9/11

On Sept. 11, 2001, I lived a completely different life and kept a completely different blog. I wrote this entry at 3:07 p.m. that day, and it still resonates with me. In honor of the anniversary of 9/11, I'm reposting here.
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What is there to say? Am I angry? Yes. Am I sad? Yes. Do I feel that we deserved it? No.

Let me explain why this is. Someone said to me earlier, "i can't believe you care. you're so anti-american!" and I will never claim to support killing for wealth. I will never support innocent deaths. I will never pledge blind allegiance to a country with hands in so many pots, all of them un"American".

But, I am an American. I know no other way of life than that that I've led for the past 25 years. This is the first time in my life that I have felt so strongly this sense of nationalism. I do not know this empty pit in my stomach. it is new and this is a blessing. People my age in other parts of the world do not know the sense of safety and stability that we have known. There are people my age who went to school with bombs exploding overhead, who watched their friends, their brothers, their mothers being killed...and many times it was by American troops. I thank God that I am scared because it means I have lived a full, safe life.

I want that for my son. I do not believe in war. I do not believe in senseless killing. As an American, I recognize that Americans are all people. We are from all places. We represent little chunks of the entire planet. We not only symbolize capitalism and democracy and wealth and power...we also symbolize unity and diversity and the fusion of all cultures. By making war on any part of the world, we are also fighting ourselves.

Here was my first reaction when i saw that second plane hit. what if this was orchestrated. not by Osama Bin Laden. Not by the plo or any other islamic faction. What if this was orchestrated by the government of the united states of america? It makes sense. The access to flight patterns and cockpits. The increasing decline of the world economy. The drastic unemployment rates. Wouldn't a war solve our problems? Didn't it end the great depression?

No, I said to myself in horror, not our government. Then I immediately latched on to the next horrifying thought. Other americans. Just like Oklahoma City. It's us attacking ourselves. Again, it would be so easy for americans to gain the confidence of and access to those planes. How will we "punish those responsible" as GWB put it if it is us?

Then, I thought of islamic fundamentalists. I thought how much safer and happier I'd be if it were them. Let it be them, I whispered to myself. But, what does that mean for the innocents in countries like Afghanistan? Think of the already impossible lives of women and girls in that country. Perhaps killing them would be a relief from the life they live now. But it would also be senseless. It would be a human rights violation in the highest sense.

So now I'm left not knowing who the enemy is. I'm left hoping that no more have to die. I'm left without hope for security. But, I am more American than I've ever been before. I stand behind all my fellow Americans in a way that I could not have fathomed when I woke up yesterday.

I do not want to "punish" anyone. I do not want any other person to die. I want my freedom back. I want to know that my son will grow up in the safe harbor that I have always known. I don't know how to reconcile these conflicting emotions. I think this is what it means to live in a war torn nation.

My heart goes out to all those who die every day from senseless, random killing. I pray for those who lost their lives in today's attacks. I pray for those for lost their mothers, their fathers, their lovers. I pray for all the orphaned children.

I pray for those who feel vindicated by these attrocities. This type of celebration is a symbol of something quite different from justice. It is the decay, possibly the destruction, of the human spirit.