It’s September 11th, 2024. Yet another anniversary of that horrible day in 2001. I always dread this day. For years it has served as a reminder of how far we have to go to heal ourselves not only from the events of that day, but from the self-inflicted wounds that followed. Given that we are 23 years on, now seems like a good time to take stock of the cost of our fears, and maybe hope for better.
In the aftermath of 9/11, the passage of the Patriot Act that dramatically expanded government surveillance powers was no doubt well-intentioned, but an assault on libraries and privacy as a whole. We began to severely restrict who could visit the United States, and our government tortured people. We tarnished American ideals not unlike the injustice committed against Japanese Americans in the 1940s, as our society scrutinized an entire classes of immigrants and Americans for the actions of a few who cruelly took advantage of our openness and generosity. We did that to ourselves. These acts were our choice.
We engaged in a war in Afghanistan that served only to lead to Osama bin Laden’s death, but cost the lives 2,342 American military personnel, 3,917 contractors, over 116,000 Afghans, and over 60,000 Pakistani people (people always seem to forget the Pakastanis). We engaged in a second war in Iraq that served only to see off Saddam Hussein, but at the cost of 292 ally soldiers and as many as 50,000 Iraqis, while at the same time destabilizing the region. We did this to ourselves and others. It was our choice.
President Bush’s War On Terror turned into a terror of its own. Many of us became fearful, insular, and and xenophobic. In the 2000s we saw everything through the lens of 9/11, and we could not unsee those towers falling, and our friends and family dying, and we withdrew from the world, and we became scared. Our federal buildings and monuments were blocked from the People by “visitor centers”. We used our might solely as a means of revenge, and not for good. It was reflected in many aspects of our culture, most notably television shows and movies in which there was a bad guy who spoke with an Arab accent. We did that to ourselves. It was our choice.
9/11 put an end to the Israeli/Palestinian peace process, which was, to be fair, already in trouble. Never again were the two sides seriously willing to sit down for talks, although occasionally one side or the other paid lip service as America stepped away from the table. We did that to ourselves, not bin Laden. That was our choice.
And then we elected Donald Trump in 2016 in xenophobic craze, and he targeted a new bogeyman, China. The Chinese government plays a bad guy right out of central casting: they persecute minorities, put profit before principle, and fully believe that might makes right, but are otherwise incompetent in a crisis. Sounds familiar? Meanwhile we ignored the threat of Putin for over two decades. Meanwhile, over 1.2 million Americans died of COVID, and a gun violence epidemic ravages and terrorizes our youth. We did that to ourselves. It was our choice.
We could keep making the same mistakes based on fear.
But on this 9/11 I see a bit more hope. We have, I think, healed at least a bit. For the most part, we no longer look through the lens of that day. We are beginning to show some resilience. And this has been coming for a while. Each year I see more glimmers of President Reagan’s “shining the city on the hill”. Of course there are always new challenges, my favorite being climate change. Here’s one for you: China plans to activate thorium nuclear reactors next year to reduce its carbon footprint. Yeah, that big bugaboo, China. Maybe just maybe, there are now more of us who have gotten beyond fear, who are seeking to grab onto the possibilities before us, who don’t define themselves by who or what they hate, and can lead the way to that city on the hill out of a sense of hope.
May the memory of those who died on that day and because of that day always be a blessing to all who knew them, may we all live in peace; and may we learn from our mistakes, and may we not live in fear of the future.