The adobeairstream blog

Entering The Cell (The Center for Empowered Living & Learning) in Denver is like entering a high-tech prison. You step inside a room filled with screens and wait for the doors to slide closed behind you. Suddenly you are surrounded by images of Denver, the Civic Center plaza, bustling sidewalks on the 16th Street Mall, people going about their day, shopping, working, pushing baby strollers, enjoying a summer day in the park. Boom. An explosion. People running. Screaming. Smoke fills the air and bloodied body parts lie scattered around. Terrorism can strike anyone, anytime, anywhere, is the message.

Terrorism is the premeditated use of violence or the threat of violence targeting civilians or their property for political, religious or ideological gain. It is a tactic used to create an environment of fear, chaos and intimidation in order to further the terrorists’ objectives.

On the ground floor of the Daniel Libeskind-designed residences that occupy the spot across the plaza from the jutting planar angles of the Denver Art Museum,  an art exhibit attempts to educate, empower and engage visitors about this difficult subject—terrorism. This state-of-the-art art show attempts to explain and define terrorism while tracing the tools, the money, the myths and the facts of terrorism.

I’m not going to lie to you, this is uncomfortable stuff. You will see imagery of bloody body parts and dead children. (The exhibition is not recommended for children younger than 14.) You will also cringe at the way children are recruited and used to fight for beliefs they cannot yet comprehend. And this exhibit will make you look at your own belief system, your own tolerance, and how you spend your money. No religion is left unfaulted; no country unchallenged, no media outlet without blame.

When I first heard about this exhibit I thought it was more propaganda and fear-mongering. Terrorist tactics  being used to explain terrorism: fear and chaos manipulated to intimate and further the objectives of terrorist organizations. I mean really, what are the odds that Denver is going to be attacked? Well, about likely as Oklahoma City, which was hit by domestic terrorists in 1995. How would a survivor of 9/11 or the recent Mumbai hotel attacks feel in this environment? Likely in the throes of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

I didn’t leave the exhibit afraid, I left the exhibit questioning, carrying a handful of pamphlets: Voice of September 11th, United State Department of Justice, Colorado Citizen Corps, Red Cross, Homeland Security, Colorado Information Analysis Center. Including one that defined for me the eight signs of terrorism:
1.    Surveillance
2.    Elicitation
3.    Tests of security
4.    Funding
5.    Supplies
6.    Impersonation
7.    Rehearsal
8.    Deployment

The goal of the exhibition then is to make more regular citizens aware, get us to pay more attention and hopefully prevent the next attack. To get more involved in our communities.

Seems to me a better solution is for us to abandon our religious intolerance, to leave behind our “my-way-is-the-right-way-and-you-are-wrong” notions. To attempt for once and for all to stop persecuting others because they have a different path to God, or follow a different divinity. That, and to find new energy sources and end our dependence on foreign oil and our funding of both sides of what was formerly known as “the war on terror” (an oxymoron).

And these are also goals of the exhibition. Information is power.