The ten year anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre

[Louis VI the Fat]

By coincidence, I'm in America today. 9-11 was a major deal. It dominated the newpapers and television in the run up to today. Flags were flying half height. Quite a bit of ado about it.

Mostly tastefully done. Little dwelling on the past. Americans don't do self-pity, at least not collectively. Today was more about looking for closure, trying to move on. There was little of the hypernationalist hysteria of a few years ago. Save perhaps for a still rather dominant martial focus on this day.

As per usual, the average American I meet has been delightfully open, welcoming. Always perfectly fine with whatever I'm up to. ('Hi, how are you today?' 'Where are you from?' 'Care for more coffee sweetie?'). Call it plastic if you must, I call it heartwarming friendly and polite.



I met an Italian women, an immigrant to the States. We had great fun discussing the horrors of American food, we have the most beautifully slender bodies within the nearest five hundred miles. We met at a lunch, the locals were stuffing themselves silly, neither of us could find anything we would possibly put in our mouths. I had to make do with a spinach salad. Which, to be fair, turned out quite edible. I skipped everything else.

I hate cars, so I don't have a driver's license. I don't understand how people can drive these machines, it looks so complicated. Like flying a Space Shuttle, all those pedals and buttons and lights on the dashboard and stuff. I can never quite figure out what it is these people are doing when driving.
It is a bit of a hassle in America, because I have to rely on public transport and taxis for everything, you really need a car around here. On the upside, when she noticed I asked for a taxi to be send, she offered to give me a ride...



I am shocked at the ease of diversity here. Everybody I meet is Black, Brazilian, Hispanic, Asian. They make me look like a tall pale gringo by comparison, when I think a century ago I would've stood out as the opposite, as the non-waspy minority. What a reversal.


/randomness


Who would fly planes on these people? Who would attack them when they are just going about their daily business? Madness.






Lewis - 'In my aquarium, we use only OBL fishfood. Nutritious! - fish know why...'

[Fragony]

As per usual, the average American I meet has been delightfully open, welcoming. Always perfectly fine with whatever I'm up to. ('Hi, how are you today?' 'Where are you from?' 'Care for more coffee sweetie?'). Call it plastic if you must, I call it heartwarming friendly and polite.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH that stuff makes me want to pop out eyes with a spoon

[Cute Wolf]

....

I almost forget about this, looks like outside the western world, this tragedy didn't meant anything.

just allow me to offer silent condolence...

[Sigurd]

A bit late, but nontheless...

I was at a shopping mall close by where we lived at the time with my wife and my 4 month old daughter. There was a commotion around an electrical store. I had to take a peak. People were watching the tellies.
A smoking tower of the world trade center was the main pictures. Had no idea what had caused it. Some said a small plane had crashed into it and set it on fire.
I remember going home at once to watch this on my own telly. Same picture, but people talking about terrorism. My wife had to attend to something (wet nappy?) I was alone when the second plane hit the other tower. I remember distinctly that my neck hairs went up.
I kept watching and hoped that people after the hit of the first tower thought to get out and that the second tower was near empty. I called to my wife and told her that I saw with my own eyes that a passenger plane had crashed into the other tower and that this surely was not an accident. Then the first tower collapsed and I could only watch in shock. Then the other tower went down...
I can't remember anything else about that day. It seemed like one thing happened after the other even though there was nearly an hour after the second impact before the first tower collapsed.
I distinctly remember seeing cheering people with green flags and Muslim attire in the news shortly after and felt disgusted. I wanted to re-enlist, but my wife talked me out of it. I felt that the whole western world was under attack and that I had to be there defending it.

I visited New York for the first time earlier this year and went to ground zero. I wasn't able to walk on the site, but could overlook it from view spots specifically made for having a look at what was happening. I saw the two square pits which will become part of the memorial. I saw fire brigades having stands in the streets just behind, remembering their fallen colleagues. I remember the security for just getting on a ferry out to the statue of liberty.

New York felt like a bigger version of London, but without the double deckers. It was only when you looked up that you realized that the buildings were really tall.

[Shaka_Khan]

I remember that the streets of San Francisco were silent and empty. I never saw downtown San Francisco like this in broad daylight before. I was able to see from outside that the department stores didn't have any customers. People started to come out late in the afternoon. The restaurants at night had more customers than usual.

I almost forget about this, looks like outside the western world, this tragedy didn't meant anything.

