A day to remember …
Only love and then oblivion. Love was all they had to set against their murderers
Ian McEwan
Today is a Tuesday and my Reflection this week is of a Tuesday 20 years ago.
Once upon a time, people used to say that they could never forget where they were when they heard of the assassination of President Kennedy. I was seven and on a visit to my grandparents with my mother. Although I may not have fully understood what had happened, I recall their shocked reaction and much-animated conversation. Then came the grainy disjointed pictures on the TV. It would be many years before the Zapruder film that showed the full horror of the event became shown more widely.
Nowadays, people would say they can remember where they were on what we now call ‘9/11’.
I was at work that Tuesday in an office just north of London. I recall an ordinary business day until around 2 pm when word spread quickly around the office of news that an aeroplane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers in New York. The cause was unknown, but most believed it to be a light aircraft and an accident.
Someone then pulled up some live TV pictures on their laptop. Smoke and flame billowed from the ugly wide gashes in both towers. This was not light aircraft and no accident. Confirmed when we saw a recording of the second aeroplane smashing into the South Tower. Everyone watching felt a palpable sense of both shock and disbelief.
Work became an afterthought as for the rest of the day we watched the unfolding horror that culminated in the towers’ collapse. All through that afternoon came more news. The attack on the Pentagon. The downing of United Flight 93. Then more stories of aeroplane hijacks and other threats (all in the event proving to be false alarms). Nevertheless, there was clearly a massive loss of life. And what attacks might come next and where?
I drove home that evening listening to the continuing radio coverage in something of a daze. I wondered what the events I had seen might now herald. The entire world seemed in shock. A pervading atmosphere of being on the verge of war.
We in the UK knew terrorism. Some of us experienced the IRA bombing campaign in London and elsewhere when bombs and bullets seemed a daily occurrence and caution was the byword. The world had seen the aeroplane hijackings of the 1970s. The killing of some hostages and the blowing up of empty planes on the ground. But the use of laden planes as missiles was another paradigm. Previous threats and acts of terrorism seemed insignificant compared to events in New York that Tuesday.
Of course, the past 20 years have now seen the UK suffer our own suicidal terrorist attacks. Especially the tube bombings of 7 July 2005. The presence of armed police has become much more the norm now. A few years ago, after one terrorist attack, I even saw armed officers at my small local railway station. So, it is not just significant conurbations that are at threat.
The Saturday after the 9/11 attack, I read this piece by the author Ian MacEwan in the Guardian. It touched my heart then, and it still does so today. The insight into the mind of those who undertake such deeds is as true now as then. And as then, love is all we have to set against these murderers.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/15/september11.politicsphilosophyandsociety2
I have chosen a song from Springsteen’s Rising album. His tribute to all those who lost their lives and lost loved ones in the attack. Some might find this track surprising, given its upbeat tone. But I chose it for precisely that reason. Just as love was all those who died had against their murderers, then hope is all everyone else has against terrorism. We cannot overcome terrorism by being cowed down by it but by being defiant in its face. By working and waiting for that sunny day …
