Anniversaries come and go. All of them force us to reflect on the events, to speculate on the different courses the history (or only your history) might have taken, only if…
The 10th Anniversary of the Attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon calls for such a reflection in all of us, not only in the States, but more or less, around the whole World.
We all know what happened (maybe with an exception of some ‘conspiracy theorists’ who are simply oblivious to the facts). It affected us all, directly, or indirectly. The World, as we knew it before September 11, 2001 doesn’t exist any more.
It fell victim of the attack and destruction of the World Trade center, at that day, along with about 3000 of human beings. Although, from a 10-year perspective, this number (no matter how horrific it is for us), seems small, when compared to the number of all people who lost their lives, as a consequence of this atrocious act.
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It was a beautiful morning in New York. Typical, late Summer day in New York City. Clear air, wonderful visibility, completely cloudless sky…
Even before IT happened, my life took a un-happy turn… I was “licking my psychological wounds” after having spent the preceding year Day Trading NASDAQ stocks in a downtown office. It was only a year, but it coincided with the “Internet Bubble” burst, when all NASDAQ stocks behave like a bunch of broncos, jumping all over the place with no pattern.
I looked through the office window on the steel and glass facade of the South Tower of the WTC, trying to find solace, in the rough marked conditions. In the middle of August, after a year of a ‘crush’ course in trading (no pun intended), I finally had enough, returning to what was my primary vocation.
On September 11, still immersed in a ‘self pity’ (caused by my market experiences), I woke up alerted by my wife’s slightly panicked phone call, after she saw the first plane hitting the World Trade Center tower. I turned on the TV set and… everything changed…
A couple of hours later, from the windows of my Upper East Side apartment (roughly 5 miles from the Ground Zero) I saw people looking like zombies… The wind also brought the Smell. Diluted along its 5-mile travel it wasn’t a stench anymore, it had almost subtle qualities. I smelled it for the first time in my life. It was so unique, so particular, that when few years later, while driving through some industrial quarters of Alexandria, Egypt, I had a whiff of something vaguely resembling it, my eyes watered instantly… I had to stop for a moment, almost crushed by the gravity of this recollection.
And yet, a few hours after the collapse of the WTC towers, when zombie-like people, frightened, and confused, walked Uptown to their homes, in some Upper East Side restaurants, some Upper-East-Siders still enjoyed their drinks and oyster lunches…
To me, the World had just stopped – for some others, is was almost ‘business as usual’…
Bin Laden, the mastermind of this attack, threatened to destroy our way of life… As much as I hate to admit that, he succeeded in his devious plan. Life in America, and in the most of the countries in the World has changed forever, in the aftermath of that attack.
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I do not want to dwell on the historical background of the Modern World’s Power distribution, nor to reinvent the history. Yet, I would like to point out a few circumstances, which are responsible for creation of the ‘tinder box’ on which we all live. It is as simple as that:
The superpowers of the Past, Colonial Era, like the UK, France, Spain, Italy worked ‘tirelessly’ for centuries on creating the hatred of the people in their colonies. At that time the World was divided on 3 categories:
1. the colonial superpowers,
2. their subjects,
3. other countries, who were even too far, not significant strategically, inconveniently located, or simply too strong to become colonies.
Even after the French Revolution, the New France hadn’t abandoned its imperialistic appetites. In the Napoleonic times the Caribbean Islands were swiped with, brutally dealt with, slaves uprisings - one after another. The same fate was shared later by the Italian domain – Libya, English colonies in Far East, or French Indochina.
The times have changed, the super-powers and their appetites, stayed the same. In the XX-th Century the short list of Super-powers was ‘enriched’ by the new Super-Power – the United States of America.
The times, with their growth of technology and communication, changed the colonial system. It had to evolve, adjusting to the requirements of newly developed countries (former colonies). Total control of these countries has proven to be too costly, completely ineffective, not to say impossible to maintain. All of the former colonies have developed strong independence movement, and giving them their sovereignty became the only option left on a table. And so it happened.