My Korean and Japanese friends told me that people in East Asia were very concerned about this.

[Beskar]

In sum up Cute Wolf's response:
Trololololololol

My Korean and Japanese friends told me that people in East Asia were very concerned about this.

Similar reaction from people I know. It dominates the airwaves in every country.

[Hax]

This post is not so much about 9/11 itself, as I was way too young to remember too many specifics and was unaware of their consequences at the time. It's mostly about growing up in a partially Muslim family and being interested in politics in a post-9/11 world.

I was too young to remember the full impact of what had happened on that day. I was playing a video game in the other room when my father called me to the living room and the first thing I thought when I saw the attacks was "whoa, that looks pretty awesome". I must have thought they were watching a film or something. I remember saying that out loud, to which my parents responded, well, quite annoyed, to be honest. Even though I knew it was a real event happening to real people, I didn't think too much of it at the time and went back to playing my game.

It was only as I became older that the full impact of the 9/11 attacks on western society; apart from the fact that the Afghanistan and later the Iraq wars started, I started to notice (as far as that was possible at age 10), that something had changed in the general opinion, specifically about Muslims. Whereas Islam had been regarded as something exotic, but not as something of a threat, this disposition towards Islam and Muslims had started to change. I didn't think too much of it at that time and I always managed to seperate for myself the perpetrators of 9/11 and the religion my father practiced. For me, there was (and is) no relation between misguided self-proclaimed martyrs and my family. Additionally, my image of Islam was that it had started off later than Christianity, that the Muslims conquered a huge part of the known world and that they established a rule characterised by scientific knowledge and tolerance.

Growing political interest in a post-9/11 world was interesting. As I noted before, I've stated from time to time, that while I was younger, Islam had been regarded as something exotic, but not as something threatening. While I expanded my own political interests, I'd noticed how quick people were to blame Islam as a whole for the troubles of 9/11. And I have to admit that on an academic level, I didn't know too much about Islam either. I'd had some very rudimentary education in secondary school in which the basic beliefs of Muslims were explained. There was something of a disrepancy; for me, the hijackers had always been terrorists; but never Muslims. Not the Muslims I knew, at least.

As I turned sixteen I actively started to study Islam; not Islamic religious texts, that I mostly avoided, except to look up a passage every now and again, but rather its history. I paid particular attention to the split between Shi'a and Sunni Islam, the way Islam spread in its earliest years and how Muslim rule affected non-Muslims in their respective regions. I also took a great interest in Iran and the ideals of the Islamic Republic. As anyone, I made mistakes and I may have assumed things that later proved to be incorrect, but I did find out for myself that the image shaped of Islam largely proved to be incorrect.

I enrolled in the course of Middle-Eastern studies (specialising in the Arabic language) of Leiden University about two weeks ago, and I wonder whether I would have done the same if not for 9/11. It clearly helped me define my own interests; and specifically, that of comparing how the perpetrators of 9/11 and my father's side of the family, that I hold very dear, could possibly share the same religion.

I like what Louis hinted at in his earlier post, although he may have been unaware. Robert Fisk noted that directly after 9/11, people were reluctant to ask the question "why?". I don't think we should or even could blame ourselves for 9/11. That would be a gross oversimplification. And we should not say "well, the victims of 9/11 had it coming", as those people who went to work today were not involved in politics that helped define the modern Middle East. Rather, we could take a look at our foreign policy and say; "hey, well maybe they are unhappy about something they thought we did". And before I get misinterpreted for trying to sympathise with al-Qaeda (I'm trying to empathise at best), I do not believe that the hijackers would have done the same thing if not for serious brainwashing.

It is not a problem easily explained; 9/11 may find its roots in colonialism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the post-colonialist anti-Islamist dictatorships of the Middle East. There are too many factors we'd have to account for. But if we'd take the effort to look at the problems of the Middle East, we might think to ourselves that maybe they have had reasons other than 'hating freedom and democracy (tm)', because I don't believe that. And Louis rightly pointed out "who would attack a people like these?"

Well, desperation and misguidedness is an incredibly volatile combination.

[Louis VI the Fat]

In sum up Cute Wolf's response:
Trololololololol

Japan and South Korea are not Indonesia. They have very different repsonses to 9-11.

[Louis VI the Fat]

One 9-11 2001 I was in university. It was in the afternoon. some guy I knew came up to me and told me some weird story about a plane that flew into the World Trade Center, big explosions and all!

