In Memory
The fifth anniversay of the attack on the World Trade Towers in New York is fast approaching. The attack on the Pentagon, and the crashing of the airliner in a field in Pennsylvania in the same series of operations on September 11, 2001 were devastating in their impact and their traumatic after-effect, but they do not quite reach the level of shocked disbelief as the indelible impression people were left with as they watched television coverage in real time of two airliners crashing into the two towers.
When the first plane crashed into the first tower, we were listening to morning radio, when the program was interrupted and the news was divulged of what had just occurred. In that brief space of time when we turned on the television set to the news, we voiced our immediate concern on the unbelievable event of a pilot making such an egregious error and how on earth could such a disaster ever have have occurred? As we watched and listened to the events rapidly unfolding, straining for news and analysis that could be relied upon for accuracy, I became aware that we were looking for reassurance.
Accidents, however horrendous, do happen. The Empire State Building had had its share of unfortunate accidents with airplanes. But this, this was different, in the extent and scope and sheer unbelievability of a commercial airline pilot being so inadept at his craft that, given the immensity of the sky he was traversing he could conceivably drop altitude to that dangerous degree and then guide his plane on its fateful trajectory. We were looking for immediate answers, reassurance.
None were forthcoming, there was no reassurance, and we were left with a deep and abiding sense of impending doom. When the second airliner crashed into the second tower it was blatantly clear that this was no mere unfortunate misadventure in cruising the skies, but a deliberate and fearful attack on a powerful symbol of American might and power residing in its civic infrastructures.
By the time news seeped into public consciousness that the attacks were continuing, that new targets of great significance were hit, we felt completely numb with anxiety and grim foreboding. I knew that nothing would ever seem the same, that in those brief moments of tragically unfolding historical events the world as we knew it was irredemiably changed. My immediate emotions were those of grief tinged with despair, but not fear; not quite then.
I immediately mourned what we had lost, never to be regained. Trust in the world that we inhabit, that we could live in some kind of eventual harmony and understanding through ongoing and often fumbling attempts at communicating the best of human intentions and purposes. Dashed by the new certainty that the kinds of beings that could deliberately plan and produce a disaster of these proportions, of that bold intent, would never be amenable to reason and humanity.
We moved through the motions of our everyday life, in a world now so very different than the one we had awakened to that morning. As we met people through the course of the day and exchanged anxious small talk, that talk was infused with disbelief, anger, amazement, confusion and no little amount of bitter regret. How could this happen? Why would this happen? What was the purpose? What would be the result?
All unanswerable, but we hoped for quick and easy answers, which we could assimilate and try to make sense from the utter senselessness of the act, the unreachable hostility behind it, the destabilizing fall-out, the excitement of possibly more to come. And how to go about one's daily life in that grim anticipation.
The dull fear that descended upon us, the despair at the state our world had somehow succumbed to, the unknown possibilities that would result from these unspeakable acts of terror nestled deep into our consciousness, and we forged on.
There are events in human history which the participants, the onlookers, will always recall with a clarity that brings back the feeling of utter helplessness, futility and disbelief. Would that it had never come to such a pass. But then who could believe that human beings could possibly descend to conspiring and accomplishing an act we now know as the Holocaust? And then repeat it several times over, in Africa, in Europe.
Yes, we do not forget. There is nothing to forgive, for one cannot forgive the unforgivable. Are we stronger for emerging from that cauldron of searing emotions?
Who really knows. Do we expect less now on our time on earth from our partners in the act of inhabiting this earth? To lose hope is to lose the will to live. Humans have proven time and again that despite the most dreadful experiences they maintain the facility to exercise that most life-affirming of emotions.
Which leaves us with one question. The kind of hope that we treasure, that enables us to live through the most trying of circumstances, to endure the lowest gradient of human existence, is also an emotion that burns bright in the souls of those who swear to their God to fulfil what they see as their obligations to their religion; that very act of which has brought the entire world to its present state of high alert.
Is one man's hope to be another man's extirpation? This is not the kind of hope that has brought life back to those who experience near-death situations beyond human belief.
In memory of those whose deaths have been caused by the hopes and aspirations of psychopaths with whom we share our globe, be they individuals, national governments or theistic states; crazed groups of fanatical tribalists, or assemblies of like-minded racists, we refuse to give up our very special brand of humanistic, life-affirming hope.
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, September 09, 2006
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