The past is not dead. It’s not even past.
-William Faulkner
Has enough time passed to start forgetting 9/11? This is a disturbing question for those family members, coworkers, and friends who lost someone on September 11, 2001 in the terrorist attacks. Still, in a most despicably callous way, it continues to be asked by some people who want to "move on."
Perhaps their motives are not as cruel as they seem, but they should understand that moving on is just not possible for some. People who disrespectfully tell us to "move on" have little or no concept of the nature of each person's individual type of mourning, and those whom the victims (of the worst attack on our homeland in United States history) left behind surely deserve something better than this.
This year the ceremony here in New York City has been “scaled back” considerably. New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his administration have seen fit not to hold the Commemoration Ceremony at Ground Zero (the former site of The World Trade Center destroyed in the attacks) but at nearby Zuccotti Park (on Liberty Street between Broadway and Church Street). Yes, the names of the victims will be read as in the past, but it seems extraordinarily cold-hearted to move the ceremony away from the scene of the attacks.
The reason for this situation is all the activity happening at Ground Zero. If someone has never visited the city since the attacks, he or she would be amazed by the sounds and sights to be encountered there now. The pit or hole that once seemed a wasteland after the attacks has been transformed by workers, machinery, and the building materials necessary to create and recreate the space.
While this is commendable and truly in keeping with a desire to show the world that nothing keeps New Yorkers down, it seems more than ridiculous that all this activity cannot be stopped for one day to mark the sanctity of the ground where so many people died.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Michael J. West
I don't think we should "forget" or "move on" from 9/11...although I do wonder why it gets "the most respectful, meaningful, and public ceremony every year" for six years now, but the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina - by far a larger, more deadly, more damaging, and more expensive catastrophe - barely sort of semi-registers on the American consciousness a mere two years after the event.
2 - Alessandro
MJW, true - but 9/11 was an act of terror and not a freak of nature. Dealing with nature is "easier" (or at the least simpler to comprehend) than facing the depraved senselessness of murderers.
Victor, don't mean to nitpick but we could also recall the 260 (?) marines killed in Lebanon in the early eighties (1983 was it?)
Great piece. I simply love New York City. Was just there in March to attend my cousin's wedding in Brooklyn - he was in Building Seven on 9/11. My wife and I happened to be flicking channels last night and happened upon the horrific images of that day. We were numb - six years later...and all the way up here in Montreal.
3 - Victor Lana
I wrote an article about Katrina awhile back here on BC. It affected me too as it has many others. I am just focused on 9/11 right now (and also because it affected my family). All disasters (whether man-made or natural) are so large in scope that they demand recognition as do their victims and survivors.
4 - STM
Why would anyone in America even want to start forgetting 9/11?? It's too bizarre a notion to accept that anyone would even contemplate such a thing ...
Next time someone tells you the war on terror isn't real (as opposed to the baloney war in Iraq, which really has nothing to do with it), take another look at the tapes of jets flying into skyscrapers and remember how you felt that day.
5 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
There is a big difference between forgetting and moving on.
But in either event, the problem that this event put on the map for Americans so that it finally now registers in their thick self-absorbed heads - Wahhabi terror spread through the Saudi-funded madrassas throughout the world - has scarcely been dealt with.
There is no reason to either move on or forget. And anybody who thinks the contrary is a fool who needs to be punished with more deaths from Wahhabi terror to learn.
6 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Stan,
The war on terror is not real.
"Next time someone tells you the war on terror isn't real (as opposed to the baloney war in Iraq, which really has nothing to do with it), take another look at the tapes of jets flying into skyscrapers and remember how you felt that day."
The "war on terror" is all bullshit. The terror war on us is, by contrast, is very real. And, like you, I've seen far more than merely the big Arab ceegar sticking out of the doomed World Trade Center. Seeing that on CNN in a pizza parlor in Jerusalem was my 50th birthday "present."
When the Americans nuke Riyadh and Teheran, then I'll know that the war on terror is real. Till then, the US government is just blowing smoke up everybody's ass...
7 - Christopher Rose
I've always thought this "blowing smoke up your ass" remark to be odd. Has anyone ever had it done to them? What does it feel like? What kind of smoke? It seems a somewhat strange and probably unpleasant experience to my way of thinking but the way it is used seems to imply a sedative.
Inquiring minds want to know...
8 - Victor Lana
While some of these comments are very "colorful" to say the least, I think we're getting away from the issue here. 2,973 Americans died on 9/11/2001, and this is something that should always be marked as a solemn anniversary.
9 - bliffle
Maudlin.
10 - Nancy
Sorry, but while I do sympathize with the survivors & those who lost loved ones, they can't expect the universe to go on mourning & memorializing with them forever. If I died today, my friends would weep for a few days, but then I hope they'd go on. Remember me, yes, but stop everything to hold a big memorial shebang? No.
IMO this business of making a national day of grief out of every situation is getting on the overkill side. Major memorials for the victims of 9/11, Va Tech, this tragedy, that tragedy .... Come on, people; so many things happen all over the place, so often, to so many, we're going to be spending all our time memorializing "victims" of so-called "tragedies".
We shouldn't forget 9/11, those who died, or more importantly, those who planned & perpetuated this. So why is the ringleader still with us after all this time, billions of dollars, & 5,000+ US lives wasted in Afghanistan & Iraq)? It seems to me the most fitting memorial to the 9/11 people, victims & survivors both, would be for BushCo to honor their pledge to capture or kill this bastard, instead of pursuing bogus wars in order to control oil - or bring "freedom" & "democracy" to people who don't want it & can't handle it. Now THAT would be a memorial worth observing.
In any event, despite Ruvy's opinion, I think it is time to move on, & stop memorializing & expecting the world to stop every time something happens.
