I’m writing this without reading it through a few times, without taking the time to do multiple drafts, without really planning out ahead of time what I’m going to say.
This is a post about September 11th, which I doubt you were expecting to read on Thanksgiving. No, there’s no connection between the two; tonight I just felt like I needed to write about something and this is what came to mind. September 11th (I hate calling it 9/11–that seems so television, so like a movie that someone’s trying to sell) is something that’s on my mind a lot but not always when I expect it to be. It’s never really on my mind when I think about the war in Iraq or the botched manhunt in Afghanistan or even when I’m thinking about George Bush and how much I don’t like him. To me, September 11th has very little connection with the current geo-political situation, little to do with terrorists, little to do with “this post-9/11 world” (that phrase which I have come to abhor more than any other; it’s like someone took something tragic and turned it into coin-phrase wankery by attempting to intellectualize it). September 11th, though, has everything to do with people.
This past September 11th, on the second anniversary of the attacks, I spent most of the day browsing around on blogs of all blushes looking for people’s accounts of where they were, what they were doing, what they thought about what had happened. I didn’t find nearly enough and yet I found too much. Too much of what I read was tying September 11th to today and why we should or shouldn’t be in Iraq or why George Bush is or is not Satan’s pawn. I suppose it’s inevitable that an event of that magnitude that has such an impact on the world situation would eventually become another political chip for the left/right battle, another talking point, another proof of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of this or that strategy… But that depresses me. I feel like sometimes when professional pundits and amateur pundits banter and scrap about terrorists and national security and such they view September 11th as a symbol–as though what happened was really and truely equivalent to the statuettes, the bumper stickers, the commemorative coins, and the Osama bin Laden voodoo dolls. The Twin Towers, like the Maine, like Pearl Harbor, like the Gulf of Tonkin, like the Lusitania, have become in their rubble a physical shorthand, a morse code dotted out in scattered wreckage and scarred bodies… Again, a symbol like a work of art, a famous speech, a long-dead relative, or an urban legend.
I guess this bothers me because, for me, September 11th was a deeply personal thing. Judging from the things that people wrote at the time and that people have written in the years since, it was a personal thing for a lot of people, and I guess it just annoys me when people take something personal and use it to reinforce their political views (and I say reinforce for a reason; I’ve yet to meet anyone who says “9/11 changed everything” who actually changed their political views much as a result of that thing that changed everything). When I read people’s posts and articles from the day the attacks happened I see a lot of the same stuff that was going through my head at the time: are the people I know okay? I heard a noise; what the fuck was that? Is this real?
When I think about September 11th I tend to think of myself as an office peon in the World Trade Centers or as one of the passengers on the flights. I don’t think of myself as a terrorist, or as a politician who had to make some big decisions, or as a firefighter or police officer who died trying to save other people… Okay, so sometimes a hero, but usually just myself in a situation similar to the situation I’m in now. A paper shuffler, an ex-college student, a regular guy. I think that’s why September 11th bothered me so much: because it’s so easy to picture myself as a victim in that situation. It’s harder, although not entirely beyond me, to picture myself as a victim of genocide in Africa or oppression under the Chinese government; it’s pretty easy to picture myself, exactly as I am in slacks and worn tennis shoes, on-board a plane or fetching a latté for my boss.
On September 11th, 2001 I was at college in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma about a twenty minute drive from the site of the Oklahoma City bombing. I’d been to the memorial there but wasn’t really affected by it; I was having problems with a girl at the time and spent most of the afternoon trying to get lost so that I could think. Months later, in September, I had actually gotten up on time and had a good chance of making it to my morning class for the first time in a week or two. I was in the cafeteria eating bacon and biscuits when someone mentioned that plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. The World Trade Center? Isn’t that in New York or something? Oh well, back to breakfast. A second plane hit so I decided to see what I could find out about it on the internet… Not surprisingly, the web was tangled.
There was only one television in the entire student center that was tuned to the news (CNN, I think) and I was the only person watching it when the second tower fell. I don’t recall clearly what I was thinking at the time… I was late for class, knew I couldn’t concentrate, didn’t want to go anyway, and was only vaguely aware that I’d just watched a couple thousand people die live on television. I knew it, but it hadn’t sunk in yet.
I spent the next few days in something of a daze, much like everyone else on campus, trying to be normal but getting freaked out at the oddest things, none of which I remember now. I am by nature prone to paranoia, though, so who knows. Maybe I was the only one who got nervous when cars backfired, jets flew overhead, and people I knew started to develop an us-or-them mentality. I was also freaked out by the fact that I knew who Osama bin Laden was while everyone else was learning how to spell his name and make up insults about him. In high school I knew a guy in forensics/speech-and-debate (where I had foolishly signed up for a political-themed event despite knowing nothing about politics and not really having a passion for it) who was obsessed with Osama bin Laden. He was a conservative-type who thought that Jesse Ventura was the future of politics (little did he know it was the whole cast of Predator) and that Osama bin Laden was the greatest threat to the United States since… I don’t know who since because everyone who wasn’t American seemed to be bad, but this guy, Matthew, knew a lot about Osama bin Laden. I thought that Matthew was a bit nutty in both his political views and his obsession with a terrorist leader, but I thought he must have been proud of himself when the shock of three thousand dead people wore off.
