On This Day (9/11 Essay)
Today is the 11th of September. This is no ordinary day. On this day the world changed. All the layers of protection we had used to insulate ourselves from the wider world, came crashing down along with the twin towers. Our naiveté was stripped away along with the illusion of safety we cherished for so long. We were suddenly confronted with the harsh reality of our world, and discovered it to be a scary place indeed.
When an emergency occurs people react rather than act. This instinct has saved countless lives over the course of human existence. But at some point the emergency subsides and it becomes time to think, to reflect, and decide upon the right response to the calamity that has beset us. After 9/11 we were in a collective state of panic. Fear possessed us for months upon end. This is perfectly understandable. But now it is five years later. Have we yet taken a step back to reflect upon what has happened? On 9/11 three thousand Americans lost their lives. Two national monuments were destroyed. Hundreds of ordinary men and women became heroes as they rose to the occasion. Many lost their lives in so doing. And how have we honored them?
In the past five years we have invaded two countries, one of which had nothing to do with 9/11. In so doing we also caused the deaths of thousands of civilian lives, many times the number that died on 9/11. Three major terror attacks have occurred around the world in the U.K., Spain, and India. Islamic fundamentalism has spread like wildfire the world over. Terror groups too numerous to count have sprung up everywhere. We have traded many of our precious civil liberties for the empty promise of security. Our nation has become divided. Brother against brother, ideology against ideology. Anything different is considered suspect. Hate crimes against and suspicions about Muslims have run rampant.
THIS is how we honor our fallen? By killing many times their number in more innocent lives, sacrificing our young men and women on the battlefield, and invading a country that had nothing to do with the attack? And what has been the result of this strategy? Our world is even less safe today than it was on that clear September morning split by the unimaginable horror in the skies. Obviously something has gone wrong. It is time to reevaluate our response to 9/11. Responding to violence with more violence solves nothing. It only results in a vicious cycle that costs more and more lives. It is time for us to try something different. But what?
I am struck by an odd coincidence. You see, today is not the only September 11 on which the world changed. A hundred years ago on this day something occurred which would shake the world to its very roots. In a colonial backwater known as South Africa a man named Mahatma Gandhi decided to resist oppression by nonviolence. His radical idea was to oppose an inherently violent idea, by peace. No fighting, no violence. Just peaceful resistance. As a result of his decision, several countries were liberated from colonial rule. A young preacher named Martin Luther King accepted the ideas as his own. A woman named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus. Hundreds of children and teenagers marched for integration in Birmingham Alabama. Decades, even centuries of oppression were ended due to this one radical idea. And Gandhi’s legacy lives on to this day.
Perhaps we should have had a different response to 9/11. Standing in the shadow of the ruin that was once the twin towers, perhaps we should have asked, not how do we get revenge for this atrocious act? But why did it happen to begin with? What would cause a young man with the rest of his life ahead of him to hijack a plane and fly it into a skyscraper? And not just one young man, but nearly two dozen! Religious fervor does not account for that. There was rage there, and desperation. Perhaps one of the greatest tragedies of 9/11 is that so many young men felt they had no choice but to end their lives in such a manner.
It is time for a change. We need a new direction. We have tried the path of vengeance and retaliation and that has done nothing but lock us into a spiral of ever increasing violence and death. Our soldiers are dying everyday. Our national psyche and our national treasury are both straining under the weight of a never ending war. The blood of thousands of innocents is on our hands. We can not change the past. But we can decide the future. This is not a struggle we can win by fighting. Violence begets violence. Evil begets evil. Let us instead take a different path. Let’s take a page from that first 9/11 so long ago. Gandhi, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King did not change the world by violence. They did so by peace. Their actions were borne from love. It is time for us to follow their example. We need to exit this cycle of violence once and for all. Let us today begin to walk a new path. One of peace, of love, of understanding. One that does not involve violence and domination of the weak by the strong. Let us make 9/11 a day remembered in the future, not as the start of the War on Terror, but as the day a turning point was reached in human history, one that set us on a path that would lead to true peace.
