THE 9/11 MESSAGE?

by Ruth A. Sheets

Today is the 19^th anniversary of the attack on the twin towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Virginia, and the field in western Pennsylvania.  That attack changed so much in this country, an not for the better. 

A president who thought being president would be like being governor of Texas had no means of managing intelligence or nearly anything else.  George W. Bush enjoyed the trappings of the office, but does not seem to have done much until 9/11.  Governor of Texas is mostly a symbolic role where signing death warrants is a major task, and Texas put a lot of people to death back then compared to other states.  In Texas most tasks are performed and most power is actually held by others. 

The attacks permitted Mr. Bush to raise the fear levels, institute a fear color system, and start two wars neither of which we “won” and both of which we are still trapped in.  Bush opened a prison camp in Cuba, established the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which bristles with regulations designed to harm anyone it declares a threat to this country.  Nine-eleven allowed Americans to openly increase their hatred of foreigners in general and Muslims in particular.  The fearmongering and hatred have only increased over time and have become normalized.  Mr. Bush’s “we’re in it together” words lasted only until he could get Congress on board with his plans to attack Iraq.  And the lying became the norm too.  Hundreds of thousands of deaths have come from 9/11 but we won’t hear that from today’s speakers.  American pseudo-patriotism won’t allow for that.  We were hurt and that’s all that counts.  Anything we’ve done since then is justified, right?

The culmination of the 9/11 fearmongering and hatred is Donald Trump who speaks of people of color in terms that imply less than human or at least less than White.  He makes it OK to be racist in public.  He has ordered his unmarked “officers” into groups of mostly Black demonstrators to hit, gas, and otherwise harm them, then claims they deserve it.  He lies so often it is impossible to know when he is telling the truth.  Even fact-checkers can’t keep up.  Yet, because of his position, he will speak for our nation today on this anniversary.  How sad for all of us.

The message we could have taken from 9/11 is that we are strong as a people when we stand together.  Americans of all backgrounds were lost in the attack.  Americans of all backgrounds came to the rescue of survivors.  The problem is that we forget once we have moved on.  Medical coverage for those who worked at Ground Zero after the towers fell had to be fought for over and over.  Why?  People from all over the world, even Muslim majority countries expressed their sympathy for what happened, but Muslims are still targets for all kinds of discrimination here. 

So, here we are 19 years later and speeches will be made, lies will be told, Republican patriotism will be dragged out of the closet, and names of the nearly 3,000 dead will be read out, a set of names that includes people of every group that makes up this nation.  We hear the names, but hardly register the immigrant origin of those names.  They are our heroes when politicians want to point out how caring they are but have no place when those same politicians cry “build the wall” and place bans on people coming from certain countries for no other reason than that those countries are predominantly Muslim populations.  Oh, yes, they try to hide that fact too by throwing in a couple of other countries whose people would never be coming here anyway (North Korea). 

What should be the message today, this 19^th Anniversary:

- we are a strong people only when we are working together. 

- Racism is endemic in the United States, part of the very fabric of our society and it must be purged.

- Those who died on 9/11 and beyond died in vain unless we stop listening to and following the fearmongers and haters.

- Being prepared for future attacks does not require taking away the rights of Americans or anyone living in this nation.

- White is just one of many colors that make up our world, neither better nor worse than any other color.

- Lying to get others to do your bidding as George W. Bush and his administration did is never acceptable and should be prosecuted.

- We don’t need war to prove our strength because war rarely proves anything, but we jump to it rather quickly when it serves the purposes and the narrative of our president de jure.

- Americans can be extraordinarily courageous if given the chance.  Maybe we need to be encouraged more often to use that courage on behalf of our fellow citizens and all others living in this country as we continue to face the devastation of COVID-19 and the divisive powers of a president who clearly cares for no one but himself.

- We can be and do better as a people.