Never Forget

Okay, so let me tell you about today. This morning, I can't really remember why, or what triggered it, I decided I wanted to know more about 9/11. Sadly, because it happened just at the point where I don't really remember it, I've always been aware of its existence but never really known the full scope of it.

 So today, I spent the morning googling the whole thing - I read up on the planes, the rescue operations and President Bush. I watched news coverage of the whole day. I watched the movie United 93, about the fourth plane that went down in a field in Pennsylvania when the passengers tried to take it back from the hijackers. I watched a documentary called Voices From Inside the Towers all about the victims who called 911, called their loved ones, called their friends and families in the moments before they died.

 In total, the four attacks killed 2,996 people and injured 6,000 more, and caused billions of dollars of damage, as well as causing immense terror across not only America but the world. It was so upsetting to read about something that had always been in my subconscious, something I had always been aware of but never fully understood.

 Up until today, the most prevalent idea of 9/11, to me, had always come in the form of conspiracy theories, "Bush did 9/11" being the line that immediately comes to mind. The other major theory is that he did not order the attack, but that he let it happen. The other notable phrase that I recall is, "Jet fuel can't melt steel beams" which later became a meme. While I do not believe any of these conspiracy theories to hold any credibility, they are the main recollection of the attacks that I have. Of being in school, quite young, and hearing those phrases. There was never any doubt in my mind that the stories weren't true, but I also had no real knowledge of what was.

So today I researched it, and tried to grapple with the idea of seeing something so horrific unfold in front of you.

I came away with something that horrified me more that I thought possible, considering the subject matter.

Everyone old enough to remember the September 11 attacks remembers exactly where they were. They can tell you exactly what they were doing when they found out. When I spoke to my mum, she told me she was pregnant with my sister, and I was two and a half, and we had been out to the shop and walked home. When I asked my Grandma, she said she had been in Australia with my Aunt, and that she'd flown home to England barely a day later. She also mentioned that something of a similar reaction was had in her lifetime to the assassination of JFK. She vividly remembers being in class and everyone was talking about it.

 Anyway, all of this got me thinking, and something nasty struck me - what if, heaven forbid, something equally terrible happens in the future, in my lifetime. Something of that magnitude, that immense horror. Will it be burned into our collective consciousness forever, constantly reminding us all of our own mortality, OR, due to the uprise of media coverage worldwide in recent years, and the constant reminders of our own mortality in the form of other terrorist attacks and mass shootings, will it simply be another attack that will rise up fleetingly, then fade away.

9/11 was so terrifying because it was so unprecedented, so unexpected. Nowadays, even if a particular attack seemingly comes out of nowhere, within minutes, news outlets have weeks of back information about the perpetrators and the incident itself. And even then, it seems as though no attack comes completely unexpected anymore - we are always on high alert for the latest threat - be it North Korea, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Right Wing Nut-Jobs, Left-Wing-Nut-Jobs, or anything in between, there is always something the news reminds us could be right around the corner.

 Was it 9/11 that paved the way for this constant barrage of fear, or was it just an intensified version of a news system that was already giving out so much information we latched on to one particularly horrible event as the focal point, the attack that shook us all to our cores.

 Because the Paris Attacks were awful. The Manchester Arena Attack was terrible. Aleppo was heart-wrenchingly devastating. The attack on London Parliament was horrid. The Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood attack was immensely upsetting. The multiple ancient villages across the Middle East razed to the ground in an attempt by ISIS to stamp out history and culture is a travesty.

 But none of these things is covered as much, or for as long, or as reverently, as 9/11 - and that is perfectly understandable from a western perspective; it was such a shock for something to go so wrong, so fast, on such a huge scale, in somewhere like New York - somewhere that was supposed to be a stronghold of American life, and therefore modern Western civilization. What I want to know is, are we becoming dessensetised to such terrible things? Or are they just so frequently broadcasted now that if we did spend enough time on each one, it would consume our lives completely?

What if we had spent an entire day watching coverage of Aleppo on every channel, unable to turn on a screen or pick up a paper without it staring us directly in the face? Would we feel as strongly? Would we make more of an effort to help? We know that people of these cultures are humans, just as we are, but we also notice the fact that their languages, religions, culture and even skin colour is different, and I wonder how much impact that has on our ability to empathise with them. How much of their differences we pay attention to when the news arrive on our screens...What percentage of the Western population would write off the destruction, simply because of the colour of the victims skin, or the fact that they are Muslims? What percentage of us would rush in to help if only they were aware of exactly what was going on? What percentage of us are biased by the media?

This led me to a slightly alarming conclusion, one that holds no answer and only opens up avenues for more questions:

“The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot.”

 That's a quote by Mark Twain on the curse of our human intellect: a tiger, despite killing and eating its prey, is not committing an evil act, because it does not know the difference between right and wrong. What makes an action evil at its core, is that it is known to be bad, and is done anyway, just like these attacks. So is it more human to rush to the aid of those that are hurt, as any pack of animals would do? Or is it more human, more distinct in nature, to act in a course of evil? 

I don't know. All I know is, today I learned about something incredibly important, and terrible, and I highly recommend that everyone do the same; really read up on it, truly try to understand the scope and scale of the events, and learn about the victims. It will remind you not only of what we are capable of bouncing back from, but also of your own humanity.