintown, I was coming down Mahoning Avenue down by town and he saw the big jail, the big building, and he said, "Don't go near there." And I said, "Why?" And he said, "There might be a bomber."
We don't realize how it's affecting our children. They don't talk about it much, but they are fearful.
Stevenson: We all have to assimilate things that happen to us into our life. We either go on from there or get stuck. We're an open society and the best barometer for the health of our nation is crisis. How do we react in crisis?
I think the government has been a good leader in this, in that I find few people finding fault with the present administration. They continued with such events as the World Series, the Super Bowl, and now, the Olympics. We're not letting fear take over our life. We can hole up or we can go on with life.
GOD
Cameron: When we say "God bless America," this country was built based on God, and then you look at some of the things that we do. Really, are we living under "God bless America?" We're still having sex outside of marriage, we're living with people when we're not married. But we're saying "God bless America."
Ort: There's a writer, C. Eric Lincoln, who writes about African-American religion -- he calls that Americanism. So it's not "God bless America," but you almost deify America and its ideals and freedom. That is what you worship and bow down to. ... It's Americanism. ... America is what you actually worship. So all the things are OK because it's under the banner of freedom which falls under America.
Ayoub: Every dollar bill you look at has got [In God We Trust]. Then they go on TV and say "We can't talk about God in schools. We can't talk to our kids about God." ... Where's the middle ground? That's what it boils down to. "God bless America," but you can't talk about God.
Plichta: It's amazing how acceptable God is in crisis. It's that "foxhole religion" ... that's always kind of amazed me.
Gillespie: Religion on 9/11 was fabulous ... what I did was run down to St. Columba Cathedral -- that's my church. There was a huge Mass. I thought there was, like, a wedding going on. The whole church was filled at noon on 9/11. Bishop [Thomas J.] Tobin was there saying a very impromptu Mass for America and the victims. I mean, it was wonderful. It made you feel good. [Since Sept. 11], I go to Mass occasionally during the week at the cathedral and there'll be, like, 10 people.
Likovich: I'm wondering what your take is on this ... [is] God punishing our nation for the way we live or is it just something that happened and God is with us even more?
Floyd: I've heard it a number of times: We deserved what we got. No, we didn't deserve what we got. But guess what? Bad things happen to good people. And good things happen to bad people. How do you control what happens? ...
I don't want to serve a God that abandons you, that his sense of justice is "I'm going to punish you this way." I don't think that. It's still a good and kind God.
Ort: It's a pretty bold statement on their part to answer for God, to say what God is and is not doing.
Stevenson: The most-asked question as a pastor since [Sept. 11] was: Do you think God did this, do you think God allowed this? Of course, God is a god of love but he's a god of wrath. But there's still evil people in the world today that will do things ... bad things still happen to good people ... life happens.
Floyd: You're going to be tested ... if you're strong and you say you have this grounding and values and this faith, whatever it is, well then, guess what? You're going to rise above it, and you're going to be a stronger and better person. If not, you're going to succumb ...
Wolfson: The God that I believe in, he wouldn't have done that. My little girl said when it started raining and they were looking for survivors, she said it was the angels in heaven crying for the people that had died. I thought it was such a beautiful thing for a child to say.
Gillespie: I'm strong in my faith and religion, but I find it very hard when things like this happen to understand and still believe. I don't mean to say I don't believe in God, but I question.
Cameron: A lot of good has come out of Sept. 11 as well. We've all talked about families getting together ... people are now going back to church. So, though it was a tragedy and a lot of lives -- innocent lives -- were lost, there were some good things, I guess, that came out of this ... I also backed up and said "I have a wife, I have a daughter." That's most important to me.
Ort: I think you're getting down to it. It's about people first, not ideology.
PREJUDICE
Ayoub: I don't blame people for thinking the way they think. When people came up to me when this happened, I was in class in an engineering lab. I walked back to the dorms, I got a couple funny looks. It didn't get to me because I understand where they're coming from.
I've been here [in the United States] for three years. I see what they see. I know why they're thinking this. There's a lot of anger. There's a lot of fear. It has to come out one way or another. They don't have anywhere to let it out. They're being told that this type of person is the cause. It didn't bug me. People kept on asking me, "Are you getting funny looks," and I'd say no, because people were stressed out. I can't blame them for what they think or what they know because all they know is what they see in this box [pointing to a television].
Floyd: But my thing is, do you just let that rule you or do you try to find something different? I grew up here, so I understand the mentality in this Valley. [When] I lived in New York, I mixed and mingled with every ethnic and racial group there was, and I loved it. When I came back here I couldn't believe the mentality in the Valley was just the same. I still go to restaurants and people stare and look at me as if I don't belong there, and I don't understand that.
