September 12th, 2001. I woke up for work and flicked on the TV for the weather report, which I did every morning. Instead of the weather, I saw smoky grey pictures of rubble, people covered in dust, firemen working, police working, reporters standing wide eyed and shocked as they reported.
I had no idea what was going on, I missed the news announcement with the details, all I knew was somewhere something huge and devastating had happened.
My car didn’t have a radio, so I drove on to work wondering, and grabbed the papers when I walked in. The attacks had started at about 11pm Melbourne time, so the papers had some rough coverage and photos. New York had been hit.
I won’t go into all the rest of it, it’s all pretty well known. Hell if you’re hazy on the details today just pick up a paper (or, okay, use the internet). It’s 10 years since the attacks, and we must never ever ever forget. Apparently.
September 11th, 2002 as I drove to work one of the local churches was flying three US flags, with another larger one hanging over the entrance. I nearly drove off the road. I swore creatively, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I shouldn’t have been so amazed though, for the entire preceding year people had been walking around with US flags worn as bandanas or sewn on the backs of jackets for reasons I didn’t – and don’t – fully understand.
Australians as a rule don’t tend to go into the annual memorial chest beating pain can you believe it’s been X years. Attempts were made on the anniversary of Black Saturday, and attempts will probably be made on the anniversaries of the flooding that took so many lives. We just can’t seem to get into it. Though our news people are certainly trying, with mournful impassioned voice overs on the news reports designed to emulate the US style of reporting.
Which is not to say we don’t care. Any life lost is a sadness, a heartbreak for the family and friends and community.
And for all the unbreakable “respect” and “love” and “grief” for those who died that day, there’s little mention of the fact their deaths were used to fuel a war that was essentially unrelated to terrorism on any level.
In the 10 years since 9/11, more than 20,000 civilians in Afghanistan have been killed. That doesn’t include those who were injured, disabled from their wounds, orphaned children. All in the name of revenge. We’re supposed to cheer every bomb strike, every death, every “win” because dammit this is a war on terror and these people deserve to die.
Who will remember them other than family and friends? Will there be a national memorial? A minute of silence to think about their lives cut short?
Is it purely because the attacks were on the US that the world is expected to mourn and grieve and vow revenge? I wondered then and I wonder now if the US would have carried 24/7 coverage for a month if the attack had been on Sydney, or Rome, or London. Would the world be printing memorial edition newspapers today? Would documentaries be screening internationally?
It is not at all my intention to dismiss or belittle the genuine suffering of those who lost loved ones, or who witnessed things no one should ever have to witness. I suspect today is a terribly hard date to get through for those people, and I wish them all the very best in the world.
It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I cannot fathom maintaining the rage for 10 years, for being happy to hear of children dying in a far off land because they are part of the “terrorism threat”. I can’t fathom never letting go, to the expense of all else. I can’t understand it, and I don’t want to understand it.
I am not lighting candles today, or observing a minute’s silence. I didn’t turn my headlights on in the couple of years after the attacks when everyone was “showing solidarity” (don’t ask, I never did figure out the headlights thing). I am most certainly not flying the US flag – I don’t even own one. I don’t own an Aussie flag for that matter.
As tragic and heartbreaking as the events of 9/11 were, it is time to let them go. Not to forget, but to allow the families and friends of those who died, and those who lived in NY at the time, their ownership of the grief that they should no longer have to share with the world.
One concept I am seriously having trouble with, which is popping up all over the place is “No other Western Nation lost so many people in a single day”. Maybe not, but where is the compassion for places that don’t happen to be western who lost people in Earthquakes, Tsunamis, storms, floods? Japan lost 20,000 people. Haiti lost 316,000. There’s no one to blame for natural disasters, which makes it very hard to use them to fuel hate and fear and wage a war.
That’s the difference.
Very well said! Brava!