I was sitting in a student lobby watching TV's that had been rolled in on carts after a math class the morning of September 11th. By then both Tower 1 and Tower 2 had been hit by hi-jacked planes and the news anchors were calling whatever had happened a terrorist attack. I stood watching, trying to wrap my head around what was going on and soon after the South tower collapsed. The first thing I thought was I need to know that the people I love are okay. It didn't matter that they weren't in New York, it didn't matter that they weren't in any danger, I was simply grasping for something to steady the world in which I now existed. And it strikes me now how starkly innocent and naive my reaction was compared to the world that we already existed in. I lived in America where the true ravages of war or constant threat of terrorism had never entered the psyche of an entire nation. These things didn't happen, at least not here. They happened to other people. Once I reached my (now) partner on the phone we sat on the line with a great deal of silence, comforted by each other's quiet voices and not knowing what to say.
The popular refrain since that day, "Never Forget," is one that haunts me and infuriates me and disgusts me. Not forgetting means there's something we should remember and the tricky part about remembering is the onus to learn from those things we remember. So what have we learned?
A year and a half later, when President Bush had made the decision to attack Iraq, I sat with my suite-mates in our college dorm room watching the video footage of the first bombs dropping in the Iraq War. The live video feed was in that eerie night-vision green. The cheers from various people on our floor echoed through the hall and in open doors as the bombs began to fall. Finally, something was being done, someone was being paid back for what they had done to us. Except, nothing was being done and no one that had anything to do with the September 11th attacks were being paid back. Instead we learned a great deal about our own use of violence and war as a tool for personal gain and mask for a new world in which we no longer sat comfortably.
It doesn't surprise me that we attacked Iraq based on lies and misinformation. It doesn't surprise me that both a Republican and Democrat have executed more wars since that day. I'm not surprised by the notion that a larger military and greater defense spending will make us safer. I'm not at all astonished by the amount of bigoted paranoia that surrounds so many public officials' statements about Islam. It is, in fact, what we have learned since September 11, 2001.
The most poignant images and sounds that I've been unable to shake from the events of that day was the people jumping out of the towers and the faces of the firefighters-the split second registering of a crash followed by a punctuated moment of silence-as they try not to think about the sounds of the bodies while attempting to mount an effective rescue in the towers. It represents in my head the confluence of the best and the worst of us. It forces me to remember that, for all the hurt and malice and anger wrapped up in the perpetration of those attacks, there were those who were willing to put aside everything else and do what they could to help. We could use more of those people and we could do a better job of making sure those people who did respond are taken care of today. Instead we've become much more comfortable calling people evil and dividing the world between the good and the bad.
The controversy over the "Ground Zero Mosque" (as the media so ineptly termed it) is a heartbreaking reminder that we've forgotten a great deal since September 11, 2001. We've forgotten about Touri Hamzavi Bolourchi, a 69 year-old retired nurse on United flight 175 who died when it collided with the South tower. She was Muslim. We've forgotten Mohammed Salman Hamdani, a 23 year-old NYPD cadet whose remains were recovered months later after vicious rumors had circulated that he had fled in connection with the attacks. His body was recovered near the North tower where he had gone to help. He was Muslim. We've forgotten Mon Gjonbalaj, a 65 year-old janitor at the World Trade Center who managed to call his son one last time to tell him, "I'm trapped. I don't think I'm going to see you guys again. Keep the family together. Be strong." He, too, was Muslim. I don't really hear people talk much about the Muslim victims of September 11th and the growing number of Muslims who have been (and continue to be) ridiculed, demeaned and accused because of what happened that day. It is as if many of us don't want them included, as if we want to forget that Muslims lost just as much as anyone else.
Remembering "those people" and accepting that the world is more complicated than "there are good guys and there are bad guys," doesn't make for catchy slogans or powerful impassioned speeches by politicians. But that's why we remember, right? So when the next politician needs to paint his opponent he can invoke "9/11" to remind us all why so-and-so will let the terrorists win. It's so a decorated military general can convince himself and others that war is the only answer. People stop being people this way; they stop being people and instead become "evil." In this day and age, can't we all just accept that calling people evil helps no one and does nothing but reinforce our own prejudice. It's far to simple an explanation for some of the most complex moments in life. It's the same reason why I've never liked the idea of hell and the devil. It's to neat and tidy. If there is anything I can be confident of since that day it is that life is almost always messy and living is never as black and white as many would have us believe.
To be honest, I didn't even register that this was the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks until a week or so before the date. I'm not quite sure why it hadn't occurred to me until then other than to say I still have moments in life in which that day feels like it just happened. We're still fighting wars that stem from the events of that day, we're still trying to solve the worlds problems by injecting a good dose of violence and we continue to act as if we exist in a world where we can completely insulate ourselves from everything that's happening beyond our borders. I'm hoping that over the next ten years those things will begin to change. I'm not very confident that they will.
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