Even a few days after the 9/11 attack, people started getting goofy about it. This picture was mass e-mailed and taken, by many, at face value. It's a fake, dummy.
It’s been 10 years since Sept. 11 became an infamous date. Something about anniversaries that end in “0″ revive the vigor of memories, which you’re forced to relive.
Last year, it felt to me as if everyone had basically forgotten about 9/11. This year, on the 10th anniversary, it does not. Because it’s been 10 years, and everyone now remembers like it was yesterday.
It alternately seems as if it happened yesterday or a million years ago, depending on the moment. The fact that simply watching a television special about 9/11 brought me right back to the depressing helplessness of 10 years ago speaks volumes.
My post last year about 9/11 now seems silly, and I can’t imagine feeling as if the weight of the attack had been carelessly disregarded by the people. This year, a somber feeling permeates the streets.
The gloom is, of course, a pale reflection of the collective grief of 2001, but there’s no arguing a sense of reverence and memorial that seems to blanket the country. It’s almost as if we’re all putting on a community college reenactment, perhaps a musical with the inclusion of some tasteless songs heavy-handedly inserted.
So what was the big difference between 9/11/10 and 9/11/11? What made it seem forgotten in the first place?
Perhaps no one ever really forgot, but it was an easy mistake to make. When people bitch incessantly about invasion of privacy at the airport because of a new x-ray gadget that enhances security, or a YouTube search may yield a collage of 9/11 disaster footage with “Yakety Sax” playing behind it, it seems as if some reverence has been lost in translation.
Consider that 10 years ago, people would have gladly been strip-searched to avoid terrorism, and the only kind of montages we had involved violin music and lots of cuts to images of the wind-furled American flag.
Today, even as our leaders abuse their positions for the sake of political grandstanding and cannot agree on anything, any nostalgia for the unity the disaster brought us is gone.
If I’ve been repeatedly concerned that our iPhones and Facebook accounts have allowed us to forget the atrocity, what I’d like us to do with the memory of it is questionable at best.
What does it mean to “Never Forget?” Does it mean hold a grudge against a whole race and religion? Does it mean to reinvigorate hatred toward people involved in centuries-old conflicts on the other side of the world that no one over here could possibly comprehend?
One thing 9/11 did was give us Americans a quick geography lesson. Unfortunately, all it turned out to be was the general understanding that a country called Afghanistan exists, and that we can just generally hate everyone in all the surrounding bits.
Never forget? Just what the hell is it we should never forget?
When the attack came, we were fat and happy and invincible. As a result of the attack, we’re somewhat on-guard, but slipping. Maybe that’s what we have to remember — that we shouldn’t forget. We can’t afford to get that fat and happy again.
Tags: 10-year anniversary, 9/11, Twin towers