So, my point is, I can understand this isolated event [Sept. 11] because of what happened, but I'm still living through [racism]. ... That's why Sept. 11 is very close to my heart, because I'm afraid they'll let the paranoia rule their lives and will go back to everybody being suspicious.
Cameron: The only way we're going to get past our fears is that you sit down and talk and you get to know [people]. You find that even though you're different, a lot of ways you're the same. And that's important if you want America to be the land of the free.
Let me share this with you. Sometimes it's difficult for African-Americans to raise that flag based on some of the things we've been through. ...
I live in an all-white neighborhood. I live in Austintown. All of my neighbors are white and we get along just fine. I'm still going to have my blackness, in a sense, and I expect for them to have their whiteness. But we can come together and have a good time. When they have a barbecue they invite me and vice versa. I attend an all-black church, an all-black Baptist church. The way we celebrate our God is a lot different than I think you celebrate, but that's fine. That's great. That's what makes this nation the way it is ...
You need to come together as a people. If we're saying this country is built on different nationalities, and I believe it is, then we can't stereotype and single out one group from another because, again, I look at bin Laden as a radical. Timothy McVeigh -- radical. I don't see Timothy McVeigh any better than or any worse than bin Laden.
Stevenson: Celebrate our differences ... that's what we're doing sitting around this table. We're all so different. That's why they picked us, but you know what? That's what our country is.
Cameron: I want to get back to the point that I made about blacks having a difficult time raising the American flag. I hope you guys are not printing this the wrong way. The reason I make that comment is that African-Americans helped build this country ... but we weren't recognized in a sense for building this country. ... We did not ask to come to this land, we were brought to this land. I am an American, and I'm proud to be an American because I have my freedom and I can do anything I want to do. I just wanted to make that comment. Blacks, we love America.
Floyd: But we haven't been treated equally ... if you ask average African-Americans if they love this country, they'll tell you yes. However, if you ask them has it always been fair, no ... even now there's still problems [with racism], but recognizing the problems doesn't make us love the land any less. We want to change those things, and that's why with louder voices we say, "Let's not get paranoid, folks." We understand that paranoia. We're the recipients of that paranoia. We hope that there will be dialogue like this, that people will embrace differences to the point that we see there's more similarities than differences.
ANTHRAX
Ayoub: I just want to see your opinions on this. Which of the two was scarier to you guys? The 9/11 issue or when the anthrax issue was brought up? Which got to you more? Which scared you more?
Plichta: 9/11.
Wolfson: Anthrax.
Floyd: Anthrax.
Stevenson: I think they blew that anthrax way out of proportion. They went berserk.
Ayoub: When 9/11 happened, I met with [a Vindicator reporter], and we talked and I told him that I left the war back home [in Lebanon], hoping ... it was behind me. ... I know you can go to shelters, I know you can dodge bullets. ... I don't want to say I didn't get stressed out over it, it got to me, the 9/11 issue, but it was still contained.
But when the anthrax thing broke out, that's when I felt I just wanted to pack my bags and go home because I would rather walk to my parents than have them receive me in a box. Shelters for bombs you can find anywhere, any basement would do. It reduces your risk, but once something like that germ is spread out, it's very hard to contain. Honestly, the anthrax threat was a scarier thing to me than the 9/11.
Plichta: The thing, though, it's not new. Biological warfare and that type of terrorism has been with us for a long time ... Because of what's happened, it's become big news for us here.
Floyd: What's scary is that, you know, before it was the larger countries that had the technical know-how. And what's scary is it's going to be some little-bitty, little country ... and it's so easy to do.
'LIVING IN THE GRAY'
Redmond: We're taking a group of 110 kids to Florida in April, and we had a meeting with their parents saying, you know, "We know this is an issue, traveling outside of the state." We're going to Disney World, which is a huge place that was on the target list and was shut down that day. And you know, not one parent really had a concern ... so we're going. ... We're willing to take your kids on this trip if you're willing to send them with us.
Stevenson: Franklin Roosevelt said all we have to fear is fear itself. ... Adversity motivates us more than anything ... we get character growth during adversity, not during the good times. My prayer is that, in this country, we grew through this because of the adversity and it's caused us to look at ourselves.
Plichta: I think one of the things it did, we touched on it a little earlier, it caused us to refocus. You wonder as we look at this, thinking, "What about our patriotism, what about our families?" I think, when things are good, we take them for granted. That's another positive thing. We realize what a great country we live in. Even with all the flaws we have ... there's not another place I'd rather go or rather live.
Cameron: That's true. That's true.
Ort: It gets back to that we can sit in this room and talk about what we're talking about without apprehension. ...
In crisis, you're always looking for answers, and we tend to think in black and white. A friend of mine said, and it's a great quote, she said, "Take out your gray crayon and use it." It's difficult sometimes living with the questions, living in the gray. ...
Floyd: Sometimes there are no answers.
Ort: You live with the questions.