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September 11, 2009
We have discovered the limits of our collective national memory. It's about eight years. There was almost nothing about 9/11 in the news until this morning, and even today's headlines in the nation's leading papers reflect the sense that we have moved on, that if anything, we are remembering an event that not only occurred in the past, but is no longer a real part of our present.
Of course this should not really surprise anyone, especially in light of our past. Eight years after the end of WWl, we were living as if we really had won the war to end all wars and that every tomorrow would be better than today. By 1953, our most strategic ally in WWll, the Soviet Union, had become our most bitter foe. In 1981, Ronald Regan took office and Vietnam was a distant memory for all but those who fought there and their families.
I guess it's a good thing that we are making so little of the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks - good insofar as it reflects a diminishing level of fear, anxiety and suspicion in our country. A certain amount of forgetting is appropriate -- it's part of the healing process. But we need to figure how to let go a little w/o forgetting almost entirely.
I cannot help but wonder if we have not strayed too far down that latter path, the one of forgetting the past so much that we learn no lessons from it. When any nation's memories are overly animated by a sense of their own victimization, they invariably become victimizers. The examples are legion and most obviously, include the collective thinking of those who flew the planes into the Pentagon, the Twin Towers, and a field in Pennsylvania. When any nation forgets past attacks though, it sets itself up to be attacked again.
For starters, we need to learn how to remember in a way that is honest and frank about the real challenges we still face without dredging up all the fear, anxiety and suspicion that makes us do things we ultimately regret.
We need to figure out how to keep memory alive in ways that helps us to build a better and more secure future without dredging up hurt and rage to mobilize us. That's never easy to do, but if we cannot do so, we are positioning ourselves for one of two futures: either we continue to be victims or we become just another version of those who victimized us.
Neither of those is acceptable and we all have a role in making sure that neither of them happens. Thinking about that role is one way each of us can keep the past with us while keeping our eyes focused on the future.
By
Brad Hirschfield
|
September 11, 2009; 10:48 AM ET
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Posted by: ccnl1 | September 11, 2009 4:00 PM
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"We have discovered the limits of our collective national memory. It's about eight years."
It is arrogant, bordering on insolent, to accuse Americans of having a childlike attention span simply because the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks has arrived and is proceeding with minimal hand-wringing and no pre-event frenzy from the media.
Americans mourn many things, many people.
Contrary to your claim, Mr. Hirschfield, the Vietnam War was not forgotten by 1981. In 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., was completed, and it has been visited by 3 million people a year since then.
You charge that "we are making so little of the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks," yet the president and vice-president have presided over commemoration events, and the victims' names are once again being read aloud at Ground Zero.
I wonder what your real complaint is here. Why are you lecturing Americans on the dangers of forgetting the past, when it's abundantly clear that nobody is forgetting anything?
Are you perhaps disturbed that the U.S. is lowering its military profile in the Middle East?
In your essay, you aggressively raise the specter of new attacks on the U.S., much like the Bush administration did consistently for seven years to keep Americans enough on edge that they would support government actions of questionable legality and morality. Clearly, despite your claim to the contrary, you do want Americans to be frightened and anxious, just as Dick Cheney wants us to be.
What is going on here? Why such a tone-deaf column on September 11, 2009?
Posted by: kjohnson3 | September 11, 2009 11:57 AM
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I couldn't agree more. I think we can also honor the victims and prevent future victimization through education on the world's religions. Learn more: http://religiontranscends.com/2009/09/a-911-reflection-and-call-to-action/
Posted by: ReligionTranscends | September 11, 2009 11:20 AM
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How to keep the memory of 9/11/2001 alive on 9/11/2009
Look at the koranic-driven body counts since then:
1a) 179 killed in Mumbai/Bombay, 290 injured
1b) Assassination of Benazir Bhutto and Theo Van Gogh
2) 9/11, 3000 mostly US citizens, 1000’s injured
3) The 24/7 Sunni-Shiite centuries-old blood feud currently being carried out in Iraq, US Troops, 3,469 killed action and 871 non-combat and 93,040 – 101,537 Iraqi civilians killed, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ and
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf
4) Kenya- In Nairobi, about 212 people were killed and an estimated 4000 injured; in Dar es Salaam, the attack killed at least 11 and wounded 85.[2]
5) Bali-in 2002-killing 202 people, 164 of whom were foreign nationals, and 38 Indonesian citizens. A further 209 people were injured.
6) Bali in 2005- Twenty people were killed, and 129 people were injured by three bombers who killed themselves in the attacks.
7) Spain in 2004- killing 191 people and wounding 2,050.
8) UK in 2005- The bombings killed 52 commuters and the four radical Islamic suicide bombers, injured 700.
9) The execution of an eloping couple in Afghanistan on 04/15/2009 by the Taliban.
10) Operation Enduring freedom in Afghanistan: US troops killed in action 562, 176 killed in non-combat situations as of 9/02/09