I think one thing we can learn from these horrible attacks on America is that it is about time ordinary citizens take an active interest in what their governments are doing, both abroad and at home.

The bewildered responses I have heard and read from Americans on television, radio, newspapers and Internet chat sites, all seem to point to what at least two UK newspaper columnists have written about:

The majority of Americans do not know why they are so hated in the Middle East and they do not understand how the hatred can be so deep. Some do not even seem to ask why this happened, but rather how, implying they do not accept - or have not yet accepted - the cold calculation behind the attack and its specific intention to elicit the fear, horror and sadness that it has.

In the [#1]Independent[/#], Robert Fisk writes: "But this is not the war of democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the coming days. It is also about American missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia  paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally  hacking and raping and murdering theirway through refugee camps."

And in the [#2]Guardian[/#], Seamus Milne:"Perhaps it is too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts of the world.

"If it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden's supporters, the sense that the Americans are once again reaping a dragons' teeth harvest they themselves sowed will be overwhelming.

"It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s war against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls could go to school and women to work.

"Osama and the Mujahideen were armed and trained by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and its communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with his genitals stuffed into his mouth.

"But by then Osama had turned against his American sponsors, while US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence spawned the grotesque Taliban now protecting him.

"To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US subsequently forced through sanctions which has helped push them to the brink of starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan refugees fan out across the world."

Scarily, US President George W Bush has shown nothing but repeated resolve, "make no mistake", to make the perpetrators pay. In his latest speech, I heard him say: "They hate our freedom, they hate our values. They hate what America stands for."

All the talk is geared toward creating an image of an enemy, and one that is irrational and inhuman, and who has implausible motives for doing what it did.

I have not heard him or Colin Powell mention the need for self-reflection or to even understand the motive in inflicting a calculated tragedy of this scale.

But the fact that ordinary Americans do not always understand why or how this could happen, indicates a gulf of knowledge between an ordinary person and that of the government.

I believe this same gulf of knowledge exists in Malaysia, not just in respect of what our foreign policy is, but especially in local affairs. What does the business- and government-centric west coast of peninsular Malaysia really know and understand about PAS, Islam and East Malaysia?

And similarly, what do these communities know of the west coast's people?

If anyone has felt as lost and helpless as I have after this attack, then I think the one thing we can do to make a difference is to actively try to understand each other.

Not because we fear similar attacks by any one community in Malaysia, (Al-Ma'unah and KMM springing immediately to mind of course, but being resisted in mention) but because, suddenly, it is very easy to see what extremities a chasm in understanding can lead to.

We cannot let our country drift apart the way it has, since independence fooled us into thinking that nationalisation would instantly unite the many different communities and their dreams. We have been lazy and slightly too naive in believing that the Malaysian dream and a Malaysian identity already existed. They do not.

We are actively building both as we go along and, so far, we have been doing so in different directions.

It's time to stop that and start taking the baby steps toward understanding each other.

Read your usual local newspaper? Why not try another one? Harakah, The Rocket, malaysiakini, Utusan Malaysia or the New Straits Times - any one of these might raise your blood pressure if you believe in the ideals of another.

So why not write letters in expressing your disagreement? The worst that can happen is that they are ignored, but you will, at least, be trying to initiate a discussion.

Try international publications as well. Any number of them are now available on the Net and they're free.

Engage apathetic friends in conversations about issues that bother you and try to get them interested. You can e-mail them articles, organise petitions on issues and submit them to your district council or state representative, write letters to congress representatives and MPs, bring them along to functions organised for specific causes.

Take a holiday to a part of Malaysia you've never been to before and talk to the people you meet there.

Engage friends from different parts of Malaysia in conversation about politics, about what it means to them and whether they have a different vision of a future for Malaysia from yours.

Think about becoming a member of a political party if you are not already one. You may want to review the party's history, its aims, its achievements before doing so.

Whatever you do, however little you do, it is better than nothing. We know now, that horror can come out of the clearest blue sky and into the lives of ordinary people in a country supposedly at peace.

As Robert Fisk says, our lack of understanding must not provide the "smallest fractional reason" for it.