2nd anniversary of september 11th 2001

2nd anniversary of 9/11…. 9/11, everyone knows what you mean when you say that. It’s all that’s required. The day that shook the world. Though in all honesty Omagh hit me harder. I don’t know anyone who died on 9/11, don’t know anyone who lost anyone close to them. I remember spending that Saturday in August 1998 glued to the TV at a friends house, everyone watching it. Unable to get in contact with my relatives in Omagh because the phonelines were overwhelmed. But I’m told 9/11 was more important, because more people died. It’s all about the figures really. They always like to think people will learn, but if millions die to people learn? Not really. You have all these people claiming the holocaus was a hoax, and later generations who wern’t there don’t see the point. Or they become desensitized. Had someone whining before about the censorship of the 9/11 footage, how there is a blackout. It’s partially because people become desensitized. Some people claim that no matter how many times they see those planes crash into the towers they’ll never be any less shocked. I’m not sure I belive them, but who wants to been heard to say “I’ve seen this show, turn the channel”?. It desensitises me. I remember being awake until the early hours of the morning here watching it with a friend. I’d heard it that afternoon on the radio in a gift shop but it wasn’t until I was sitting in a pub in the evening that the full footage had come through. People didn’t really pay attention. Took a while for it to sink in I guess. Afterall this was on the other side of the world and we were in a town that used to see tragedy on a daily basis. I could clearly remember the street outside being closed and half demolished by bombs during the 80s. So much so that in the end it just doesn’t hit people anymore. There was shock here but not as much a was said. It’s hard to feel shocked and laid low by tales of terrorist attacks and death whern it’s been what you’ve known all your life. Infact after the ‘ceasefires’ here I, like many others, found the calm almost eerie. Subsequent terrorist attacks brought us back to the ‘normality’ many of us had known all our lives. September 11th for the US was different, for many people it was their first wake-up call to the tragedy many countries around the world had suffered for years. The ever-present threat of terrorist attack has now been placed into the minds of people in the US, most of whom are still struggling to come to terms with it and hope that the threat goes away. Many rely on the governments ‘War On Terror’ to rectify the situation and bring them some peace of mind, which has so far only acted to stir up more hostility against them.

Here in Northern Ireland the eerie but ongoing peace was acheived with US assitance, but not in military fashion, rather through diplomatic talks and discussions. Something that George W Bush’s government seem reluctant to attempt with the islamic fundamentalists attacking US interests. This is seen by many as being hypocritical, with US ambassadors preaching understanding and reason and forgiveness for mutual aggression in the past in other countries afflicted by terrorism and ‘civil war’ yet ignoring this philosophy when it comes to their own situations.

Why are the victims of Omagh, Enniskillen, Belfast… expected to forgive and forget when the victims of 11th september aren’t? Why are US government backed british planes not carpet-bombing dundalk as we speak? Why is Gerry Adams not public enemy number one but rather an oft welcomed visitor to Whitehouse fuctions? what is the difference between a freedom fighter… and a terrorist?

Since september the 11th the world has come a considerably more intolerant and hostile place. Expect more attacks, those on the scale of 9/11 or greater, and many of those, small, personal, assaults that come from living in a world were paranoia and suspicion and selfishness are encouraged “for the greater good”. Greater good begins on the smallest level. If one good thing had come from 9/11 it would have been the spirit of helping and assistance and unity shown in NY at the time, sadly I think that was just the spirit of many lost and scared animals banding together instinctivly and was no sign of enlightenment.

I wonder just what it WILL take for mankind to evolve beyond this disturbed adolescence. Humanity is like a bunch of teenagers who think they know it all but in reality haven’t a fucking clue. Some people never grow beyond that point. I really hope that doesn’t happen to the human race, otherwise I feel that obliteration by comet we are always being warned about won’t be such a bad idea. And since we are all dead there won’t be naff and tasteless footage and documentories about it on every anniversary since to remind everyone how they would be expected to feel if the media hadn’t robbed their feelings of flavour long ago.

Something to say?