“Can anyone tell me what the names of the famous skyscrapers in New York City are?”
I’d watched a Popular Mechanics for Kids episode on skyscrapers two days earlier, so I raised my hand.
“The Twin Towers?” I responded, half-expecting a prize.
My principle nodded.
“Correct,” she said. “They’re on fire right now. You’re all dismissed for the day.”
It was surreal. But that was 9/11 to anyone old enough to understand what happened. Even watching the news that afternoon, the same image of the planes hitting the towers over and over, was hard to process. Why would anyone drive a plane into a skyscraper, let-alone The Twin Towers? It didn’t make sense.
25 years later, it still doesn’t make sense. I understand more about the day, including the motivations of the people behind this, but why The Twin Towers? Why not The Empire State Building, or The Sears Tower? Why not even The Statue of Liberty? Why these towers specifically?
I have no answers. At least, not good ones. But what bothers me more is how the collective psyche’s processed it. There were claims of American unity, but the truth painted an entirely different picture. The United States became a testing ground for The Patriot Act, which allowed for increased surveillance of individuals and organizations. Media was afraid to mock airport security, and references to The Twin Towers were scrubbed altogether in entertainment. And, of course, there were Afghanistan and Iraq, both leading to many senseless deaths and long-term injuries.
I could soapbox about how the world has weaponized this day for malicious reasons. How it’s become a justification for bigoted politics. Or how conspiracy theorists have ranted about details that “don’t add up”. Or how fringe voices have pointed fingers at marginalized groups, using “evidence” to imply an underground conspiracy. But none of that would do this tragedy justice. Nor would it be respectful to the nearly-3000 lives lost on that day.
So I’ll keep it personal. Because I was young enough to be impressionable, yet old enough to somewhat understand what was going on. My outlook has also changed a lot since. Not only have my personal politics evolved, but 9/11 was the beginning of me realizing that adults didn’t always have the answers I needed. In some cases, they didn’t have answers at all. As I’d learn the following year on a trip to New York City, sometimes they didn’t know period.
But while that lack of knowledge might be comforting, it’s also dangerous. Realizing over time that Iraq had been invaded on false pretenses, and the lie justifying it was toxic, is something that’s sit with me for a while. Recognizing the leaders of the world didn’t have the commoner’s best interests at heart has shaped my adult mind. In many ways, 9/11 was the catalyst for our broken present.
On the flip-side, I also think it’s made my peers overly cynical and pessimistic. I’ve frequently heard of “accelerationism” and “apathy” lobbed at the political system, that there’s no point in fixing anything because it’s designed to be broken. That’s equally as unhelpful as the power structure leeching on 9/11. If people fought for the right to be politically active, that sacrifice must be respected. We owe the dead that much.
I also think we need to keep ourselves in-check. Because 25 years is enough time to become numb. Yes, Al-Qaeda was responsible. And yes, not stopping this was reprehensible. But no one had to die over it. Let’s respect the dead, even if we hate the power structure. Acting holier-than-thou helps nobody.
This is all stuff I’ve come to appreciate over time. Because 9/11 was horrific, even if you take the perpetrators out of the equation. It was something that didn’t need to happen, but it did. And behaving otherwise ignores the lessons we can learn, for better or worse. That much is for certain.
Finally, I think we should extend some grace, if you can call it that, to those too young to understand what happened. Whether it was being a kid, a teenager, or simply not being born yet, the world did, in fact, change. And not necessarily for the better. That so much of our fractured mindset can be traced back to 9/11 explains why young people feel the world has failed them. If I shouldn’t be blamed for being 11 years old at the time, then someone else shouldn’t be blamed for not being alive yet and coming into a traumatized world after the fact. Because 25 years is both a long time, and not long enough. I can’t stress that enough.
Perhaps, ironically, I’ve gone on my own soapbox tangent after all…
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