This weekend, the US and nations around the globe will be commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the US, attacks that completely reshaped the world. The first ceremony will take place today outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Flight 93 went down, killing 40 passengers and crew.
The three attacks killed 2,977 people, not including the 19 hijackers, though many more have died since then as a result of injuries and related illnesses, including hundreds of fire, police and rescue personnel, as well as volunteers who combed through the wreckage of New York City’s Twin Towers.
However, the true human cost encompasses all those who have died since the US and allied forces invaded Afghanistan to hunt down al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and other members of his group; the Iraq War; the Madrid bombings of March 11, 2004; the bombings in London on July 7, 2005; and the continuing, almost daily suicide and car bomb attacks in Pakistan.
Memorials are still being constructed, lives are being rebuilt, but for many those most directly involved in Sept. 11 — and even those who did not know anyone who died that day — the tragedy continues to have repercussions. The post-traumatic stress that lingers among New Yorkers and Washingtonians — and other residents along the east coast of the US — was evidenced on Aug. 23 when an earthquake rocked the region, triggering an exodus of New Yorkers from skyscrapers, many voicing fears that they were in the middle of another attack.
Most adults can vividly recall where they were when they learned of the attacks, or the shock they felt watching television and seeing the second plane hit the World Trade Center and then the Twin Towers collapse. Those who were too young at the time or who have been born since do not have those memories and must be taught what happened. What they are taught and how they are taught is crucial to how our globalized world develops and changes in the years to come.
We are still learning details about the Sept. 11 attacks — just this week a home video made by a Shanksville man of that crash was released, as well as a document put together by the Rutgers Law Review detailing the minute-by-minute exchanges between US aviation ground control, pilots and military officials struggling to come to grips with the hijackings and the plane strikes.
Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists continue to say that the attacks were a US government plot to justify an invasion of Iraq, or Israel was somehow involved or the towers were brought down by demolitions. It is unlikely those naysayers will ever be convinced otherwise — just as many in former US president George W. Bush’s administration are still reluctant to admit that their war on terror compromised and debased the values that the US had been built upon, as well as fueling anti-Americanism, especially in Muslim countries.
More than lives were lost and harmed in the Sept. 11 attacks by 19 men armed with box cutters and religious zeal. Freedoms, political, religious and personal, have been compromised in the name of greater security and the war on terror, and not just in the US. The way we travel has been forever changed.
As we think back to those events 10 years ago tomorrow, perhaps we should reflect upon a more recent terror attack and the response to it — the July 22 Oslo bombing and attack on Utoeya Island, a response diametrically opposed to that of the US. Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has said repeatedly that the response to an assault on his nation’s multiculturalism would be “more democracy, more openness and more humanity.”
“It is absolutely possible to have an open, democratic, inclusive society, and at the same time have security measures and not be naive,” he said.
To paraphrase Stoltenberg, evil can kill, but it should never be allowed to defeat a people. That is the lesson that should be remembered this weekend and should be taught to future generations.
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