The same happened more or less simultaneously in the Far East, the Arabic Countries of the Middle East, Latin America… Africa in general.
The UN welcomed the new countries, one by one. In 1900 the World consisted of 57 countries and it’s domains. In 2011 this number raised to 193, and we can count on enlarging it soon.
In most of the former colonies, the former colonial powers tried, and often succeeded, placing their puppets on the thrones of the new Kingdoms, or new military Dictators on chairs of the new “parliamentary democracies”. Many of these countries, exploded in the long lasting wars with unspeakable atrocities committed by all sides of the newly developed conflicts. Many, avoided the wars, diving in the decades of the internal oppressions – like in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, etc.
When the conventional Colonial system ceased to exist, the new, economical, or “economically-ideological colonial system” replaced it. Russia and China assured themselves access to resources in many countries on a ‘false pretense’ of helping them oppose the Western Imperialism. Western countries used the same argument against Russian intrusion, sponsoring the opposition, or organizing the “coupe d’ètat”.
The World’s population rose from 1.6 Billion people in 1900 to 3.0 Billion people in 1960 and 6.75 Billion people in 2011. Such a World needs tremendous amount of resources just to maintain its industrial (economical) growth.
With the rise of the Multinational Corporations producing more and cheaper (and still on a quest to produce even more and even cheaper) the World’s balance has been slightly altered.
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Most of the under-developed countries may benefit from the involvement of the Western Industry and its technology.
May, does not mean, that they do.
In most of the cases the deals with the Western Industries are not done by the Nations, but by the Dictatorial governments, who DO NOT REPRESENT the people, and have only their own interests in their minds. In many cases these deals, these contracts, lead to exploitation of the people who are employed in he process, as well as exploitation of the environment.
And this is the culprit of the hostile attitude of the populations of so many underdeveloped countries toward the USA, Great Britain, France, etc., in general THE WEST.
This is the main reason why the frustrated masses, who live on the verge of poverty in many of these countries, respond to the demagogy of the Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
Desperate people tend to behave desperately…
Even though American Presidents (even Bush Jr.) always stressed that “America has never been and never would be in a war with Islam”, the masses in the countries of Islam, indoctrinated as much as there are, do not believe it.
Yesterday, I saw a TV program, in which the journalist showed photographs of the exploding, and collapsing Twin Towers to Afghan people on the street. The pictures were shown to completely random people (who would stop and agree to talk). Most of them have never seen the images like that, and had no knowledge of the fact. They had no knowledge of the fact, which was the cause of the 10 years of war. They had no knowledge of the reason why the American and NATO forces have been in war with their country.
Everything what has been said about the WTC attack, and the Afghan War, and everything what has been done in relation to that, has been said and done on a premise, that everybody had known the facts pertaining to that. However, it seems that the population of Afghanistan is missing the most crucial piece of information: WHY they have been in war…
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I can never forgive the organizers of the attack on WTC towers. There is no argument anybody could produce to justify it.
What came afterwards, was just a reaction…
It cost us dearly: we lost our personal freedoms with the implementation of the Patriot Act.
It cost us dearly: we, Americans, have lost our ‘innocence’ being pushed into the Iraq war on “false pretenses” by the President Bush and V-Pres Chaney (we, as a nation have lost it once already – Vietnam War has been never totally digested, and justified, especially when 58 thousands of American lost their lives in it).
It cost us dearly: 6240 American soldiers lost their lives already (Afghanistan - 1766, Iraq - 4474).
It cost us dearly: we can attribute some of the economical instability of the USA to the focus on the two UNWANTED wars, instead of the welfare of the NATION.
It cost the World dearly: about a million of Iraqis perished in the unleashed sectarian violence, after the removal of Saddam Husein. Countries in ruins.
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Ten years have past since the fall of the Twin Towers.
So many events started on this September morning have the consequences, which are our lives now, and probably always will.
Every cataclysm, man made or otherwise, is an occasion to reflect on:
- was it preventable?
- can we prevent it in the future, and if so, how – by force or by creating better understanding between adversary societies, religions, economical systems…
Have we learned anything from it?
