This weekend marks 20 years since the attacks on September 11. I can’t help but reflect on it with recent news of not only the anniversary but of the complete withdrawal out of Afghanistan. To be clear this will not be an opinion piece about the political policies. This is a reflection on us as a human society over the last twenty years from one point of view.
First, I want to give an account of the perspective I am coming from. I was a freshman at a New York university on September 11. I remember how sunny it was that morning. As I got ready for the day, I thought of what a beautiful day it was, then sighing, knowing my first class was my least favorite and I would have rather sat outside on the green. That morning, I was due to meet a friend at the university breakfast spot where we would get our breakfast and our 20oz coffees to get us through the upcoming lectures for the day. I remember how quiet it was, as I walked from my studio apartment through the campus. Then, I thought it was peaceful morning, in retrospect I see it as ominous. I poured my drip coffee and started to queue up only to realize everyone was staring at something. However, I was still too much of a morning zombie to capture the scene, only afterwards did I realize what they were staring at. My friend approached me with a face of disbelief. He said a plane crashed into the towers. I thought that was ridiculous and my immediate reaction to him was, “ok yeah right, it’s too early for your pranks”. Then he looked at me with incredulity as if he would joke about something like that. He says, “No… Really!”. Then I look again at the people around. They were all staring in one direction, towards the big screen TV in the seating area. It was showing local footage of the smoke coming from one tower. I couldn’t even take account of what was happening because at that moment the second plane striked. And we all shared this moment of realization, that what was happening was not an accident. There was a collective loss of hope, where what was a tragic accident turned to a horrific act of violence. Then came the reports of the Pentagon. We watched in horror as the cameras caught live scenes of people falling from the skies. The audible gasps as one then the second tower fell. The rest of the day was a juxtaposition of moments that flashed by as well as indeterminable ones. There was an eerie silence in the day with only the constant sound of sirens in the background, and we all knew where they were going. The routine of that day was so bizarre, that everyone just accepted because we were all in a state of suspended disbelief. The random stranger you held as they cried, they comfort we found in each other as fellow humans. As for me, I received a call from my landlords, who were family friends. They were both government employees and were not allowed to leave work. So, they asked me to pick up their kids and bring them home. We sat in the living room, their lives still not marked by the events, too young to have learned or understood what happened. I was still trying to wrap my mind around the events myself. I kept them occupied knowing I could not turn the TV on because their parents didn’t want them to see anything. All the while I had a headphone in one ear listening to the radio news reports on my Walkman. I listened to the pleas from broadcasters to stay off our cellphones; that the lines were overwhelmed. Pleas to free up the network so any survivors could call out, even if it was only to tell their loved one’s goodbye.
This is the day that I became an adult. The day when the veneer youth gave me about life peeled away. That moment when we stop playing at the game of life and realize the gravity and consequences of our mortality. You see senseless violence, and your soul feels uneasy as you lose your sense of security. Having lived under the banner of a stable government in the 80’s and 90’s, even one that systematically oppresses POC’s, senseless mass violence was a foreign notion to me. And when mass violence happened it was rare and honestly, I was too young to realize the true implications. But this day was my life altering moment. Not only for me but others close to me. I was a fortunate New Yorker that didn’t have a loved one in the towers. But I was still touched by the events. There have been people in my life that were medically affected by the debris, those that served in the war and were wounded physically… mentally. Those that are no longer with us, and those that continue to carry the scars visible and invisible.
I saw the changes in our society after that day. We were all like open wounds. While people were kinder in the ensuing days, they were also more guarded. This is when you see the best and worst of humanity. For me, I will express my personal experience and what it taught me. Having been raised in New York, I can say there was a marked difference after that day. Of being look at with suspicion, of nasty remarks, of not being welcomed. I — along with other members of my family — am a person who is ethnically ambiguous, and it had been common to be asked or assumed to be of middle eastern descent before and after that day. I am not, but whether I am or not is irrelevant to my point because I was treated as thus. I thought, how could the way I looked change people’s opinions of me overnight? And it was not as if I had not had racist encounters before, I had, the point being there was a marked increase in them. I just suffered them for years and wouldn’t even correct people because what would be my defense — that I was not middle eastern therefore their treatment towards me was unjust but acceptable had I been middle eastern? And my alternative was what, to be confrontational? To speak for a religion I was not a member of? How could I? My knowledge of Islam was basic at best, and I was afraid to do more harm than good by trying to educate others. All I could say — don’t lump people together for the actions of a few. What I did do was tried to attract as little attention to my physical appearance. I decrease and eventually stopped covering my hair in public for several years. Covering my hair was commonplace in my cultural heritage, just another fashion accessory to do or not. I have since resumed covering my hair when I want to, no longer caring of people’s opinions about it. I also learned more about Islam so I could educate when the situation arose. This experience taught me the most about empathy. To always try to see other perspectives. To listen. To not be quiet when hate is used to harass.
That day and the aftermath I started to see two different types of people in the world. Those that try to look for solutions and those who only look to blame. It is the latter that sow the seeds of enmity. Their answer to violence is more violence, stoking a cycle of fear and hate. That is what I have seen in these last twenty years, a rise in fear, hate, and tolerance for the intolerant. A rise in uncompromising sides and fractioning of peoples worldwide. We look at ourselves and cannot see the other side. We cannot see the road ahead to the point of unity. And if not unity then respect. We think — How we will get there? Will we get there? Will we reach a breaking point, escalate and then regret? Regret offending others and cross a line that cannot be walked back.
This has been my observation in the last twenty years, but I do hope we can reflect on how we are any different than any time before? I often wonder if we think the current times are worse than before because we haven’t reached the other side. The uncertainty of the unresolved heightens the situation and our fears. We have always quarreled and let divisions grow. We create hatred amongst ourselves. Blame others for our ills. Take out that anger and fear on others in the hopes we will be better for it. That historic strife always seems diminished because we know the resolution. We know the point reached on the other side because we are already living in the die that has been cast. I hold on to that hope to not let the fear take control. I always hope and trust that this cycle of hate will be broken, and we will get the other side.
Sense of Wonder 