THAT is a far better way to honor the fallen.
May it be so.
When an emergency occurs people react rather than act. This instinct has saved countless lives over the course of human existence. But at some point the emergency subsides and it becomes time to think, to reflect, and decide upon the right response to the calamity that has beset us. After 9/11 we were in a collective state of panic. Fear possessed us for months upon end. This is perfectly understandable. But now it is five years later. Have we yet taken a step back to reflect upon what has happened? On 9/11 three thousand Americans lost their lives. Two national monuments were destroyed. Hundreds of ordinary men and women became heroes as they rose to the occasion. Many lost their lives in so doing. And how have we honored them?
In the past five years we have invaded two countries, one of which had nothing to do with 9/11. In so doing we also caused the deaths of thousands of civilian lives, many times the number that died on 9/11. Three major terror attacks have occurred around the world in the U.K., Spain, and India. Islamic fundamentalism has spread like wildfire the world over. Terror groups too numerous to count have sprung up everywhere. We have traded many of our precious civil liberties for the empty promise of security. Our nation has become divided. Brother against brother, ideology against ideology. Anything different is considered suspect. Hate crimes against and suspicions about Muslims have run rampant.
THIS is how we honor our fallen? By killing many times their number in more innocent lives, sacrificing our young men and women on the battlefield, and invading a country that had nothing to do with the attack? And what has been the result of this strategy? Our world is even less safe today than it was on that clear September morning split by the unimaginable horror in the skies. Obviously something has gone wrong. It is time to reevaluate our response to 9/11. Responding to violence with more violence solves nothing. It only results in a vicious cycle that costs more and more lives. It is time for us to try something different. But what?
I am struck by an odd coincidence. You see, today is not the only September 11 on which the world changed. A hundred years ago on this day something occurred which would shake the world to its very roots. In a colonial backwater known as South Africa a man named Mahatma Gandhi decided to resist oppression by nonviolence. His radical idea was to oppose an inherently violent idea, by peace. No fighting, no violence. Just peaceful resistance. As a result of his decision, several countries were liberated from colonial rule. A young preacher named Martin Luther King accepted the ideas as his own. A woman named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus. Hundreds of children and teenagers marched for integration in Birmingham Alabama. Decades, even centuries of oppression were ended due to this one radical idea. And Gandhi’s legacy lives on to this day.
Perhaps we should have had a different response to 9/11. Standing in the shadow of the ruin that was once the twin towers, perhaps we should have asked, not how do we get revenge for this atrocious act? But why did it happen to begin with? What would cause a young man with the rest of his life ahead of him to hijack a plane and fly it into a skyscraper? And not just one young man, but nearly two dozen! Religious fervor does not account for that. There was rage there, and desperation. Perhaps one of the greatest tragedies of 9/11 is that so many young men felt they had no choice but to end their lives in such a manner.
It is time for a change. We need a new direction. We have tried the path of vengeance and retaliation and that has done nothing but lock us into a spiral of ever increasing violence and death. Our soldiers are dying everyday. Our national psyche and our national treasury are both straining under the weight of a never ending war. The blood of thousands of innocents is on our hands. We can not change the past. But we can decide the future. This is not a struggle we can win by fighting. Violence begets violence. Evil begets evil. Let us instead take a different path. Let’s take a page from that first 9/11 so long ago. Gandhi, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King did not change the world by violence. They did so by peace. Their actions were borne from love. It is time for us to follow their example. We need to exit this cycle of violence once and for all. Let us today begin to walk a new path. One of peace, of love, of understanding. One that does not involve violence and domination of the weak by the strong. Let us make 9/11 a day remembered in the future, not as the start of the War on Terror, but as the day a turning point was reached in human history, one that set us on a path that would lead to true peace.
THAT is a far better way to honor the fallen.
May it be so.
posted by RAS at 9/11/2006 07:40:00 AM
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