Remembering to Forget: 9/11

My first visit to the United States of America was exactly two years before the horrific events of 9/11 in 2001. 

I had spent 3 weeks traveling across country as a journalist as part of a print journalism program for international journalists from around the world. We visited large cities and small towns and met amazing people.

But more importantly for me, it was my first real taste of the actual America, the one we grew up watching on television and it was my first time away from home for such a long time, away from family, all by myself.

I was standing in the newsroom at the paper I worked at when I saw the first images of 9/11. I dismissed it as a fluke incident, thinking one of those small planes or choppers somehow lost control and hit it. I wasn't prepared for the magnitude of what was happening.

Later that night when I was home with family, I was in total shock and utter confusion. My brain just couldn't process what my eyes were seeing. To this day, when I try to conjure up moments and images from that day, my mind fails. 

For years to follow, I would become paranoid about revisiting the States. After seeing the aftermath of 9/11 ripple across the ocean to reach the rest of the world. Just as Americans thought all of us Arabs/Muslims hated them, I was convinced that all Americans would hate us.

That was, of course, an absurd assumption, on both counts.

Today, on the 12th anniversary of that horrid day, I am here back in the United States of America, as the first from my country to be selected for the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, feeling oddly at home. 

People are people no matter where you go. They are not how politicians and religious figure describe them. They are not out there to destroy you, or steal your wealth, or take away your faith, or freedom. And more often than not, they'll be nice to you regardless of how you look.

They are just people, after all.

I read a column which argued if it was time for Americans to let go of 9/11, as the younger generations grow up, having no connection or memories of it. I was in my early 20s when it happened, so it'll always somehow be etched in the back of my mind, but my little nieces and nephews will grow up in a world where 9/11 is a historic event, not a memory.

What scares me is the notion that every generation, it seems, has to go through such a devastating event in history. Be it war, terrorist acts, invasions, natural disasters, revolutions. 

The one thing we mustn't forget, as time passes, is that we are all just people. 

 

The Ingredients of History

Can we truly believe in history?

I have come to the conclusion, recently, that we shouldn’t. Let’s think about this for a moment. What is history? The first definition you are likely to find on history, is this: history is a narrative of events; a story.

Looking under the definition of a story; this is what you will find: a story is a recital of an event, or a series or events. More amusingly though, it lists such a story as being either a) an account, b) anecdote, or c) a lie.

Thus, in effect, we more or less admit to history having a fictitious aspect to it. Unlike with science, history cannot truly “prove” anything. It’s up for interpretation and it is, more often than not, nothing more than the perspective of whoever was the storyteller at the time. The only thing it can prove is the storyteller’s own agenda, his own precedence.

Yes, the main events cannot be disputed, or questioned, as some can actually be backed by some sort of scientific proof. But mostly, the history of humanity has been written, or controlled, by those who were in power, those with influence.

History is not written by those who were defeated. It is written by those who have won. Won wars, won battles, won political struggles. It’s an affirmation of their superiority, be it directly or indirectly.

Whichever way we look at it, whichever angle we decide to take on history, if there is one fact to it, it’s that it has been dictated by violence, something that as human beings we have always been drawn to. Of course, there are other accounts, other versions of history, written by the “other side”, but that’s often been disputed, refuted or marginalized.

We believe blindly in history because we seek a form of consolation, to justify where we are today, and how we have reached there, regardless of its validity. We are prepared to take history as it’s been told, and not as it had occurred. Partially because we love a good tale. Dramatic retellings of past events are far more appealing then, say, scientifically proven past facts, if any existed.

With all the technology and science that man has mastered, the chances of proving history once and for all is as far fetched and unrealistic as some of the most outrageously creative science-fiction novels. It’s all up in the air. We take things for face-value because we don’t have another choice, or that if there was one, it was too inconvenient to obtain

History is up there for whoever wants to claim it, like stars and galaxies far, far away. We know that they are there, we know that they affect us, one way or the other, even if we don’t comprehend it, but we cannot, for the life of us, find them tangible. Perhaps there is some comfort in the thought.

We can keep making our own histories, but that doesn’t mean that it had truly happened.

Our World (in a Kiss)

You make me strong
You make me weak
In the knees
You make me want
To sing louder when I'm not alone
You make me lose control
Over how my heart reacts
How my mind thinks
My hands and lips and fingertips
You make me unaware
Of the rest of the world
Because we've found our own
And it's in a car
In a moment
In a touch
In a smile
In a kiss