American 9/11 Widows Aid Afghan Widows to Start Small Businesses

Susan Retik and Patti Quigley were both pregnant when they lost their husbands in the 9/11 attacks. But instead of solely focusing on their own tragic loss, the two American women thought about the existence of other widows thousands of miles away, in Afghanistan. And they decided to transform their sorrow into help for women they had never met.

Choosing books and business over bombs, the group founded by these two women, Beyond the 11th, has aided over 1,000 widows to date to become entrepreneurs. Retik and Quigley recognized that to prevent attacks like 9/11, it is important to deal with the root causes that entrench fundamentalism and make people susceptible to recruitment by extremists: poverty and lack of education. It's the kind of project that can really win over hearts and minds, that shows the world America's better nature and that we are not an enemy to Muslims, a better message than that sent by events such as Koran-burning.

And by empowering women, many of whom were now single mothers like themselves, to run their own small businesses, these driven widows are helping progressive gender dynamics in Afghanistan as well. Meanwhile, the cost of nine years work — buying chicken flocks, starting a women's center for carpet weaving, offering literacy classes, training women to manage an entire soccer ball manufacturing company — is less than the outlay to keep one American soldier abroad for less than a year. Imagine what could be accomplished if all the money going into the military-industrial complex instead found its way into economic and development programs that reduce a population's susceptibility to fundamentalism and terrorist recruitment.

Nicholas Kristof writes for the New York Times of Retik, "Her work is an invigorating struggle to unite all faiths against those common enemies of humanity, ignorance and poverty — reflecting the moral and mental toughness that truly can chip away at terrorism." Retik, who is herself Jewish, will be at a mosque this weekend seeking support for her efforts to improve literacy and standards of living in Afghanistan. Her 9/11 goal is to bring people together and make the world a better place through methods that harm no one. This is interfaith collaboration at its best, and I have the highest respect for how Retik decided to deal with her loss in such an altruist manner.

Retik and Quigley chose not to be motivated by anger and hatred. Instead, they sought a peaceful means by which they could help fellow widows and in the process decrease the factors that allow terrorism to grow. On the anniversary of 9/11, I hope other people are influenced by the example they set. Theirs is a message that warms my heart on a dismal day.

Photo credit: Sister72