Ten Years and Ten Days: Requiem 9/11

There was a moment, and the world changed.

I remember the moment I found out about the World Trade Centre terrorist attacks. I had woken up the same time as usual, I pulled my slippers on and went into my parent's bedroom to see if mum was already awake. I walked in and I saw both of my parents sitting up in bed watching the TV,  the volume was turned right down low. My mum's eyes were red and puffy: a combination of not sleeping all night and crying for half of it. My parents looked at me, and I didn't know it then but now I understand; they were realising that the world I would grow up in, the world my kids would grow up in, was different, angrier and harder than it had been before.

I'm writing this now, ten days after the tenth aniversary of the event, partially because on the day I really wasn't up to it, and partially because this year is the first in which I've taken the time to consider how the world has changed. Perhaps there is a moment for every generation that changes the world forever; I started out thinking that my generation was the first one to have to adjust to this new terror, but then I thought of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Over two hundred thousand people died, and over half of those within a three day period. Those deaths were cause by a new technology, a new form of warfare.The first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th 1945. That moment changed the world too.

What about the moment automatic guns were invented? And the moment non-automatic guns were for that matter, what about the early war machines? Hundreds of moments that changed the world, every moment changes the world. But that moment in 2001 changed my world.

The day that morning turned into was pretty confusing for me, I was thirteen and global catastrophe wasn't exactly big on my comprehhension radar. Classes at school were largely dominated by radio news and TV watching. I spent a bit of my day feeling sorry for the people who had died, not much, just as much as I thought was enough and for a thirteen year old enough is really not much at all. I didn't understand loss then, not truly. I had never lost someone I had love, now I know better. This time when I thought about that day I could feel it in a way that I couldn't before. Feeling my own grief and knowing that thousands and thousands of people had the same ache because of that day: this time I understood.

Back in 2001 my sadness was not driven by sympathy, it was driven by fear. Hearing the media trumpet the fear-mongering circus of global politics heralding the new war on terror. A funny term to use, to me it looked like a war on the Middle East. Cynic though I am, the war on terror seemed to me, to be a whole new way of controlling the masses. Security became a social institution in itself, and I was taught to be afraid of people who looked different to me. I spent weeks just being terrified that a bomb would be dropped on Small Town South Coast, my brothers assured me that this little town wasn't important enough to bomb. I was relieved, I forgot that fear, but not the other.

Wealth Security Power

I have learned a lot in the last ten years. I have learned that some of the loveliest and most intelligent people I have ever met came from the nations of the Middle East, and none of those seem to be evil. I have learned that grief can cause anger and hurt and a need to assign blame, I've also learned that hatred really does rot the soul. I've learned that if you carry scissors in your bag in a French airport you're probably going to be searched, but the mean looking lady who's job it is to search you is just trying to make sure you stay safe. I've learned that people that look just like me can do really horrible things too.

 I've learned that wealth really isn't a matter of money, it is a matter for the heart, I am wealthy in friends, knowledge, faith and love. I've learned that security isn't always concerned with metal detectors, but is more about understanding who I am and who I should be, and who I want to be, and having a loving father who tells me that I'm doing Okay. And I've learned that power is not a matter of how many bombs I own (which is lucky cause I haven't got any), power is a matter of having the courage to stand for what I believe and what i believe in, and understanding the things that others can not take from me.

I remember the day the world changed



September 11, 2001

Four terrorist attacks occured in the U.S.A.; 2,977 people died as a direct result of those attacks. Thousands of volunteer workers suffer and have died from medical conditions as a result of the work they did to recover the lost and clear debris.