the week that changed the world

"We plead to all our Afghan brothers and sisters remaining in Afghanistan to support and cooperate with the United States of America in any decision against those who committed these crimes...To Afghan-Americans: If you are stopped, questioned..please cooperate and assist in every way possible. Do not be alarmed or offended it is for the safety of every American including your family and friends. God Bless America." From the Afghan-American website, afghanistans.com

"We need the help of the spirit of God." Rev. Billy Graham

"Love is stronger than hate." Spoken at the Memorial Service at the National Cathedral

sept 11 2001 - the nine o'clock hour: the towers are falling

sept 12 2001 - it happened: 24 hours later

sept 13 2001 - and on the third day: no rest

sept 14 2001 - finding one, while others still search

sept 14 2001 - enter the president

sept 15 2001 - remembering what is impossible to forget

Noon, September 14, 2001

"A few [people] remain incorrigibly naive about the world. They want peace to reign, and God love them for it, except that peace doesn't always reign. There are some very nasty people who wish Western democracies ill, especially but not exclusively the United States. The naive believe that nothing should be done to strike back at terrorism until the Israeli-Palestinian question is finally resolved, not realizing how vulnerable countries…would be in the meantime." Jeffery Ingram, The Globe and Mail (Canada)

One of those people was me. Before today. Now, I know that we cannot sit back and wish peace when there are people who do not want it, people who invite a war, and would destroy democracy.

We all want to stop the violence, we all want terrorism to end, it is to be taken for granted that we have always wished this, and yet that is just as incorrigibly naïve as the people who want us to not do anything about what happened on Tuesday. As another columnist said this morning, as long as we depend on the Middle East for so much of our oil, we will have to fight for it.

This morning, I feel no surface emotions, only deep loss. Suddenly my mind begins to wander to the greater picture, where I could not see it before. Perhaps soon I will look at these words and feel traitorous for writing them.

Imagine yourself going about your sad life in the already war-torn city of Kabul, waiting for the fighter jets and the bombs. After Tuesday, I never want anyone to experience such ugliness again. But that is unrealistic. A war has been declared, and we will defend ourselves. I will be there.

But while we mourn, we might stop to examine our consumption, perhaps there are ways that we can economize. We could decrease our dependence on countries where we are hated. Improvise, find out where we can become more efficient. Sell our SUV's.

What we have, with tensions, economic discrepancies and all, works better than just about anywhere else in the world. But we must reflect. We must be determined in the desire to care more about our fellow citizens, about the health and well being of our towns and cities, many of which are tragically divided and poverty-stricken. We must finally, for once and all, realize what we should have known all along, that regardless of who we are, what we celebrate and what color our skin, if we love our country, that is all we need in common.

At the risk of raising ire, I hold that we must realize that our way of life comes at a price. The western world has so much while so many countries around the globe live in poverty. I no longer feel comfortable saying that it's because those countries are corrupt. Many of these corrupt countries are one-time colonies that have been left to flounder after the Free World upped stakes and went back to Lisbon, to Barcelona, to London, to Paris, to Amsterdam and Brussels.

The spreading sentiment that really, that's not something we need to be thinking about in this hour is disturbing. There should always be time for reflection. I think of the time that thousands of us sat at the feet of the Dalai Lama in Central Park on that wonderful Easter morning, when the wise man preached peace, and we all went home aglow. How many of us can no longer remember that day?

It is a difficult moment.

How can we learn from this? In our personal lives, many of us see the value of learning from private catastrophe. So why should we as a nation not learn from our present and shared hell? We can become stronger through this, or we can fall to pieces.

In suburban Chicago, they are storming mosques and screaming "Arabs Go Home."

Angelenos are lining up at gun-shops and heading for the desert.

This is a time when closed minds cease to be a minor annoyance, and become a terrible danger. If xenophobia is allowed to prevail in this moment, we will only live to regret it.

It is being said that the people detained at the airports on Thursday night have been cleared of all suspicion.

A friend of mine in Seattle warned via e-mail that while we all would say that the internment of the Japanese during World War II now seems completely hideous, she wonders if now, we finally understand how such sentiment could become sanctioned by the government.

Yes, now the emotion is understandable, I have felt whispers of it within, however I am firm in my belief that it is a dangerous emotion, it is a wrong way of thinking.

The neighborhood where I live is filled with Middle-Eastern immigrants, many of them have lived here for years, some of them even speak Spanish, the primary language in this corner of Brooklyn for so many years. They manage businesses - providing hardware, cigars and cigarettes, magazines, there is a line of Halal restaurants a block from my home, there is a mosque outside which the call to prayer sounds loudly, over the traffic of the busy intersection.

People are standing outside and screaming at them. It is known that a training center for followers of militant Islam does exist, here in Brooklyn, but it is not a given that every one with the wrong color skin wishes to bring New York and America down. It makes no more sense than any of the other waves of racial hatred that have torn across this country throughout it's history.

Back at Ground Zero, this is the day when things begin to get ugly.

Rudy is upset, so is Bernie Kerik, the Police Commissioner, they are desperate to make an example of people who are calling in phony threats and phony survivor reports. Turns out, 90 bomb threats yesterday. They are coming down with iron fist on people who are breaking into stores and stealing things, things like watches from Tourneau.

A woman was standing there in medical scrubs and hysterics, screaming that her husband and nine others were alive and stuck under the ruins of Tower One.

Everyone went into action, and then it was said that there was no husband, there was no phone call. She was arrested, and they are bringing her up on federal charges.

Scammers are calling around asking the elderly for donations.

The Fire Commissioner, Thomas Von Essen, has asked volunteers to stop coming for the next week or so, and I want to throttle all of the assholes who are hampering the efforts of the brave men and women fighting to bring our city back to normal.

Uptown, Howard Stern is back in the saddle, talking about the after-the-fact reactions of the Floridians who knew some of the men involved in the incident.

Hey, he says - this is America.

We were too busy having a good time. If someone had told us that they were interested in learning how to fly planes, and didn't show up for the lessons on landings and takeoffs, we wouldn't have necessarily rushed to the conclusion that we were standing face to face with Future Terrorists of America.

He is right. Life was a party. Wang Chung, Whip It Good, We Need A Holiday.

He is joking that the city's hookers and strippers should volunteer their services to the cops and firemen who have not stopped to relax since Tuesday morning.

I suppose this is part of the getting back to normal that the mayor was speaking about, but nothing feels normal. Not in the slightest.

 

Email: davidr@lifeingotham.com

Next Update: 20 September

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