Documentary goes "beyond" 9/11 to connect widows in America with Afghanistan
By: Brendan Patrick Keane | Published Thursday, September 9, 2010, 12:40 PM | Updated Friday, September 9, 2011, 9:49 PM
"I have tried to turn this into something other than hatred." - Patricia Quigley
Two soccer moms teach us how to respond to 9/11 without hatred, in a documentary by film-maker Beth Murphy, called
Beyond Belief that tells the story of their engagement with other widows half-way around the world.
It was released two years ago, and has haunted talk of escalating the Afghan war ever since.
President Obama, however, has remained committed to the war's shifty and body-piling objectives.
Patti Quigley and Susan Retik lost their husbands in the
World Trade Center attacks nine years ago. Each woman was pregnant when Patrick Quigley and Dave Retik were murdered. Their children were born never knowing their fathers.
Beyond Belief tells us how these two American women have discovered a common-bond with Afghan women and their children. War makes widows, and widows have special moral authority in societies at war. Quigley and Retik have brought that lesson to
Afghanistan, and back home.
Quigley and Retik saw the
United States launch an attack on Afghanistan in response to the attack on
New York. They did not ignore the civilian losses that resulted from our actions. They saw their own devastation in the destruction of Afghan lives. This is empathy, and it is at the heart of being human.
Arm chair generals in the United States prefer not to incorporate such thoughts on "collateral damage" into their rhetoric or their never-accurate calculations about why we need war so badly.
That's why these women have undertaken a mission to elevate these other mothers with education programs and economic initiatives.
Beyond the 11th is the organization they founded to help Afghan women rise in the world with businesses of their own, so that they can become voices in their society against forces like the
Taliban.
“Beyond Belief” is Beth Murphy's film homage to Ms. Retik and Ms. Quigley as they turn their sorrow into the energy of change they want to see in this world.
Two soccer moms teach us how to respond to 9/11 without hatred, in a documentary by film-maker Beth Murphy, called Beyond Belief that tells the story of their engagement with other widows half-way around the world. 
That's why these women have undertaken a mission to elevate these other mothers with education programs and economic initiatives. Beyond the 11th is the organization they founded to help Afghan women rise in the world with businesses of their own, so that they can become voices in their society against forces like the Taliban. 
3 Comments
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.Monsoonman | Sep 14, 2010, 12:15 AM EDT
Brendan,why of course the whole central theme of your story celebrates that Afghani womens ability to have choices or businesses of their own. None of which would be possible without the US military pushing the taliban, along with their strict sharia out.
BrendanPKeane | Sep 13, 2010, 01:05 PM EDT
Monsoonman: I really don't care how Afghanistan was before the invasion (or after). It's not my business. These women are better than I am. They have the right ideas though. It's nonsense to claim killing thousands of civilians is good for them or us. I care about how the invasion costs American treasure and blood above all else. I believe there are profits in Afghanistan. I don't believe the profits are funneling back to America's treasury, despite the cost to us.
Monsoonman | Sep 12, 2010, 08:33 PM EDT
Overlooking one minor detail. If it wasn't for Americas military presence in Afghanistan, there would be no conversations between American women and Afghanistan women, the taliban wouldn't allow it. They wouldn't allow women access to the internet or education or to be seen in public without their burkhas. But carry on with the fantasy of how great Afghanistan would have been for the people if only the Americans hadn't invaded.