As we approach the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we also steel ourselves for what looms: another re-chronicling of that seminal, 21st century day of infamy. A date now seared into the consciousness of all of us who were here to witness horrific history.
We will all have visceral reactions amid the retrospectives. Notably when those agonizing phone calls of the doomed are replayed. And when video of the trapped and terrified buying seconds of time by leaping to their deaths is revisited. The emotional spectrum will include grief, rage, incredulity–and finally acceptance. This wasn’t just an attack on the homeland or a declaration of war. It was an affirmation of evil.
We deal with it by not being obsessed with it. We each have our post 9/11 “new normal.” With that in mind, the Tribune has been soliciting readers’ “new normals” or how their lives–and their attitudes–have changed since 9/11. Here is one such “new normal.”
At first, and I know I’m not alone on this one, I found myself scrutinizing young “Muslim-looking” males on airplanes. I didn’t so much care about coach or aisle anymore, but I did care about arriving intact. So, I was on the alert for those who reminded me of Mohamed Atta, the 9/11 ringleader.
Less so now, but hardly not so. There is a place for common sense profiling without being confrontational or insulting. I miss not having a need for a TSA.
I was also more mindful of Muslim women. Not that a hijab is a red flag, far from it, but I noticed. For a while, I thought it would be a good idea–and surely the Prophet would understand–if traditional religious garb were back on the rack for a while. Just out of sensitivity to the majority Western culture that was still grieving or might have, say, intimations of civilizational confrontation. In deference to the common good and situational sense. And to help undermine stereotyping, always hovering at moments like this.
Now it doesn’t really matter. But, of course, I notice.
Post 9/11 also prompted me to ponder words that I had been either unaware of or peripherally familiar with. As a result, I paid more attention to “jihad,” “sharia,” “al-Qaeda,” “bin Laden” and “fatwa.” I recalled that the Ayatollah Khomeini had issued a “fatwa” on “Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie. That was–and remains–unfathomable. Imagine sanctioned murder over “blasphemy?” I also noted with unsettling concern the uproar and outrage over those Danish Prophet cartoons. Same rationale. This is to die for?
The word “crusade” now took on politically incorrect baggage. The word “martyr” had devolved into disturbing context. The concept of “afterlife” could obviously be perverted. And “infidel,” to some, meant me.
And yet none of this, it would soon be apparent, was fair to Islam. It too was a victim. A victim of a hijacking by “jihadist” elements–a euphemism for inhumanly cruel, cowardly terrorists cherry picking a holy book for motivation and justification. I felt sorry for all those Muslims of good faith, which is the vast majority, who suffer from the association. Another subset of “life isn’t fair” that we all empathize with.
I also found my reading habits changing. Before making a case for a civilizational clash, if that was, indeed, what was in the offing, I needed to know more about the other side. Not just the Prophet Muhammad and what caused the Sunni-Shiite split. And not just how the hard-line Wahhabi sect spread and gained influence. But how Islam is embedded into contemporary geopolitics. As in, what is America’s role in this increasingly globalized, sometimes culturally-colliding world?
We know, for example, what bin Laden’s 9/11 motivations were–and they had more to do with post-Gulf War U.S. troops quartered in Saudi Arabia than a zero-sum, Islam-infidel endgame. We also know that al-Jazeera will be streaming live next year’s Democratic and Republican national conventions. There are no secessions from the global village.
My bookshelf now ranges from Peter Mansfield’s “A History of the Middle East,” Stephen Kinzer’s “All The Shah’s Men” and Kenneth Pollack’s “The Persian Puzzle” to Loretta Napoleoni’s “Modern Jihad,” Bruce Bawer’s “While Europe Slept” and Lawrence Wright’s “The Looming Tower.”
I’m better off with the broadened frame of reference, however ironic the motivator.
I’ve also been inspired to go back and re-read some John F. Kennedy speeches, given that his presidency coincided with the most dreaded of Cold War scenarios. When the need for co-existence was never so literal. At American University in 1963 he said:
“… In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we all are mortal.”
If there must be war, may it be against those for whom this has no application.