Do we truly believe that 'celebrating' the anniversary of 9/11 each year helps people to heal?
It's been 10 years.
10 years of war and sadness.
Many more people have lost their lives to the cause than just the ones that perished on that day 10 years ago.
For what?
For peace? For justice?
I doubt it.
And what about the other countless terrorist attacks? The other hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their lives to terror over the decades?
There aren't celebrations for those.
No televised ceremonies.
No glamorous preparations.
No presidential speech.
What about the survivors who have moved on and are trying to live a normal life everyday?
It's like digging the corpse up out of the grave every year just to make sure it's still there.
I'm all for remembering, but are we dragging this on longer than necessary?
Sorry, but I just don't get it.
It's been 10 years.
10 years of war and sadness.
Many more people have lost their lives to the cause than just the ones that perished on that day 10 years ago.
For what?
For peace? For justice?
I doubt it.
And what about the other countless terrorist attacks? The other hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their lives to terror over the decades?
There aren't celebrations for those.
No televised ceremonies.
No glamorous preparations.
No presidential speech.
What about the survivors who have moved on and are trying to live a normal life everyday?
It's like digging the corpse up out of the grave every year just to make sure it's still there.
I'm all for remembering, but are we dragging this on longer than necessary?
Sorry, but I just don't get it.
Hmmmm... I see what you are getting at, but I don't think anyone is "celebrating" 9/11.
ReplyDeleteI understand what you are saying. Amid the touching memorials were what a friend of mine so aptly called "9/11 Fetishism". Gratuitous declarations and obsession about WHAT IT ALL MEANS and to me, it was one big unhealthy affirmation of some kind of victimhood that hardly helps people move forward. It's important to acknowledge victimhood...but it's lethal to use it to define you, whether you're a person or a country.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember this amazing sense of "unity" people were talking about...I remember things got scary and political immediately afterward. I remember National Guardsmen with automatic weapons performing security theater at the subway in San Francisco every morning and I remember that it did not make me feel secure because we all knew it was for show. I remember we poured billions of dollars into offering troops up for slaughter to "show" that we would be safer...and Iraq and Afghanistan are both a hot mess now and so is our economy.
So...anyway, I could go on and on, but I refuse to identify myself as a victim to call myself and American. Horrific things happen all over the world every day and most of American really doesn't care. Our pain is real, but it is not worth more than any other nation's pain.
I won't participate in the revision of history and memory. I avoided the coverage.