I was off that day, and just returned from the record shop where I bought Kylie Minogue’s new single Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. I switched on the TV to find a tragic accident had just happened in New York. CNN reported that a plane had flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Centre. Sad and tragic, but understandably an accident like that could happen.
After watching for a while I switched off the sound and put on my new CD. As Kylie was blasting through the loudspeakers it really happened: as I had one eye on the TV another plane approached the tallest building in New York and pierced through the second tower. I turned off the stereo and in one split second I realised the world was about to change dramatically. The biggest superpower had been struck in its financial heart and we were all going to feel the aftershock. Suddenly it was ‘us’ (funny that in capitals -US- the meaning remains the same here) against ‘them’. I have never been a fan of US foreign policies, but surely this was an attack on the west, its culture and its values. As someone from Western Europe, I wasn’t going to stand for such an atrocity. For a short while, I even found myself being suspicious of Muslim colleagues at work, convinced they could approve of such a retaliation against America’s wrongdoings.
We all know about the wars and violence that took place in the aftermath of 09/11.
Now, 8 years on, what have we learned from all these events?
One, they were unprecedented and nothing on such a scale has happened since.
Two, America hardly used them as a reason for self-reflection. On the contrary, it elevated itself even more to the so-called ‘leader of the free world’. A world so free, that expressing your opinion as a citizen of its leading country could lead to career suicide - as a few artists found. In addition, it designed a successfull war marketing campaign around the imaginary yet wonderfully apocalyptic sounding ‘weapons of mass destruction’.
Three, that a lot of bridge building still needs to take place. Air strikes and tanks destroy bridges. Mutual understanding through communication builds them though. I sometimes wish I’d spoken to my Muslim colleagues at work, those days just after September 11, 2001.
