It`s the fifteenth anniversary of that dreadful event. I remember where I was that morning when the world changed yet again. I was just waking up and listening to the morning news on CBC Radio 2 back in the days when they played lots of lovely classical music. Music programming that day was cancelled for the constant bombardment of news updates and minutiae. It was horrible and horrifying. At first I could hardly believe what was happening and thought, maybe this is an ad for the new Arnold Schwarzenegger movie? As a way of coping I went to the public library and checked out a biography of Ghandi.
The weeks leading up had seemed so tranquil and idyllic. Flawlessly sunny late summer weather and quiet and peaceful walks in lovely neighbourhoods full of trees, the dazzling sunlight transforming everything, but especially foliage, into something eternal and magical. I felt full of hope that we were about to enter a new era and that people everywhere would come to be more reasonable, happier, more generous, more loving. On that morning all of those lovely illusions were shattered like a Faberge egg being dropped from a thirty story window.
It became evident that this wasn't a movie, and not a bad dream but a huge waking nightmare. Nothing would be the same again, and indeed, nothing has been the same. It isn't that we are less safe, since in the Seventies there was even more terrorist activity than now and we were all worried about the Cold War and impending thermonuclear doom.
I was savvy enough to know that the American military complex would exploit the occasion to the max, would lash out in vengeance throughout the Middle East, doing far more to contribute to global angst and instability than two World Trade towers collapsing and killing three thousand innocent Americans. Our worst fears were realised, and within the next four years Afghanistan and Iraq were transformed into charnel houses and the Taliban were succeeded by Al Qaeda, then came ISIS and now, millions of refugees and displaced persons later...
I did notice that Co-op Radio, Vancouver's community radio station, mentioned nothing on the Spanish speaking programs about the disaster. Being rabidly Marxist they also hated the Americans and focussed instead on the anniversary of the coup in Chile, September 11 1973 when Pinochet and his thugs jackbooted all over that country partly thanks to CIA involvement. Fair enough.
As much as I greatly benefited from the Spanish language programs on Coop Radio during my early years of learning the language of Cervantes I was saddened that they would allow their ideological hatred to blind them to the suffering and loss of innocent lives of others, even if those lives were despised Americans and it was the much loathed World Trade Centre that was the target and ground zero for the slaughter.
On this sad and auspicious day I think of Chile and I think of New York City, in total, six thousand lives snuffed out of existence, innocent casualties of ideological hate. And I keep praying that one day we will get it right, that we will stop hating, that we will really begin to open our eyes and see, not only how connected we all are, but how interdependent we have all become. We can't afford war and we certainly can't afford violence on any level and now is the time for us all to adjust our ideologies and other sacred cows in order to make room for the other.
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