The crux of Brent Burkey's argument ("Local politics matter more than national rhetoric," Jan. 11) is that one should neglect international issues, instead focusing on local concerns, due to the former being more difficult and weighty to tackle. No type of thinking could be more dangerous and self-defeating.

A statement of Gandhi comes to mind: Failure to act for fear that others will not join in only hinders progress.

The key in this society with so much evil being perpetrated around us is for each person to get involved and make his voice heard.

It is natural in the constitution of man to identify most with those like him; first his family, then his distant relatives, then his race or ethnicity. Pretty soon, deaths of the "other" cease to matter.

As a Muslim, I can personally attest to the dehumanization of Israelis, which so many years of occupation has inculcated.

For so many of us, pictures of mutilated Israeli children cease to carry meaning; even within those innocents we see relics of the evil Zionist regime which has brought so much terror to our people. We as Americans must not allow such thoughts to enter our minds about the rest of the world. The people dying in Iraq may not be Americans, and they might not be Christians, and they surely aren't white.

But, they are human. Doesn't that count for anything anymore? What has happened to the light of democracy this country was supposed to be?

Let us all rise up and speak out and act to the best of our abilities against all the evil that exists around us, whether it is racism, war, or state terrorism.