Image: DHSgov
It was perhaps 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. on September 11, 2001. All four planes had already crashed, and the entire nation was on alert. At the time, I worked for a government agency just two buildings away from the state governor’s office. As part of that agency’s human resources staff, I’d participated in helping to get my building locked down. I was also, like most other people, glued to the news although I made some efforts to keep working. I’ll admit they weren’t particularly successful.
There had been some discussion of dismissing everyone, sending them home for the day. In the end, the decision was made not to, but one of the managers came in and quietly asked me if I knew whether any of his staff members were Muslim.
I didn’t know the answer. I’d never asked. Religious belief wasn’t a bona fide occupational qualification for any job within the agency.
The manager explained that he’d been hearing some ugly talk in the hallways. He’d shut it down, but he was still concerned because some of his team members were of Arabic descent. Even though the agency wasn’t shutting down for the day, he wanted to go ahead and send them home to their families, who might be encountering more than just talk. He had no intention of sanctioning employees based on heritage or beliefs; he was worried for his employees, not about them.
The report, and the question, floored me.
Nobody knew for certain who had orchestrated the attacks. Rumors and speculations were flying. I, and everyone around me, was justifiably horrified and upset.
We’d been at peace. The Cold War had been over for a decade or so, depending on how you counted. There were conflicts, yes, and there was a lot of concern in the aftermath of the dot-com bubble’s collapse along with whispers about what might be going on at Enron. But as a general rule, most people went about their day-to-day lives without any fear or worry. Bad things happened, but we’d always recovered before and most people believed we’d recover again.
Discrimination on the basis of ethnicity or religious belief was unacceptable and, for many people, was a non-issue. It just wasn’t done on any scale anymore, except for some edge cases that primarily involved fringe groups.
But that question, and the implications behind it, gave me enough of a jolt to stop and think. Hard. And they weren’t pleasant thoughts. It was, I realized, indicative of a significant change in the national consciousness. We had reached a point when some sort of change was going to happen, and I wasn’t at all happy about what that change might end up being.
I hoped and prayed I was wrong.
I wasn’t.
The attacks were bad enough, particularly for the immediate victims, but for those of us outside of New York and Washington, the effect on the country’s overall consciousness was far worse. We’d been optimistic. Now we lived our lives afraid.
We still are.
We start conflicts on flimsy evidence and scream “unpatriotic!” at those who question their justifications. We close our eyes at the mistreatment of entire groups of people. The country is heading toward a dangerous isolationism — and global ostracism. We’ve given up freedoms for the sake of a security that’s made up of pure illusion. We’ve become a society that reacts, not one that plans; one that gives up long-term well-being for the sake of short term goals; one that’s driven by fear, greed, and anger.
And it’s not getting better. If anything, it’s getting worse.
American children who hadn’t even been thought about — never mind born — in 2001 are now adults, and they don’t know a world without fear and conflict. They learn songs about peace and brotherhood in school, but they’ve never seen those concepts practiced. They don’t know what it can be like to look forward to the future, or to live in a time of peace and prosperity. That doesn’t speak well of their chances to create such a reality; how can they make something they don’t understand?
The weapons of terrorists aren’t usually designed to have such high body counts. They’re designed to instill fear and anxiety in the targeted populace, to demoralize them and deprive them of any belief that things can be better. Terrorists want people to believe that intimidation and bullying are justifiable tactics, that nobody can ever be safe and happy unless they’re appeased, and that collateral damage and civilian casualties are just facts of life.
As I look around twenty-three years after the September 11 attacks, I have to admit that it appears to me that the terrorists won. Even though terrorism as a whole has been declining over time, Americans are still fearful, greedy, and angry.
I’m not going to argue that we have no reason to be; there are plenty of reasons. But it’s still a pretty poor legacy to offer the 2,977 people who died that day. It’s not what they, or their memories, deserve.
The worst part is that I have no idea how to reverse it. The only thing I have to offer are my stories from a different time, and a stubborn insistence upon clinging to hope that things can get better. It’s no pie-eyed dream for me. I know they can be better. I’ve lived in that reality.
And one day, I hope that I will again.