9/11 Was a Day of Fear and Strength
I was in Japan on 9/11. It was shortly before 9pm when my friend Karen called to say there was a fire at the World Trade Centre in New York and I should turn on the news. I hung up and called Joe in the next town over.
When the second plane hit, we didn't understand it was intentional.
The news station was still reporting the first plane as a fire. The second plane didn't make sense to us. At first, I thought it was a news plane that had gotten too close in following the fire.
It took a few minutes to digest that it wasn't an accident. The reports were coming fast and were using words we hadn't experienced in every day Japanese life. Following the news -- figuring out what was happening - was leaving us confused.
Then the news flipped to ABC in New York. I watched the news for almost 48 hours straight until the ABC stream was cut off abruptly one afternoon. That night, I went to dinner with the other foreigners from my county. I don't remember eating at any other point during that time.
Karen's parents lived in NY and often worked in DC. My parents live in Cleveland, Ohio, and at some point ABC told us there was a rogue plane over Cleveland. We know now that it was United flight 93, which would be grounded by passengers in Stonycreek, Pennsylvania.
We both spent the night trying to get an outside line to make contact with our parents, but getting an international line proved impossible. We could talk to each other, but not to anyone back home.
When the airplanes were grounded, we realised that if anything had happened to our families, we were stuck. That reality did not play out for us, but in the days that followed we watched the grief of families stuck in Tokyo who wouldn't get to their injured family members in the US.
When I got ahold of my father - around 2am - he was stuck at work, helping the public transport authority ensure everyone could evacuate downtown Cleveland. He would be staying in downtown for the remainder of the day, he said. My pleas for him to leave were pointless.
I don't know when I slept that day. I know I must have at some point. It was probably after my friend Jaime called from NY to say she was okay.
In the years to come, people would tell me I was lucky to be out of the country that day. They are wrong.
There was nowhere in the world where I could have felt safe that day. I don't know if anyone did.
And yet, I also saw firemen and police men rush in where others were rushing out. I saw average Americans donate blood in a show of human solidarity.
I saw the Iranian government issue the first condemnation against the terror attacks. I saw various world leaders quickly follow suit.
I watched as people went to American embassies around the world to show solidarity. I watched as the international community issued a universal commitment to stop terrorism.
On 9/11, I learned there was a depth to fear I could not have possibly imagined before.
But I also learned that strength comes in a variety of forms, from rushing through a burning building to staying to do one's job when it is needed to standing in a blood line to do the only thing you could to help those who were hurting.
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| I didn't want to use the standard pics of that day. Here's one of people giving blood, from Sandi Bachom via Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sandi-bachom/the-volleys-of-chelsea-pi_b_3891105.html |
Fear is Healthy if it is a Temporary Reality, Not a Permanent Excuse
Both our fight and flight modes were operational that day.
That is healthy in a moment like that. It is necessary. It means we are individually and collectively human.
And yet... in the days and years that followed, some wanted us to stay fixed in that moment of fear.
Fear -- like much else in life -- can either unite us or divide us. But the longer we are asked to live in a state of fear, the more damage is done to our psyche.
Have you every walked through a dark woods at night and had images from the Blair Witch Project play in your head? Each twig that snaps seems like a threat. You suddenly become ultra-aware of the breezes around you, the smell of the woods.
Everything is a threat.
Imagine doing that for years.
That was what we were asked to do as a country and a global community.
Fear was used to feed the agendas of those in power.
This is clear from Tom Ridge's admission that he was pressured to alter the terror alerts ahead of the 2004 election in an effort to give Bush an advantage.
Opposition to torture was met with calls to "Remember 9/11!" - as if we could have forgotten that day.
We were taught to live in perpetual fear, rather than how to live with fear without letting it overwhelm us.
That call to fear remains today -- it underpins discussions on drone strikes and humanitarian law, on the still-open Guantanamo Bay and US responsibility for remedies and reparations to those we tortured, and on calls for us to shirk our responsibility towards refugees in order to ensure national security.
We Need that Kind of Strength & Humanity -- the Kind Shown on 9/11 -- Without Another 9/11
Living in a state of perpetual fear can be deadly. Living in a place of humanity can be a demonstration of strength.
I've never seen an outpouring of humanity like I did that day. I doubt I ever will again.
And that's sad because it shouldn't take unprecedented evil to make us deeply good.
I won't do that pathetic political thing where I plead with you to remember 9/11 and side with me on political issues.
You don't need to.
You don't need to agree with me on issues of refugees or torture or who should be the next President of the United States.
I would suggest, though, that we would all do better to remember not the fear of 9/11 but our humanity that day. Our resolve to do what we could to alleviate the suffering of others.
That's what I take from 9/11, because I know we cannot always anticipate or mitigate the evil others will commit. But I also know that we should always display our own goodness, our own humanity.
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