Today is the eighth anniversary of the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and other terror attacks in the US.
Maybe while the western world is in the midst of a global economic meltdown, it’s a good time to reflect on the real human tragedy that hit the US business world in 2001. Business is about people, and fancy suits and million dollar bonuses are all so much pap when you’re on the 28th floor and the building is burning beneath you.
There were heroes that day – the firefighters who tried to rescue as many as possible, and lost their own lives, the individual who did not run but stayed to help. The US reeled in the face of this assault within the hallowed shores that have so often kept them safe. But no more. The world is getting smaller, and when war is waged with small armies, especially those who are willing to sacrifice themselves, defence is all the harder.
The attack was all the more brutal for its unexpectedness, the sheer chutspah of its scale and daring, against a population who felt remote and protected from this kind of atrocity, which no doubt its perpetrators experienced in their homelands daily (if on a much smaller scale). The West was outraged at this infiltration, and afraid that such an effect could have been wrought on its people.
But where was the public outrage that rippled through the world at the bombings in Beirut? Where were the calls for a war against terror when a young woman lay dying in a Tehran street, recorded on YouTube for all to see? Where were the politicians demanding action when a woman and her eight children had to flee out of Kabul on foot in pre-election attacks? Because mini-9/11s happen all the time in those war-torn places of the world where the Israeli Governnent want to secure more land for its people, where the war against terror is waged by the US and its allies, where corrupt politicians use armies to secure more power for themselves, regardless of the cost to the people they are in power to protect.
The world must remember 9/11, as it must remember all ruling party- and Government-sanctioned acts of violence. Because one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.
Tags: 9/11 remembrance