11 - Andy Marsh
If you haven't stood at the bottom and looked up and rode the elevator to the top and looked out, you can't comprehend. If you haven't stood outside at 8 in the morning and seen the masses of people that headed into those buildings...if you didn't have friends in those buildings, you can't comprehend the loss that some people feel.
Great article Victor. Thank you.
12 - Catey
something touched me deep inside, the day the music died... "American Pie"
13 - daryl d
More of a tragedy is the fact that our administration used the death of these people to wage an unjust war and mame innocent Iraquis and convince people that the people in Iraq that are fighting against the USA invasion should somehow be called "insurgents."
People die everyday and it's a sad thing. But constantly having a memorial for the 911 victims reeks of propaganda from our government.
14 - Catey
If you wish to think of Iraq and George Bush and Republicans every time 9/11 comes around, thats your choice. I see and remember an event that happened all in and of itself.
15 - Ray Ellis
#13.I won't even bother quoting you. But I will tell you that remembering the victims of 9/11 has NOTHING to do with politics. This is not the forum for another of your self-made controversies.
16 - daryl d
Yes, but it's hard NOT to forget that the tragic loss of these people was used to take away more tragic lives.
It's really hard to see if these "911 Victim" Tributes are really sincere or not.
For the people who lost family members that day, the tributes are obviously sincere. But to hear George W. Bush and Rudi Guilliani, the so-called "911 Hero," Ugggggg.....
17 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
My point, dear Nancy, is less related to whether one should move on from a tragedy, than to whether, if that tragedy presents a real problem, CAN one realistically "move on" if the problem is still in the in-box.
Given that the problem in most assuredly yet in the in-box, and yet undealt with in any realistic way, one CANNOT move on.
Individuals, of course, do move on in their own lives; they have to. A widow cannot be expected to wear black forever.
But in this instance, the event that caused the widowhood remains undealt with, and the individuals who are truly responsible for the widowhood are yet not only at large, but enjoying the good life, often with the help of the United States government.
One can argue one way or another if the American government was involved somehow in the bringing down of the Twin Towers six years ago today. But one cannot argue that the United States government has truly attempted to stem Wahhabi terror on her soil, or anywhere else in the world.
IT HAS NOT.
For this reason, there is yet a gaping, raw wound in America that must be healed with action to bring the criminals to justice. Until this does occur, America will be unable to move on.
18 - Victor Lana
The "real" 9/11 heroes were those firefighters, police officers, EMTs, and others who went in those burning buildings while everyone was running out. These are the 9/11 heroes. All those who died in the towers, in DC, and in PA are the innocent victims of madmen, of an evil as incomprehensible as the Holocaust.
Today we honor these people. Discussions about anything else seem disrespectful to say the least. "War on terror" and other topics should be left to other forums. This space is about honoring those who died. Please understand that.
19 - Ray Ellis
Thank you, Victor.
20 - Andy Marsh
Yeah! What Victor said!
21 - Nancy
I can't even comprehend at this time how the guys in NYC had the courage to go in - & die - in a situation that they (I'm quite sure, I've discussed this with other volunteers, including some of our guys who went up there afterwards to help search for bodies) KNEW was probably going to be dangerous for them at best, & most likely terminal. I can't fathom that they went in anyway. I gotta admit, had I been a NY fire/rescue volunteer, I wouldn't - couldn't - have made myself go in. So they're a helluva lot better than I ever will be. Course, with my leg as it is now, that's not a question anymore.
Ruvy, the problem will NEVER be addressed, because those that the very peak of power in US government are those who are most hand-in-glove with those who fostered & subsidized the attackers, as are far too many in congress. We can't even get congress to impeach Bush & Cheney, much less accuse them of complicity with the Saudis, so it will remain an open wound forever, IMO, as long as there's money to be made by the very rich families who control politics here in the US & don't care that 3000+ people died because of their greed, not counting the 3500+ soldiers in Iraq to date.
22 - Andy Marsh
Nancy - Honestly, talking to firemen from up there, NY and Newark across the river, I don't believe they thought the buildings were gonna come down. They had tried to bring them down before without success.
I bet that most people up there thought like I did, that the towers were indestructable! I had been taught years earlier that they were designed to take the impact of a commercial jet airliner...
23 - Nancy
I dunno...some of our guys went up there, as I said, & spent a good deal of time talking to the NY people. At the time a lot of these firefighters etc. went in, the buildings were already unstable in the extreme, altho they weren't already collapsing...but the fire/smoke situation was such that death was a heavy constant regardless, even w/PBI gear & SCBA units. And they went in anyway.
Don't get me wrong: just seeing photos of any of that day reduces me to tears of horror & rage, but I do think that we've got to stop building things into national days of mourning every time something happens, and/or relatives demand recognition (& increasingly, remuneration!) for their losses. We ALL lose loved ones, some more tragically than others, but that doesn't mean the whole world has to stop & mourn with us, or worse, perpetuate it.
24 - handyguy
"Discussions about anything else seem disrespectful to say the least."
I feel sure that there were plenty among those killed on 9/11 who would disagree with this self-righteous piety, and certainly a number of people among the grieving families too.
Especially on a web site like this one, telling people how to react and what to say is offensive.
It's impossible for many of us to think about this day and not consider the even worse tragedies that have followed - many as a result of misguided idealism, or worse, the cynical use of grief and anger to promote immoral policies.
And when we do air these genuine feelings, this is true respect, not disrespect.
25 - Victor Lana
Handy, I'm not telling anyone how to react. That's up to them, but I think that to spoil for a fight here is wrong and mean-spirited. This is about honoring the lost, not debating other items. That is what I meant.
Please feel free to spew all the hatred you want here, but I'm skipping over it.