Five years on
Sep. 11th, 2006 03:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojDrove down to Upper Canada Village with Daniel this morning (1:30h trip) and ended up talking about September 11, of course. Ended up remembering a bunch of things.
We were living in London, Ontario,and it was Daniel's first full day of Kindergarten. My mom and Guy were visiting, and my mom and I had walked him down to the school (5 minutes away) and then gone for a walk with Justin in the stroller. As we came back, Guy was standing in the doorway, and he shouted something like, "Dere's dis two planes crashed into a building in New York!"
We rushed to the house and watched, horrified, flipping between CNN, ABC, CTV, etc. At one point, in flipping from one station to another, we suddenly saw a picture of one tower, a column of smoke behind it, and the reporter's voice saying, "What.. um... I guess used to be the Twin Towers-" and it felt like a punch to the stomach. My mom said something like, "Used to be?" because we couldn't quite believe it.
I no longer know whether we watched the second one come down live or not, since the image was repeated so many times over the next few days and there was so much else going on. And god, so many rumours. A plane had crashed into the Pentagon and thousands were dead. The White House had been hit - no, only targetted. The Twin Towers held 50,000 - no, 80,000 - no, 100,000 people, all of whom had probably died. A plane had crashed in a field somewhere, and dozens of other planes were unnacounted for, headed god only knew where. The Mall was on fire. Manhattan was being evacuated, as was Washington DC. So were downtown Toronto, the CN Tower, and the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, on the assumption that better safe than sorry was a good policy on a day like that. Planes had been cancelled on the east coast - no, all over the US - no, all over North America, airspace was empty.
As the daughter of an airline pilot and a ticketing agent, that last is still one of the most eerie images for me, from that day. To me, plane travel is like breathing; it's always been there, always accessible, always part of my life. It's one of the hallmarks of the twentieth century. And there was the air above the most powerful continent on the planet, the continent where flight had originated, emptied by nineteen terrorists with boxcutters.
My mom and Guy were supposed to be flying home to Ottawa that day. They took a train instead, and were a bit nervous doing so, as rumours were still running wild about what would happen next.
A few hours into the coverage, my mom took refuge in housework. Our kitchen floor was pristine by the time she left.
Chris came home from work and we continued to watch. That was another image that stayed with me for a long time: people around the world stopped and glued to their screens, staring in disbelief as the strongest and proudest city in the strongest and proudest nation on Earth was brought down to ruin and destruction. Horrified that this could happen, and feeling it deep inside ourselves.
Of the next few weeks, I remember seeing the American flag flying everywhere. Schools and businesses taking donations to send to New York. Talking with relatives in Chile and Germany, still numb with shock over the whole thing, still grieving, still identifying with America, all past bad feelings pushed aside. I remember a French newspaper ran an article titled "Nous sommes tous Americains" (We Are All Americans), and it felt like we were, but we couldn't be, because most of us just couldn't image what it would be like to have something like that happen to our own cities or cherished landmarks.
I remember the stories of heroism. The people who ran into buildings to save others, the people who took perfect strangers into their homes while airports stayed closed, the people on the plane that crashed in an empty field instead of another building. Even the late night comedians who went back to work when nobody, least of all the comedians themselves, particularly wanted to be funny.
I also remember the stories of hatred and ugliness. The London Islamic Centre that was vandalized; the Sikh gas station owner who used to give treats to local kids, who was gunned down for the crime of being dark and turbaned in public; the Hamilton Hindu temple that burned to the ground because it was close to a mosque and hey, all those darkies look the same anyway when you're fuelled by righteous hatred and beer.
As one man I knew put it, "It would make me laugh out loud, if I wasn't so goddamned sad."
It doesn't seem real, that it's been five years already. And that the world has changed so much, yet stayed so much the same. It's really, really hard to see how much September 11 has come to be seen, not as what it should be, a terrible tragedy perpetrated by criminals, but as a tired old excuse trotted out by America for every wrong it has committed in the last five years towards the rest of the world and towards its own citizens and Constitution.
I hate the rolled eyes at the mention of 9/11. Thousands of people died that day, and it seems that's what and who we should remember. Instead what comes to my mind are Dubya, Michael Moore, Condoleezza Rice, Jon Stewart, Colin Powell, Jean Chretien, etc etc.
I didn't talk about any of that with Daniel today. Didn't feel like it, didn't need to. We just talked about the day itself.
I also didn't talk to him about about how ironic it is that September 11 now means something so totally different than it used to, to me. September 11, 1973, is the day that the Chilean coup began. Being part of the Chilean diaspora, this day always used to bring with it images of destruction and fear and exile, as my own father had to leave the country along with thousands of other Chilean citizens or risk being imprisoned, tortured or disappeared.
I don't remember anything clearly from the day itself (I was not yet three), but I had vivid memories of my father leaving, and of being afraid to be out after curfew. I also had a very ambivalent feeling towards America, for being so instrumental to the success of the coup. On the one hand, I wondered what it would have been to grow up in Chile, with my extended family, with a sense of history and ancestry, and I grieved for the thousands of Chileans who died or disappeared (conservative estimates put the number at 3,000), and I sympathized with my relatives who lived under a brutal dictatorship for years. On the other hand, growing up in Ottawa as I did, I was deeply grateful to have been given the chance to come here, and I identified far more with American culture than I did with Chilean culture.
Now I remember an image of a horrible cartoon from 2003, depicting an American airplane flying into a building named "Chile," with the caption "September 11, 1973." I remember the hurt and outrage of the Americans who saw the cartoon, who wondered how anybody could possibly liken the two tragedies or imply that America somehow deserved its own September 11. I still shake my head at that whole situation. I just... I can't even.