At first I thought he was talking about some bad movie he'd seen. You know, with Bruce Willis in it or some such.

Then I saw the tower buring, on tv in the hall. Unbelievable. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was all still very unlcear. I thought a small plane had hit a skyscraper, accidentaly, maybe the pilot had passed out or something. Then the second plane hit, and we now undertood what was going on.

I remember thinking, 'wow, what excellent engineering, those towers can withstand planes flying straight in them!'. Not much later, I saw both towers collapse, live on tv. To this day, I curse the sense of pr of the hijackers. Reality was worse, provided more shocking images, than anythiong Hollywood ever came up with.

The manager of the place, non-academic, turned off the television. 'You people are blocking the hallway'. Bastard. I pleaded and tried to reason with him, that this was the biggest story of the coming decade. After an excruciating twenty minutes of calling back and forth, televisions were put back on, sound turned up. Nobody was interested in class or work, we all just wanted to watch what was going on.

After a few hours, when there seemed to be no new developments, I walked out. I met a girl I knew. 'Don't get me wrong, but part of me thinks this is good for the americans, makes them experience what they do unto others'. I disagreed. It was not my instinctive reaction at all. To this one remark can be traced quite a bit of my subsequent solidarity with America, which endured to this day.


I don;t know why, but I've noticed it in a lot of other people too. In the past decade, I have seen footage of hundreds of thousands of people dying, of too much grief. But it is 9-11 that haunts my thoughts. The sound of people falling to their death. The sight of them jumping out of the windows. Two images in particular haunt me:

Some Black guy who jumped. He had a pose that was so elegant, almost like a ballet dancer. He jumped head down. You could tell he had jumped deliberatly, wanted to hit the ground head first, to have the light go out with one big bang.
The other was of this woman jumping. What struck me was her holding on to her handbag. She wasn't going to need that bag. She just wanted something to cling on to. She had her eyes closed.

So sad.

[Major Robert Dump]

On a lighter note

The 1CAV Division wanted to micromanage the manner in which all units commemmerated Sept 11. Now, while most units IMO were going about it the wrong way (BBQs, combat patch ceremony, promotion ceremonies), unltimiately it is up to companies to do what they want, it should not be batalions, brigades, or worse, divisions.

Anywya, the Division states that since they own the battle space, and they know a lot of people will have ceremonies on Sept 11, they will issue an official order prohibiting other unit ceremonies and events unless those units all send people to the 1CAV ceremony (so their formations look beefed up and spectators/photographers get the impression that people wanted to come listen to a bunch of desk brass talk and the gay 1CAV band sing original songs about 9/11, which were terrible, btw.) This is micro managing at the worst level, and if you think this is ridiculous from a dog-and-pony show standpoint, you would be shocked at how petty it gets with actual combat operations.

Well, it was incredibly hot this day, and not a good day to have people who just came off missions standing around locking their knees. One of the songs the band elicited chuckles and sighs from attendeees. At 70 minutes of standing at attention and salutng while guy-I-don't-know is followed by civilian-i-dont-know at the podium, soldiers started to fall out from heat. Some just broke ranks and left. Some stopped saluitng and pulled out a water bottle. The shimmying bodies and jello legs made the formation look like the wave at a baseball game. A couple people fell down.

And then at 90 minutes, just when I was starting to lose hope that this would end anytime soon, some genius in a fighter jet, probably irritated at the 1CAVs micro-managing, buzzed the ceremony, followed 10 seconds by another jet. I mean this dude was low. The speaker jumped for cover. People broke formation and hit the ground. People ran for the buildings.

In the commotion I escaped

[Ironside]

I was in class, when one new class mate mentioned that he'd gotten an sms, something about planes crashing into a building. Since I didn't know him, the information was blurry and we had class, I didn't think that much about it.

Coming home and turning on TV, smoke coming out of a building, looks to be a live feed with the reporter being quite shocked. Ok this is bad, switching channel, extra news about the twin towers getting hit by airplanes. Ok this is really, really bad. I don't think I watched that much of the news after that, since I don't remember the buildings falling down or the suecide jumpers in the same memory sequence (so to speak). I don't feel to watch something horrible slowly happening.

The odd part was the dark joking in school the day after, where I was supposed to been the brain behind it (none knew anybody who had lost their life on that day, so it wasn't really personal in that way and the Bin Laden stuff came up a few days later).