Nine years ago to the day people around the world woke up from a strange nightmare. If they were anywhere near a television, the images broadcast would have confirmed that the burning skyscrapers, the dot-people leaping to their death, the massive rubble exploding into dust, and the jetliner banking, over and over again, to its final destination, that these were no slumbering cerebral invention but instead were the death of 2,996 human beings and the echo of the starting pistol for a new era in world affairs. Among those 2,996 dead there were 19 Others, 19 Arabs, 19 who received posthumous responsibility for the events of September 11th. They had been acting in the name of a murky organization which, in the fertile chaos of failed states and repressive but disinterested plutocrats, had managed to fuse greasy petroleum profits and an understanding of modern technology and media with a strand of self-righteous quasi-religious philosophy that imbues its members with a Machiavellian sense of right and wrong. The Western powers, lacking a readily identifiable enemy-word since the fall of Eurasia and Communism, had finally found a replacement in Terrorism. And so newspapers headlines went back to screaming "War!", the President made square-jawed speeches broadcast around the world, and a few billion dollars more of gasoline was bought to send the streamlined machinery of Death on a world tour.
Today we must ask, just as we did nine years ago: What Happened? Who are These People trying to kill Us? And How do we stop Them?
Answers abound, but which ones have proved worthwhile? We spent a great deal of time and money determining exactly What Happened and who These People were. Nonetheless, the conspiracy theory has experienced a rebirth in the (Global) War on Terrorism, and these flames have been repeatedly fanned by major "news" sources and political figures in every country, whether the topic be the events of September 11th, the myriad wars and attacks in the nine years that followed, or even the birth place and religion of the current U.S. President. And although we may mostly agree on Who was responsible for September 11th, we have yet to agree on Why they did it. And the Why is important. Is terrorism fed by poverty? If so, we need to do a much better job of mitigating the aftershocks of globalized capitalism. Do they hate us because of our Freedoms -- gay marriage, cursing and pornography on TV, abortions, etc.? If so, we either need to get rid of those Freedoms or make sure that every country in the world becomes Free™. Are Muslim leaders using Islam to engender anti-Western terrorism? If that's the case, then the response should be to limit the power of those type of leaders by any means possible. Despite our professed allegiance to Rational Thought, over the past nine years we have always justified our actions with an answer to the Why instead of genuinely seeking to answer the Why and then basing our actions on that. The result has been one confused policy after another and a dangerous decrease in the Friend:Enemy ratio.
I must descend from the editorial post and confess that this post is personal. I watched the Twin Towers fall on 9/11 -- not on TV like most of the world, but in person. I looked out the window as a fireball erupted on the North Tower, felt the second plane's impact on the South Tower, listened to the announcement that the country was at war against an unknown enemy, heard and then saw the first tower fall and the dust cloud rush up the street towards me carrying vaporized human remains, walked uptown as the second tower fell behind me. I remember walking by a TV studio in midtown Manhattan and seeing a video of the second plane hitting the South Tower. The immensity of the events of the past few hours began to truly sink in, although I, like the rest of the world, could not even begin to comprehend what was to come. That was nine years and one day ago today. Nine years ago exactly we all woke up and began to wonder what would happen next.
The question I would ask is, knowing what we now know, would we have done things differently? It is easy for any individual to say that, yes, things should have been different: Should have captured Bin Laden. Shouldn't have invaded Iraq. Should have seen the real estate bust coming. But as a people, as a chaotic mass of opinions, fears, desires, would we have done things differently? And will we use the lessons learned over the past nine years to make the next nine better? Can we learn to open our political discourse without devolving into screeching primates? Can we harness market forces to build not only higher corporate profits but jobs and a solid economic base? Can we begin to lend an authentic helping hand to the citizens of the Third World -- especially the Muslim ones? Can we learn to lead with respect -- as a country, as citizens, and as family and community members? As I stated in an earlier post, the election of Obama represents an opportunity for change, even if you don't agree with his particular brand of Change™. Opportunity implies responsibility. If we choose to let this opportunity go by, to fantasize that laissez-faire is suficiente in this globalized world, then we have no right to blame anyone else for anything. Over the past nine years, we have heard time and time again that 9/11 was a "wake-up call". So why are we still asleep?