I get pissed off when I see the flags on people’s cars or when I see those damn “United We Stand” or “These Colours Don’t Run” bumper stickers. Why? Because it’s part of that whole symbolfication-of-dead-people thing that generally makes me mad. I can’t explain why it is that this bothers me. I’m sure that if I were a better writer, a more experienced person, had a more politically or socially oriented mind I could explain it… but I can’t. I just get mad when I see people from any place on the political spectrum use September 11th as a justification for anything, using the three thousand dead Americans as a number to drop into a speech.
I have a lot of faith in people, but whenever I hear a politician, be he/she George Bush, Atrios, Glenn Reynolds, or Carol Moseley-Braun… I think they’re fucking cheap opportunists. (Not in the sense that they’re having sexual relations with cheap opportunists, but you get my point…) This is probably because I’ve noticed that pundits and politicians only bring up Septemeber 11th as a point of proof in an argument.
So if I had to summarize myself, which I probably should if I’m going to end this post, I’d say that I’m still sore, and others I know are still sore, from being shocked by a tragedy that it’s so easy to relate to that I’m not quite ready to have phrases like “post-9/11 world” tossed around like “post-modernism” or “post-rock.” I’m not ready to have people play with my emotions because they think it’ll get them some votes. I’m not ready to tell people to take those flags down, because September 11th may have meant as much (and as little) to them as it did to me.
In other words: it’s a different world, but not that different, so let me mourn the tragic loss of human life before trying to prove your point with it.
And that’s the end of the rant, folks. Happy Thanksgiving..
To the blogger, and everyone else:
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!
PDP: Really excellent post, and one that effectively quantifies something I’ve been trying to wrap my arms around for quite some time. I lost two friends that day: one was on the flight that crashed in PA and one was on the plane that hit the Pentagon. My grief felt private and I found myself struggling with the use of my friends’ deaths as a political tool. I still struggle with that, actually.
There is a new film out, “Love Actually”. Very English.
At one point there is a comment on Sept 11. It was that people on the planes and in the buildings who knew they were going to die, phoned their friends and familly. Not to preach hate about the attackers but to tell people they loved them.
Nick
Nice post, thanks. What bothers me about the flags/stickers is that it seems to try to convince us that we are in some way underdogs in this fight, which in turn gives us permission to fight dirty, and not worry about niceties like the constitution.
I disagree with the post. Talking about September 11 is almost unavoidably political, even when (especially when) you’re criticizing people for politicizing it.
A person’s politics is to some extent a reflection of his or her moral beliefs and I don’t see how you can say much about September 11 without talking about morality and the proper way to respond to such an event. You shouldn’t, IMO, claim you stand above the fray and throw darts in all directions. If you actually lost someone on September 11, then personal grief will take precedence for you, but even then your moral views will intrude one way or another. I’ve heard one person firsthand who lost someone on Sept. 11 who, one year later, openly declared that she was glad that sanctions were killing Iraqi children and she thought of it as payback. She had listened to an anti-sanctions talk and that was her reaction. Other people in the group agreed with her, one person saying that she wanted to kill “them” all. So I think it’s a little hard to separate politics from September 11.
Tens of thousands of people died on September 11 and die every day, many of them needlessly and tragically and in ways that could be avoided if we were willing to spend a little money preventing it . That’s political. Unless you happen to have lost someone on September 11, most people focus on it because of its political significance–3000 people were murdered as some sort of (sick, demented) statement. People in the US took it as a direct personal assault, whether they knew any of the dead or not. Most people in the US (including me) don’t seem to feel that way about tragic deaths overseas, whether it is a massacre committed by a US ally or a terrorist attack on a US ally. The fact that it occurred inside our borders made a big difference.
Incidentally, some people did change their views as a result of September 11–one could argue about Christopher Hitchens and his motivations, but apart from him, I saw others break with the left on this, and I suspect that it was because the victims of September 11 seemed real to them, while other atrocities were merely bloodless statistics to be used as debating points.
On a personal note, I didn’t know anyone who died on September 11, but I spent several hours in a state of panic, since I had friends and loved ones in lower Manhattan, though as it turned out none were in any danger. But all through my hours of panic, I kept thinking very political thoughts–“Someone is taking revenge” and “So this is what it’s like to be bombed”. A rightwinger would interpret that as a leftwinger saying “we had it coming”, but I can honestly say my feeling was “No one should ever have to feel this sense of fear and helplessness because some evil person beyond their control is attacking their country.” In fact, that was also one of my thoughts at the time, and frankly, I wish everyone had exactly that (political) reaction to it. Whether I would have still felt that way if I had lost somebody is something I thankfully didn’t have to find out.
Donald: I think you’re right that moralism and political belief are often closely tied. However, I see a difference between expressing a political opinion based upon personal belief and one that utilizes events simply to support a stance, regardless of one’s own experience.
See PDP’s note: “This is probably because I’ve noticed that pundits and politicians only bring up Septemeber 11th as a point of proof utilizing a tragedy to prove a point or leverage in an argument.” A good deal of the commentary around the events of September 11th seemed to have been used to support platforms — and to me, that’s tough to stomach. I don’t know that it’s avoidable, though — political stances rely on emotional responses to a good degree — but it’s been painful for me. I’m not sure if it’s been more painful because of the personal nature of my experience with that day or whether I would have the same reaction if I had not lost folks I cared about.
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