As The Fifth Anniversary Draws Near...
I'm sitting here wondering about how the events of 11th September 2001, and the reactions of our western governments that followed, have influenced the world in the long term.
There are some direct personal changes for me, but frankly very few.
Flying has become progressively more of a pain in the butt in the intervening years.
I've developed an overpoweringly strong dislike of religious fundamentalists of any persuasion.
But if I'm honest, the direct effects on my life have been virtually nil.
I also have a sneaking suspicion that the same is true for the vast majority of the population of the planet. It's like when a natural disaster hits a part of the world other than your own. While the pictures are freshly broadcast, you feel the horror, the despair, the collective pain of humanity as another bunch of faceless statistics are added to the casualty figures, but in real terms, the direct influence it has on your own life is often no more than if you had just watched a movie and the tormented faces were those of actors living out a script.
For many, 9/11, as the Americans like to call it (and it was predominantly their disaster after all) will never be out of their minds.
Lots of people will have lost a loved one.
Many more lost someone they knew, or cared about just a little, and even more knew someone who lost a 'friend' or colleague. Such is the nature of levels of grief after death. It spreads out in progressively less harmful waves until it's final ripple is the billions of us who only ever saw events on TV or in the newspapers. Many of us myself included if I'm honest, had reached a point when "I've heard too much about this now", was the thought going through our minds as the news agencies pump out the stories of remembrance.
So perhaps those of us in the big ripple should take just a little time to think about it and remember. It wasn't a TV movie. It doesn't matter whether you think it was a US Government conspiracy that caused it, or it simply happened exactly as it looked on the news and we've been told the whole truth. What really matters is, people really died.
Lots of them.
So give them a moments thought.
There are some direct personal changes for me, but frankly very few.
Flying has become progressively more of a pain in the butt in the intervening years.
I've developed an overpoweringly strong dislike of religious fundamentalists of any persuasion.
But if I'm honest, the direct effects on my life have been virtually nil.
I also have a sneaking suspicion that the same is true for the vast majority of the population of the planet. It's like when a natural disaster hits a part of the world other than your own. While the pictures are freshly broadcast, you feel the horror, the despair, the collective pain of humanity as another bunch of faceless statistics are added to the casualty figures, but in real terms, the direct influence it has on your own life is often no more than if you had just watched a movie and the tormented faces were those of actors living out a script.
For many, 9/11, as the Americans like to call it (and it was predominantly their disaster after all) will never be out of their minds.
Lots of people will have lost a loved one.
Many more lost someone they knew, or cared about just a little, and even more knew someone who lost a 'friend' or colleague. Such is the nature of levels of grief after death. It spreads out in progressively less harmful waves until it's final ripple is the billions of us who only ever saw events on TV or in the newspapers. Many of us myself included if I'm honest, had reached a point when "I've heard too much about this now", was the thought going through our minds as the news agencies pump out the stories of remembrance.
So perhaps those of us in the big ripple should take just a little time to think about it and remember. It wasn't a TV movie. It doesn't matter whether you think it was a US Government conspiracy that caused it, or it simply happened exactly as it looked on the news and we've been told the whole truth. What really matters is, people really died.
Lots of them.
So give them a moments thought.
posted by Stevie at 12:05 pm
1 Comments:
I was watching it live on telly when it happened and will never quite get over the sheer shock of it - they were reporting the first one when all of a sudden in came the second plane. Horror.
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