I wonder what we'll all remember when the ten-year mark comes around. And I wonder what the world will be like, and how much of it will be traced back to that day.
We were living in London, Ontario,and it was Daniel's first full day of Kindergarten. My mom and Guy were visiting, and my mom and I had walked him down to the school (5 minutes away) and then gone for a walk with Justin in the stroller. As we came back, Guy was standing in the doorway, and he shouted something like, "Dere's dis two planes crashed into a building in New York!"
We rushed to the house and watched, horrified, flipping between CNN, ABC, CTV, etc. At one point, in flipping from one station to another, we suddenly saw a picture of one tower, a column of smoke behind it, and the reporter's voice saying, "What.. um... I guess used to be the Twin Towers-" and it felt like a punch to the stomach. My mom said something like, "Used to be?" because we couldn't quite believe it.
I no longer know whether we watched the second one come down live or not, since the image was repeated so many times over the next few days and there was so much else going on. And god, so many rumours. A plane had crashed into the Pentagon and thousands were dead. The White House had been hit - no, only targetted. The Twin Towers held 50,000 - no, 80,000 - no, 100,000 people, all of whom had probably died. A plane had crashed in a field somewhere, and dozens of other planes were unnacounted for, headed god only knew where. The Mall was on fire. Manhattan was being evacuated, as was Washington DC. So were downtown Toronto, the CN Tower, and the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, on the assumption that better safe than sorry was a good policy on a day like that. Planes had been cancelled on the east coast - no, all over the US - no, all over North America, airspace was empty.
As the daughter of an airline pilot and a ticketing agent, that last is still one of the most eerie images for me, from that day. To me, plane travel is like breathing; it's always been there, always accessible, always part of my life. It's one of the hallmarks of the twentieth century. And there was the air above the most powerful continent on the planet, the continent where flight had originated, emptied by nineteen terrorists with boxcutters.
My mom and Guy were supposed to be flying home to Ottawa that day. They took a train instead, and were a bit nervous doing so, as rumours were still running wild about what would happen next.
A few hours into the coverage, my mom took refuge in housework. Our kitchen floor was pristine by the time she left.
Chris came home from work and we continued to watch. That was another image that stayed with me for a long time: people around the world stopped and glued to their screens, staring in disbelief as the strongest and proudest city in the strongest and proudest nation on Earth was brought down to ruin and destruction. Horrified that this could happen, and feeling it deep inside ourselves.
Of the next few weeks, I remember seeing the American flag flying everywhere. Schools and businesses taking donations to send to New York. Talking with relatives in Chile and Germany, still numb with shock over the whole thing, still grieving, still identifying with America, all past bad feelings pushed aside. I remember a French newspaper ran an article titled "Nous sommes tous Americains" (We Are All Americans), and it felt like we were, but we couldn't be, because most of us just couldn't image what it would be like to have something like that happen to our own cities or cherished landmarks.
I remember the stories of heroism. The people who ran into buildings to save others, the people who took perfect strangers into their homes while airports stayed closed, the people on the plane that crashed in an empty field instead of another building. Even the late night comedians who went back to work when nobody, least of all the comedians themselves, particularly wanted to be funny.
I also remember the stories of hatred and ugliness. The London Islamic Centre that was vandalized; the Sikh gas station owner who used to give treats to local kids, who was gunned down for the crime of being dark and turbaned in public; the Hamilton Hindu temple that burned to the ground because it was close to a mosque and hey, all those darkies look the same anyway when you're fuelled by righteous hatred and beer.
As one man I knew put it, "It would make me laugh out loud, if I wasn't so goddamned sad."
It doesn't seem real, that it's been five years already. And that the world has changed so much, yet stayed so much the same. It's really, really hard to see how much September 11 has come to be seen, not as what it should be, a terrible tragedy perpetrated by criminals, but as a tired old excuse trotted out by America for every wrong it has committed in the last five years towards the rest of the world and towards its own citizens and Constitution.
I hate the rolled eyes at the mention of 9/11. Thousands of people died that day, and it seems that's what and who we should remember. Instead what comes to my mind are Dubya, Michael Moore, Condoleezza Rice, Jon Stewart, Colin Powell, Jean Chretien, etc etc.
I didn't talk about any of that with Daniel today. Didn't feel like it, didn't need to. We just talked about the day itself.
I also didn't talk to him about about how ironic it is that September 11 now means something so totally different than it used to, to me. September 11, 1973, is the day that the Chilean coup began. Being part of the Chilean diaspora, this day always used to bring with it images of destruction and fear and exile, as my own father had to leave the country along with thousands of other Chilean citizens or risk being imprisoned, tortured or disappeared.
I don't remember anything clearly from the day itself (I was not yet three), but I had vivid memories of my father leaving, and of being afraid to be out after curfew. I also had a very ambivalent feeling towards America, for being so instrumental to the success of the coup. On the one hand, I wondered what it would have been to grow up in Chile, with my extended family, with a sense of history and ancestry, and I grieved for the thousands of Chileans who died or disappeared (conservative estimates put the number at 3,000), and I sympathized with my relatives who lived under a brutal dictatorship for years. On the other hand, growing up in Ottawa as I did, I was deeply grateful to have been given the chance to come here, and I identified far more with American culture than I did with Chilean culture.
Now I remember an image of a horrible cartoon from 2003, depicting an American airplane flying into a building named "Chile," with the caption "September 11, 1973." I remember the hurt and outrage of the Americans who saw the cartoon, who wondered how anybody could possibly liken the two tragedies or imply that America somehow deserved its own September 11. I still shake my head at that whole situation. I just... I can't even.
I wonder what we'll all remember when the ten-year mark comes around. And I wonder what the world will be like, and how much of it will be traced back to that day.
