I have so far avoided noding anything about this affair, because I was not sure whether I could express myself or whether I had any right to do so. Like everybody here, I have made the occasional faux pas or miscalculation when writing something for E2. I try to avoid that.
One typically remembers quite clearly the exact moment and circumstance when one hears that something horrible has happened. There is a blank in memory just after that. But one remembers the dizzy feeling of "this can't be real", the feeling of one's subconscious not yet accepting what has happened.
So while I quite distinctly remember being told of the attacks, I don't know what I answered or did just afterwards.
But later, I remember, I began to get angry. Not for the obvious reason - not angry at the terrorists. Their actions still did not seem real. But I was angry at all of those people who now seemed to be telling me to mourn.
The chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Schröder, said: "Now we are all Americans.", meaning: "We grieve with you." And soon voices were heard from the USA telling us: " You're either with us or you're against us."
So why did that make me angry? Because I did not see a reason why to mourn for those specific three thousand people who had died in the attacks. Am I so heartless as not to care for them? No, but I never mourned for the thousands dying from disease, famine and war each year. Nobody mourns for them. There is no memorial for the thousands dying of starvation and torture in North Korea, or Iraq, or Africa.
So why should we mourn those specific three thousand people who were killed in the attacks? There are a couple of possible reasons, and they are all provocative.
So to me, mourning meant that I would do it for one of the reasons above. And they are all bad reasons. They all show that the actual people who died do not really matter. And that is not acceptable. Unfortunately, that seemed to put me at odds with just about everybody else on the planet, so I went very quiet. I did write the following short text and put it on my website:
The victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have my deepest sympathies. With the following text I want in no way diminish or justify the tragedy.
After the attack on the World Trade Center the flags of all nations were at half-mast. But actually they always belong there. Thousands of people die all the time. Who cares about the thousands who died because of the US embargo on Iraq? The thousands of fugitives leaving Afghanistan? The thousands starving to death in North Korea? Just because of them, no flag would fly differently.
My website? http://www.zarkonnen.com
It seems I need to clear up a misunderstanding here: It was not my intention to criticise the Americans for mourning. It was my intention to criticise them for expecting, almost commanding, everybody else to do the same, even though it didn't really touch them directly.
29 years later...
True, it's been one year since the "terrorist attack" in the United States, but it happened 29 years ago, when a military coup was staged in Chile, where more innocent people were slaughtered in Chile's national stadium than died in the World Trade Center. Don't believe me? Look at the massive lists of the people that mysteriously vanished that day and were never heard from again. On that same token, you wont find too many people in Chile with the birthday September 11, 1973, either... the US trained militants (called "milicos" in Chile) also raided Chilean hospitals. These militants were quietly labeled freedom fighters by the US government; but isn't it funny how the US conveniently labels groups as either freedom fighters or terrorists, at the US' convenience?
The Chilean militants were labeled as freedom fighters because they fought the socialist government. However, when the Irish Republican Army tries to free themselves from British rule, just like America did in the colonial days, they were labeled as terrorists for years!
But what about the Afghans?
When the Soviet Union tried to free Afghanistan from oppression, the US backed and trained the Afghans to make Afghanistan "free for democracy" (or free for helping the spreading of imperialism). But, a little over a decade later, the same Afghans that were labeled as freedom fighters by the US government (including Osama Bin Laden himself) are now labeled as terrorists.
Odd, wouldn't you say?
I never really could add anything more than myself to any given topic. I hope that I can be useful. I would like to ask: can anyone in their right mind believe this next statement?
"For twentysomethings, last Tuesday also meant that we could die. Personally, I don't think I was entirely convinced that Americans under 30 were destructible until last week." --Camille Dodero, "The end of unbridled irony", Boston Phoenix
I am part of the "September 11th Generation". I'm supposed to feel angry and scared, or patriotic and proud, or something - something directly related to this tragic event's place in my tender teenaged years. Supposed by whom? I don't know. The media may distort, but it rarely ever conjures from nothing, and thus there must be some basis in authority for the articles I've read delineating what I feel and how I will act as a result. I am, if I were to approach what seems to be the current media consensus, a worried patriotic Christian with a large amount of public service to my name. About a year before September 11th, I was a video-game obsessed super-predator, a bomb waiting to go off. I guess before that I was a junior Internet jockey destined for Silicon Valley stardom.
I realize that I'm the wrong letter. I'll say it anyway. Whatever.
