Today marks the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
It is difficult to comprehend the number & magnitude of changes that have occurred since that day. Being ants on the ground in the midst of big events our own perspectives are in many ways lacking.
Perhaps only the historians of the future will be able to properly contextualize the event and describe its consequences. I do not trust them to do so. We can all think of momentous events in history that have been misrepresented or reduced to dry paragraphs in dry books read by no-one at all.
It falls to us to talk about it.
I cannot say everything, but I can say some things.
Imperial Decline
While America's cultural apex was reached before most of us were born (if the 1950s), or even our grandparents were born (if the late 1800s), the American empire surely enjoyed its fullness in the 1990s. The fall of the Soviet Union removed political & economic rivals to our system and legitimized our way of life. Who in all the earth stood against us? For a decade and more we gorged ourselves with none to check or challenge.
The third millennium since the birth of Christ was barely in its infancy when that ended.
For the first time in a generation we were taught to fear. We laid waste to far-off places and assured ourselves that we would again be untouchable.
As the occupations grind on and the bureaucracy enfattens itself and the blood red daylight shines through the cracks, we all know that it failed.
Whether it is brief or protracted, tepid or violent, the imperial decline is in our faces. Wherever we look it is there.
Institutional Mistrust
The 9/11 attacks mark the beginning of when mistrust in our institutions entered the mainstream.
Disagreement and internal conflict were vociferous before then but nothing compared to what came after.
We learned that the government could not protect us. We threw blood and treasure at the breach in our walls.
We wondered if the government had itself done it to us. We fought with each other over this.
We watched as the government signed away rights and freedoms in the name of security. We fought with each other over this as well.
While the US government was never so powerful before the attacks as after it had lost an innocence it could not by any means regain.
Growing Questions
When we learned to mistrust our institutions we then learned to mistrust everything else handed down to us.
Was our history true? If not, which of the resulting factions was in the right?
Is our government our own? If not, who owns it and what do they have in mind for us?
It was easy to accept that Osama Bin Laden attacked us. It was historical record that the US government had trained and supported him in Afganistan decades before. How much further of a jump in belief was it to wonder if he had still been an asset, or was framed, or that he had conveniently died and was being held out like a laser dot to direct our anger and our action?
Once those bridges are crossed there is no way home.
Disruptions
Our imperial and personal responses to the attacks have changed the world in ways that cannot be simply undone.
The occupations led by twists and turns to the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring led to the collapse of Syria. The collapse of Syria led to the mass migration of millions of unassimilable aliens to the EU nations.
The doubts and disagreements among citizens have led to a loss of American coherence. Not only do we not agree on what we are we don't even know if we are a 'we' at all. This process was evolving before 9/11 but the attacks provided the terrain upon which it has evolved since.
Turning Point
Like the Kennedy Assassination the 9/11 attacks mark a new chapter in time that everyone can point to. Despite the disagreements that proceed from it it is a definitive point of synchrony. It was the end of one era and the beginning of another.
Conclusion
While all those people fell or burned or suffocated or crushed they could not have known what it meant for the future of those who survived. It was the end of their sojurn here. We who remain have a journey yet before us.
It is easy to look at this event and see what it meant for us, what it means for our children, what a monstrous hole it tore in the gauze of our plans & expectations. These are important.
Let us also take a moment to set those things aside and remember those people as just people.
History is for those who survive. Life is for everyone. Live well.
Comments
Post a Comment