It's been a while since I felt the need for a jantrum. But here ya go.
The irritant: People who are against the community center two blocks from Ground Zero calling the site where the twin towers once stood "the site of Islam's (some say terrorist's) greatest victory."
The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as well as the attempt to use Flight 93 in an attack were not terrorism's greatest victory.
It was their greatest FAILURE.
Yes, failure.
You see, I vividly remember that morning. I remember sitting on the edge of the coffee table, holding my cat The Boo and watching the reporters on NBC scurry from place to place as they tried to figure out what was happening.
When they announced that the Pentagon had been hit and they were evacuating the White House, I woke my son up with the words, "I don't know what is happening, but you need to get up."
I sat side by side with him, watching in stunned disbelief. Watching the people stream out of the area, dazed, bleeding, covered in ash, supporting each other.
I watched as people began to rush to hospitals to offer the blood from their bodies. To offer whatever assistance might be needed.
I watched white help black, brown help yellow, rich help poor, right help left, Jew help Christian, Christian help Muslim.
I watched as every difference between us collapsed as those towers collapsed. I watched us become simply AMERICANS.
The acts against our nation on 9/11 were not the terrorist's greatest victory.
What has become of our nation since that day, that is the terrorist's greatest victory.
The anger and venom. The divisions. The finger pointing and blame. The use of the day so many lost their lives as a political weapon by both sides. The line-in-the-sand mentality that refuses to even consider cooperation and compromise.
That we've lost our ultimate vision of ourselves as the United States of America, that is the terrorist's greatest victory and we have no-one to blame but ourselves.
Tomorrow during whatever memorial you participate, please try to remember the way we came together during those days.
That their deaths drew us together as a nation would be a far more fitting tribute to those who died that day.
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4 comments:
If only they would listen.
Beautifully said........
We are a nation of freedom of religion.......there is already a mosque in that area.....it has been there for years.......
This new mosque/community center is a couple of blocks away........what would be far enough??? 3 blocks??
One mile???
As sick as I felt on 911 and the weeks after I did feel proud to be American......to go to a memorial service ...to light a blue candle......
Thank you, Janet.
I was here, in Brooklyn. I can remember seeing people covered in ash as the made their way home hours after the collapse. I can remember seeing papers flying through the air that came from some of the offices in the towers. I can remember the smell that came from lower Manhattan, when I went to the Upper West Side two days later.
That new mosque, which is also supposed to contain a community center, is also owned by a group of moderate Muslims, Sufis (Suffis?), who are tolerant and, basically, the kind of Muslims we should be encouraging. Instead, many Americans are doing their best to alienate them further from our society, when of course we should be tolerant of them.
I keep thinking that I'd like to be Canadian, fonely they'd let me in.
Sharon - I'm hard selling Jason on the Vancouver area.
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