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“font-family: Verdana;”>The New York City event to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center was also a dedication of the World Trade Center Memorial. The memorial is a part of the reconstruction on the prime real estate that was once home to the twin towers. In addition to the memorial, the site will eventually include the One World Trade Center, a museum and a transportation hub. The cumulative costs of this public-private partnership hovers around $5 billion.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Ground Zero is inescapably laden with emotion and politics. Nearly 3,000 human beings lost their lives at that fateful day but with any tragedy of this nature, the impact goes far beyond the time, place and date; it is perpetual and sometimes, immeasurable.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>I have been asking people what the impact of 9/11 has been on their lives. The majority of them see the horror of events of September 11 but make no direct association with their life or future. This is furthest from the truth.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>The Bush administration used the attack to embarked upon the invasion of a sovereign country than had no real relation to 9/11. A Brown University study estimates the government has spent nearly $4 trillion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Add a few trillion more to the budget for the war on terrorism.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but a hastily passed U.S. Patriot Act gave our government the legal tools and authority to abuse the rights of people regardless of their affiliation with “terrorism.” U.S. military and intelligence agencies were unmasked as perpetrators of torture and extraordinary rendition which upped the levels of hatred of the U.S. by the rest of the world.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>The events of September 11 have been used to restrict our civil liberties, to trigger mistrust and hate between one another, and to numb our thinking about why our government is not responding to our needs. Our war economy has resulted in misplaced priorities. The faces of terrorism – Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein – have been killed but Americans remain fearful.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Americans are now more suspicious of one another than ever, with particular venom directed towards Muslims or anyone who looks Middle Eastern. Others have used the election of the first black president to unleash more vitriol. Instead of coming closer together after such a tragedy, we are a nation truly divided. We find divisions wherever we can – race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, size, color and the list goes on.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>I suggest that we take a page from the organizers of the World Trade memorial and their use of “meaningful adjacencies.” The victim’s names were not etched in the bronze in some random fashion but instead based upon relationships on that fateful day. They could be family members who died in the rubble but they could also be friends or co-workers who were “linked together by happenstance and blood.” We need to continue the healing of this country by connecting with those who share commonalities that we have yet to uncover. But we must get past our fears.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>This by no means dismisses the external factors exacerbated by capitalism, such as poverty, racism or homophobia; those are systems that require big picture strategies. I’m talking about practices that the average person can do today, right now.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>At a time when acts of domestic terrorism and individual crime victimization, along with financial insecurity, occupy our national psyche more than Al-Qaeda showing up in our neighborhoods, human relationships can be comforting and powerful. Our connectedness can only strengthen our humanity.
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