I am only able to conceive of things socially. It is beyond an interest with me; it is a mild pathology that I have to keep in check day by day. When I see a person my age, I see practically nothing until I talk to them for quite some time, begin to be able to predict their modes of thought, hear something of their personal history. If I cannot secure a person within my prior prejudices, I do one of two things: I run, or I become infatuated.
It would be very difficult to fall in love with our generation; I know this. I have a Britney Spears poster on my wall, pinned by lust, laminated in cheap irony, and I sure can't remember buying it, although I undoubtedly did so with my parents' money. So the pathological social-heads, my peers who have been granted tenure or even executive positions because of their sickness, play a dangerous game: to "understand" is to control, and the less complex the understanding, the more direct the power exercised by every one-page article in Newsweek or editorial in the Washington Post. September 11th Child, Super-Predator, Internet Kid.
You see, we really don't care. But they already beat that one dead, and no one wants to read the same old story again. So America needs a generation that pops, something dynamic! Exclamation points! Tragedy! Adversity! Quick! Of course! So many people dying at the hands of the Enemy, the Other, must have had some nigh-universal impact. We want war! Or no war! We want more aggressive foreign policy! Or less American involvement overseas! We want candy! And to save the endangered Alaskan salmon.
Am I putting the actual events of a year ago on the sideline? Yes. I have to do so. So does CNN, and the President; so do the critics of American foreign policy, and your concerned citizen on the street. 24 hours of record-breaking ratings! A corporate bail-out to end all others! An unprecedented view on the effects of imperialism! I feel so different! Is this wrong? No. It is necessary, whether for good or ill intention. Even those whose loved ones died in the attack may put The Events aside today - because one or two or more people that they know died a year ago today. That's not "the terrorist attacks on September 11th". That's death, that death, these deaths, not "the terrorist attacks." The totality of that experience simply is, and god knows none of us are going to simply sit and stare at that same videotape over and over until it loses meaning. We don't want to, perhaps we shouldn't, and it's not like CNN is going to let us anyhow, because the FDNY interview is on in five minutes.
I am farther left than much of my generation. Maybe. I'd like to think not, but there it is. Before September 11th, I was pretty sure that the revolution wasn't going to happen among my peers. Afterwards, I was completely sure. And then, when leftist and revolutionary organizations registered actual jumps in membership, I went back to being pretty sure. I dealt with the attacks through a leftist lens, critical of the United States, because I felt obligated - just like the guy down the street who covered everything in flag stickers, and the Fox News anchors who wore American flag lapel pins, and the people in the back room who made the neat graphic under which reporters could frown thoughtfully. Nothing new, to be certain. The entire country borrowed The Events from those who died - the terrorists and the victims alike - and put them to use for their own ends. It all changed the way we wanted it to change. It still does.
I have asked my peers today, male and female, Democrat and Republican, Green and Communist, white and black, gay and straight: did September 11th change your life in any significant way?
Shrugs win by a landslide.
A writeup was penned by NOTfnordian a little while ago, and nuked shortly thereafter. Apatrix retained the entire text, and shared it with me. I have asked the author to post the writeup again at this node. I will ask the rest of you, not for "my generation", but for me: Don't nuke it. Read it. And read it again. And again. Don't even bother reflecting. It just is.
What will I do? I'm wearing a white shirt in solidarity for peace and nonviolence or some other pinko hippie crap. I think I will get very drunk tonight, so drunk as to approach genuineness, and then I will toast to the memory of those who died, because it will be very romantic for me to do. For me. Does it surprise you that we have had one "Me Generation" after another? We will have many more, because we are a "me" country, like Britain, like Rome. Our self-reflection is a luxury related to our power. That is what empire means.
I will wait a year, and try again - maybe as a thing, and not just an idea.
I could only get so far in these day logs today and then gave up in great frustration and futility. Here Dear Readers are some jumbled thoughts and opinions.
I will begin with asking some hard-hitting questions:
Here is a fact to consider: In the 2000 American presidential election of the 207 million citizens of voting age, only 105 million voted - meaning 102 million people did not make the effort to vote. That's a scant 51%.
The American people are some of the most generous people on earth. I couldn't agree more.
What would you like to see happen?
Stop whining about the US, the media, Corporate America and political agendas, get off your prissy American flag waving duffs and DO something! For heaven's sake, you do have a brain. Think for your selves. The people who died a year ago and their lives deserve to have meaning.
There is too much evidence of complacency, resignation and taking for granted of what we have today. Two generations ago, twelve million American teenagers and twentysomethings spent four years perishing in Europe and the Pacific because they believed they could make a difference in the world and they did. Not one person did not have more than one family member involved and to worry over. Behold the power of faith. They all worked together to make it a better world for YOU to inherit, enjoy and pass on to the next generation. Today there are only one to two million Americans over there trying. That's how it's done. Change takes blood, guts and hard work. That's why we have so much.
