Like pretty much everyone who lives in the tri-state area, I remember precisely where I was nine years ago. It was a Tuesday morning, and I was a freshman at Wagner College, sitting in Music Theory class. The professor heard what had happened, and informed us that he would not be ending his class early but anyone who wanted to leave was free to go with no penalty. I stayed for two reasons: first, I'm a music nerd. Secondly, I was unable to grasp the enormity of what happened because I didn't see the images on television like many, many others had.
When the class ended, I made my way to the parking lot. People were literally running to the highest point of the campus (which I had to walk through to get to the parking lot) to see what they could see. When I looked and saw the massive plumes of smoke rising from downtown Manhattan, it still didn't hit that something very bad had happened. I made my way home to find my mother and close friend glued to the television, saying a second plane had just crashed into the towers, another hit the pentagon, a fourth crashed in PA, and that this was obviously some sort of attack that rivaled Pearl Harbor.
The next few hours sort of went by in a blur, but I imagine it's a similar story to thousands, if not millions, of others.
We eventually found out a close family friend, who I called Uncle, was killed (he was a firefighter, part of the very first company to arrive at the towers). I add this line just as a buffer to what I'm about to say.
Nine years, two wars, two presidents, 5696 dead and 50k+ wounded soldiers later, I look and listen to find that the national character has been seemingly irreversibly damaged by this event. Politicians use 9/11 as fodder for false patriotism while religious leaders use it to call for contemporary crusades. The attacks have been cited to support institutional racism, they've been used by con-artists to prey upon the good will of our neighbors, and they were used by the federal government to justify espionage against its own citizens.
George W. Bush allowed the FBI to quite literally spy on whomever they wanted, and Barack Obama spends the first year of his presidency further ruining healthcare while 9/11 aid workers suffer and die from a myriad of lung ailments because they are not entitled to proper care under either the current healthcare system OR Obama's version of the same thing.
George W. Bush sends our nation into an unnecessary war based on non-existent WMDs then prematurely
Our nation, a nation "conceived in liberty", is mired in partisan politics and feelings of anti-Islam and xenophobia (I hate the word Islamophobia, because it implies fear instead of hatred). The partisan politics are a direct cause of Islamic hatred, and that's where the damage to our national character is most pronounced. I'm of the opinion that people desperately want to move on from 9/11. They want to remember their loved ones, and they have the right to be angry when remembering that those loved ones were cruelly taken away far too early. But they also want to keep on keeping on, to remember the events in their own ways and do the best they can to honor those who perished by living full, productive lives. Yet how can we move on when both of the major political parties in the country use 9/11 to justify whatever asinine policies they're introducing at the moment? How can we move on when the media constantly reminds us that Muslims are the THEM to our US?
The most relevant issue that reflects this obsession right now is the community center being built blocks away from the WTC site. Dozens upon dozens of stories about the imam in charge are being printed in countless newspapers across the country and documented by several tv news shows. There is no fine line between camps either, no one espousing moderate solutions. All sorts of politicians are weighing in, even those who ruined their careers by driving drunk from their mistress' house in Virginia where they saw the child they fathered with that mistress, and those who make more money by breathing than most of us do by working 90 hours per week. All sorts of pundits are weighing in, even those who have been busted for outright lying on several occasions and those who compare themselves to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. even though they base their oratory in fear-mongering instead of brotherhood. And we all watch, and listen, and agree with one side or the other because they say that these are the only two opinions we can logically have. After all, it's much easier to live when other people think for us.
Why is an interfaith community center that will be built blocks away from ground zero even in the news? Why aren't we concerned that a democratic congress GOT ABSOLUTELY NOTHING DONE WITH A FILIBUSTER-PROOF MAJORITY? Why aren't we concerned that OUR UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IS ALMOST 10%? Why aren't we concerned that CEOs who run companies into the ground RECEIVE MULTIMILLION DOLLAR SEVERANCE PACKAGES WHILE ELDERLY PEOPLE WHO WORKED THEIR WHOLE LIVES LOSE THEIR HOMES?? Why are we supporting a religious leader WHO WANTS TO BURN BOOKS?? WHY AM I SHOUTING SO MUCH?
It's because I remember how I felt on 9/10/01, and it's largely the same as I feel on 9/9/10. And more pertinent to what I'm really railing against, I'm shouting because in being sensitive to the survivors of 9/11 victims, we are forgetting that on 9/10/01 we were a more inclusive, tolerant society.
It seems to me that this country learned absolutely nothing from these attacks except how to more efficiently hate a culture that's different from ours because a bunch of people on tv and another bunch on Capitol Hill say that it's the American way of thinking. Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann, Nancy Pelosi, Mitt Romney, Mike Bloomberg, Sarah Palin, John McCain, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama should not be allowed to make up your mind for you. We are on the verge of tolerating institutional racism again.
It's not un-American to think it's ok for Muslims to worship where they want. It's not un-American to think that it's not ok for the FBI to wiretap you because they got a tip that there was a sleeper cell operation within a 1200 mile radius of your home.
And it's certainly not un-American to believe that 9/11, as enormous a tragedy as it was, has run its course as an excuse for the federal government and the media to tell you how to think and how to behave, to tell you which policies to support and which to dislike, to tell you which religion to support and which religion to hate.
"Before you seek revenge, dig two graves." -- Confucius
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