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Remembering 9/11
At 10.46pm here (8.46am New York time) tonight, someone tweeted that this was the moment when American Airlines 11 hit World Trade Centre 1. That sparked a flurry of posts from people saying where they were when they heard about the tragedy, how they felt, etc. It was an eerie thing to see unfolding.
Then, inevitably, the dissenting voices started. How was it, they asked, that people could spend so much time thinking about that attack, when thousands of Iraqi and Afghani civilians had been killed? Why did America get precedent? Why was it so much 'worse'? Weren't we just being conditioned by the media?
That got me thinking.
For me, at least, it's not about privileging America's tragedy (insofar as it was American, given how many people from other countries died that day). It's not about being blind to the atrocities committed elsewhere, before and since September 11, 2001.
It's about how I woke up on that morning, listening to the radio news, and thinking that it had to be some kind of hoax - and the shock I felt when I turned on the television and saw it was all too real. It was the realisation that this was a single, co-ordinated attack that killed thousands - and I was watching it happen - to the most powerful nation on earth. The disbelief was immense; like realising that the Titanic was, in fact, sinkable.
It's about feeling the tears start when I saw the footage of the falling man, imagining the desperation and terror of those who flung themselves out of the windows, hoping for - what? A quick death rather than choking or burning? The one in a million chance of survival? Or just fleeing, without thinking beyond mustgetaway.
It's about watching those towers fall, and realising that the police, the fireman and the Port Authority I had seen streaming in to rescue the workers there had all just been killed. And realising that they probably knew that's what would happen, and went in anyway.
And it's about how I saw the Pentagon burning, and thought very clearly to myself, 'American will go to war over this. And they'll drag us in with them.' Knowing there was nothing I could do about that. Every Cold War fear I had at that moment came flooding back. I looked at my 10 month old twin girls in their rockers, waiting for their morning bottles, and felt as though I'd let them down somehow. As though, by bringing them into the world where this was happening, I had done something terrible.
It's never been a case of 'white Western tragedy' for me. I felt the same horror and grief when I first saw footage of Jonestown, and of Rwanda. I felt the same powerless rage when I found out about the Kurds who were gassed by Saddam Hussein's troops, and the Afghani civilians massacred by Coalition troops.
Remembering 9/11 doesn't mean forgetting the tragedies of the rest of the world. It means taking that time to recall something terrible ... to remember acts of heroism ... to give space to grief ... and to acknowledge that on that day, something was set in motion that would go on to affect millions of lives. As America's allies, Australia marched into Afghanistan, and into Iraq. We're still there, and people are still dying, and it doesn't matter what country they call home.
So I take that time to pause, and remember - and I will never apologise for it, just as I will never apologise for remembering Rwanda, or the Boxing Day tsunami, or Pakistan's floods, or any one of a hundred tragedies and atrocities.
These things need to be remembered.
Then, inevitably, the dissenting voices started. How was it, they asked, that people could spend so much time thinking about that attack, when thousands of Iraqi and Afghani civilians had been killed? Why did America get precedent? Why was it so much 'worse'? Weren't we just being conditioned by the media?
That got me thinking.
For me, at least, it's not about privileging America's tragedy (insofar as it was American, given how many people from other countries died that day). It's not about being blind to the atrocities committed elsewhere, before and since September 11, 2001.
It's about how I woke up on that morning, listening to the radio news, and thinking that it had to be some kind of hoax - and the shock I felt when I turned on the television and saw it was all too real. It was the realisation that this was a single, co-ordinated attack that killed thousands - and I was watching it happen - to the most powerful nation on earth. The disbelief was immense; like realising that the Titanic was, in fact, sinkable.
It's about feeling the tears start when I saw the footage of the falling man, imagining the desperation and terror of those who flung themselves out of the windows, hoping for - what? A quick death rather than choking or burning? The one in a million chance of survival? Or just fleeing, without thinking beyond mustgetaway.
It's about watching those towers fall, and realising that the police, the fireman and the Port Authority I had seen streaming in to rescue the workers there had all just been killed. And realising that they probably knew that's what would happen, and went in anyway.
And it's about how I saw the Pentagon burning, and thought very clearly to myself, 'American will go to war over this. And they'll drag us in with them.' Knowing there was nothing I could do about that. Every Cold War fear I had at that moment came flooding back. I looked at my 10 month old twin girls in their rockers, waiting for their morning bottles, and felt as though I'd let them down somehow. As though, by bringing them into the world where this was happening, I had done something terrible.
It's never been a case of 'white Western tragedy' for me. I felt the same horror and grief when I first saw footage of Jonestown, and of Rwanda. I felt the same powerless rage when I found out about the Kurds who were gassed by Saddam Hussein's troops, and the Afghani civilians massacred by Coalition troops.
Remembering 9/11 doesn't mean forgetting the tragedies of the rest of the world. It means taking that time to recall something terrible ... to remember acts of heroism ... to give space to grief ... and to acknowledge that on that day, something was set in motion that would go on to affect millions of lives. As America's allies, Australia marched into Afghanistan, and into Iraq. We're still there, and people are still dying, and it doesn't matter what country they call home.
So I take that time to pause, and remember - and I will never apologise for it, just as I will never apologise for remembering Rwanda, or the Boxing Day tsunami, or Pakistan's floods, or any one of a hundred tragedies and atrocities.
These things need to be remembered.