Truth, it's been said, is the first causality of war.
Yes, they were fed religious propaganda by a charismatic warlord who WE put in place by not speaking up as a nation and demanding more qualified candidates to run our country.
What is past is prologue.
Devotion
2002 september 11, faubourg deli tables, too much brown sauce
a lot of awkwardness. people dropping their food from tray to floor, imbalanced. broken glasses. crucial text i can no longer afford delayed, still unavailable. tense interpersonal exchanges, generalized anxiety. 32 celsius yesterday; today is cold, windy, rainy, grey. travelling weather. viciousness often surfacing. war drums are louder than i've ever experienced. on the internet, touchiness over topical exchanges. things missing, lost, malplaced. paused on one's toes in the hallway, listening, waiting.
Its been one year. One year. Me personally, I wasn't directly related to anyone who lost their life during the September 11th attacks, but I felt a great deal of sorrow for those people who lost loved ones during what seemed to be a rather "normal" Tuesday morning in the middle of September. But time would tell it would not be.
I woke up, as normal at 7 o'clock this morning. And got up, and just as a sign of unity and patriotism, I decided to wear my red, white and blue. Got up, got to where I had to be, and when I got near a flag, I got up and I said the pledge of allegiance. And I think all American's should get up and say the pledge today, even if you don't normally. Because its a sign of respect of what this country stands for. The liberties and freedoms. I even listened to the singing of the national anthem.
Although today will be a day of sorrow about what happened last year, it should be day of reflection too. Take a minute, maybe five, and just think about life, and heroics. Think about the people who risked their life to save others. When it comes down to it, would you risk yours to save someone else?
A year ago from today, a major tragedy fell upon us. Through that tragedy we have learned a lot about ourselves as individuals and as a community. A year and one day ago, a major tragedy fell upon us as well. Through that tragedy we have learned a lot about ourselves as individuals and as a community (and yes, we are a community).
First of all, a year ago we, not only as a country, but as a species, witnessed the most tragic and sinister acts ever committed. I do not have to go into details as to what happened, as it brings back haunting memories to some, but there is no doubt in my mind that those haunting images remain in each and every one of our minds. Now is a time to reflect about the major loss of life and show the world how it has taken us less then a year to recover from this tragedy. This shows how strong we are.
A year and a day ago, we, as a community here at E2, experienced another tragedy. We lost a very talented noder. Now, this noder was before my time, so I can not say that I knew him. But after reading his writeups especially his daylogs, I sure wish I did know him. He seemed like one of those few people who can make a difference in your life through what he says. But we have bounced back as a community.
Now is a time to reflect on these losses. I have reflected about the said noder who we lost with several of my noder friends. Of the tragedy of 9/11, we reflected and remembered today in school. Our school lit up candles in remembrance of this event. Each candle was individually named, representing the three thousand and thirty one people who lost their life. The candles are shaped in a heart, and around the heart are written the words "We," "NY, "DC," and "PA." It's hard to illustrate, but it shows that "We Love NY...We Love DC...We Love Pennsylvania."
I am glad that we have gone through this day without any more trouble. We remained united through these hard times showing the world how we can always stand tall no matter what problems come upon us. Now, before I leave, I would just like to express my regrets and deep sympathies to anyone who was hurt by either of these tragedies.
Nothing has changed. Each day, I rise before the sun Each day, I work the same job I had before September 11, and Each day, I plot a way to quit.
I still meet with friends I still write I still laugh I still have insomnia I still drink too much I still question God's mercy, God's vengence
I do not worry about terrorism Those days are gone Not because terrorism is, But because I have accepted death.
Peace is a lie. There are only two conditions-- War years and inter-war years. Because life is still a struggle Though I and those like me have forgotten.
We've numbed ourselves With work and alcohol and sex, Filling our gas tanks with Saudi oil, Drinking Colombian coffee, Wearing clothes made in India And shoes made in China All brought to us By the brothers and sisters of terrorists.
There is no closure. The gnawing pain, the hunger To see that person again Yet knowing, like a starving man That you'll never be fulfilled That pain doesn't leave, No matter how much revenge, No matter how much therapy, You still remain hungry.
I learned this years ago Watching my father's body Eaten by a congenital cancer Which likely waits in my body, too Sleeper cells waiting to attack.
