On the 10th Anniversary of 9/11

I'm surprised to see so much in the news and on TV about the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks here in Austria. But then again, I'm not. The world does feel so globalized watching CNN via satellite, or listening to Angela Merkel express her thoughts on the comparison between 9/11 and the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

When 9/11 happened, I was in the 9th grade, sitting in French class. A neighboring teacher who had the period free knocked on our door and told the French teacher to turn on CNN, now. Something just happened in New York. I remember doing nothing but watch CNN the whole day in every class. People were glued to the screen. They wanted to know how something like this could happen to Americans on American soil. Who did this? What was the motive? Why were the World Trade Towers targeted? Or the Pentagon? When would someone explain this? When would it be better?

The explanation we got was a mediocre one, a small-minded retaliatory reaction. There were Saudi terrorists, who hated America and all it stood for, who hijacked these commercial airplanes and drove them, with innocent civilians aboard, into the Twin Towers. They did what only comes natural to Muslim Arabs - jihad and suicide missions to destroy the American Way. Thus, we as a nation needed to go after Al Qaeda, the organization, and Osama bin Laden, the man, responsible for these atrocities.

I, for one, called bullshit. I hate to get political on this blog, because that's not what it's for, and I don't mean to desecrate the memories of all the innocent victims of the attacks, but after gaining some perspective on things - by living abroad and allowing myself to see things from a non-American vantage, even if second-hand - I realized that nationalism and jingoism are the true evils. They are responsible for the terror attacks. They are responsible for the bombing of mosques, synagogues and churches in the West Bank. They are responsible evoking the term "Freedom Fries" when France did not support the USA's decision to invade Iraq.

Even when I was in 9th grade, when the War on Terror was declared and people were calling for "justice," I cringed. It saddened me to see violence and atrocious, reptilian behavior met with more violence and atrocious, reptilian behavior. For that's what war is. Just think about it: the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have been going on for 10 years and 8 years respectively and have cost a hundred times more casualties that the original attacks, and a thousand times more pain and suffering. The War in Afghanistan is the longest military conflict in American history, having surpassed the Vietnam War in 2010. Not to mention how much money it's costing taxpayers to fund the war - more than all the schools and teachers' salaries, more than all the hospitals and homeless shelters and Planned Parenthood centers and welfare aid paid out in every state of the Union combined.

And growing sentiment since 9/11 further fueled anger against Muslims and Arabs in the United States - and abroad -  subjecting them to racial profiling and other forms of discrimination. When I was working at the summer camp this year, (you may remember my post about this if you "follow" my blog), I was the Munich Airport manager. I had to escort, among other campers, four very nice boys from Bahrain to their plane as unaccompanied minors. When we when through security, each of the boys were body scanned and searched, and treated quite rudely. I especially noticed, as I was treated kindly in contrast, and there's no doubt in my mind it's because I'm white and "European-looking." If I had been wearing a burka, I'm sure I would have been treated differently, too. It made me so angry seeing these sweet little boys patted down just because of the way they looked and where they're from. One of the boys, Muhammed, said to me before we got to the security gate, "I bet we get patted down. We always do." Out of 60 kids, they were the only four who were.

Excuse me if I'm not being enough of a patriot on Patriot Day. I just can't bring myself to sing, "God Bless America" at the top of my lungs, when I know that hatred of a named enemy is what keeps people going in the good ol' US of A. In the 1950s, it was the Russians. Who will it be when oil in the Middle East runs out?