I lost him, and learned That you never get over it But learn to go numb And block the pain out With work and alcohol and sex And every so often, let out the pain In your own personal war Your own personal jihad Against despair.
So tonight I walked under the apple tree That grows behind my parents' house. And, as it's still early September, Saw that the fruit wasn't ripe And if I were to eat it, Would be sick. But still, that snake slithers in the branches Whispering my name.
3,000 people die in New York. It may as well have been a television show to a lot of us. Sorry, that's just the way it is. George W. Bush comes out in the rubble to "unite America". What else is on?
See, too many teenagers know what "America" is. Draft me. I dare you. The youth of today is not the youth of the vietnam era. We shoot cops. We shoot each other in the very institutions you think are there to teach us.
"This will be the defining moment for our children."
"This is the Vietnam of our generation."
"This will change the lives of everyone in America."
Shut the fuck up. You don't know what you're talking about.
An apathy has been bred in the youth of the United States. Not an ignorant apathy, an apathy of survival. A cynicism that can exist in the most idealistic of minds. We can want the world to change and know that we have one chance in a billion of making a difference. Kids are throwing their lives away in drive-by's, in schools, in random senseless events imitating television shows, so does it surprise you that some are throwing their lives away trying to change the world when the odds are stacked against them?
The Pentagon and the World Trade Centers in New York.
If I *had* to pick 3,000 people to die spontaneously in the United States I couldn't think of a better place to start.
Speaking as a youth in the United States, those places are a fairyland. You can tell me over and over how those places have a huge impact on my life and it's just not going to get through to me. Not because I'm ignorant, I *understand*, I *just don't care*. See, a lot of kids today just are like that. We gave up on your world long ago. Tell the kids sleeping in the park that an attack on the pentagon affects them. Tell the kids slinging rock that the economy affects them, in fact, tell *any* drug dealer that there will be a shortage of clientele at any time, ever. The laugh you'd hear coming from them would set off a harmonic resonating on the exact frequency of the rest of the so-called "disenfranchised".
The USA gave up on so many of us, what did you expect? And now I have to listen to adults tell me that this is the defining moment of my generation? That this matters. I have these childhood memories of the US obliterating some place called Iraq. That's my concept of "war". It's a fireworks show and don't try to tell me it's anything more.
You can no longer vilify people in the eyes of the youth of the USA. We just don't believe the US media anymore. Sorry.
George W. Bush is just as ignorant and dogmatic as Osama bin Laden. Wait. Stop. Actually think about that one. We've thought about it.
No one in my family died in the September 11th attacks. No one I know died that day. Don't hold that against me when I say that because of that fact it's hard to relate to all the pain and suffering that should be happening to me now.
September 11th? Afghanistan? Osama bin Laden? No big deal. What else is on.....
I could talk more about today, but I want to address a couple of things that have been troubling me about what happened on this day a year ago, and the events following it. The world's been on a state of alert since that day, and entire year full of mistrust, gloating nationalism, jingoism, racism, and random blaming of the world's ills on 'terrorists'. In my opinion the number, and the danger stemming from terrorism has in fact been very low during the period I'm talking about, and even before. In fact I would even go so far as to say that the acts of 9/11 weren't terrorist in nature.
A terrorist usually has some sort of ideal, or message, or demand. Nothing like this was ever released, and you'd expect the most 'successful' terrorist attack in history to be accompanied with some kind of open statement of exhultation, or indeed a demand of some sort. Nothing like that happened, we only got shown some dodgy tape of some guy in a cave months later talking in the vaguest terms about a 'successful' operation. This does not a compelling case make.
A compelling case is however visible for assuming that far from demanding some sort of political response from the USA, or the wider world, the purpose of the 9/11 attacks was to change the nature of our consciousness both at an individual level, and as a society. If anything should have underlined what people are willing to go through for their beliefs in destroying the symbols they hate, and in the fragility of life, then it was undoubtedly the devastating impact of a plane full of innocent people onto a building full of more innocent people.
Imagine the kind of mental strength of belief, and the will power required to fly not the first plane, but the second into the tower while one can see the burning first tower in full view. How many people reading this could relate to someone like this? It represents a fundamentally different kind of mental approach. One we would describe as insane, but also one that no amount of political chicanery or economic gifting could alter or divert. If someone who thinks like this chooses to kill you, you are indeed already dead. It is only a matter of time. It is a new form of consciousness, and one that is threat to the extant one, so anyone, innocent or not, who exhibits this kind of mindset is seen as a threat, and ruthlessly hunted down.
Those people in guantanamo bay fought to defend their adopted home from an invading force, much as the American's di
