[Oe List ...] Saipan Tribune OpEd Monday

[Elliestock at aol.com]

Thanks, Jaime, for sharing this reflection on 9/11.
Ellie
 
 
In a message dated 9/10/2011 3:17:32 A.M. Central Standard Time,  
svesjaime at aol.com writes:

 

Ground  Zero: Transforming the Tragic Terrain of Terrorism
 
We visited the Twin Towers’ site in Manhattan two years ago.  We suggested 
then that ground zero is  no longer in a pit of mangled steel on the 
southern tip of the former Dutch  colony, but on the heartland and mindscape of 
America.  
 
America commemorates the 10th anniversary of 911, the  emergency distress 
signal that took place 9.11.01.  The perpetuators of the 911-event were  not 
oblivious of the high symbology of the occasion.  Neither should we. 
 
There are as many perspectives this day as there are people reflecting  on 
it. 
 
The Event.  Four  hijacked jets were commandeered for Washington, DC, and 
NYC.  The New York bound ones found their  targets: the iconic twin towers of 
the World Trade Center in Manhattan.  Of the DC-bound, one found the  
Pentagon, but the second, headed for either the White House or Congress, was  
thwarted by its passengers and crashed into a Pennsylvania field.  Some 3000 
persons representing 90  nationalities died that day.
 
The Impact.  The United States was stunned; officially, it  descended into 
paroxysms of fear, and flung itself into a beehive of defense  activities.  
Homeland Security was  born; no official questioned its expenditure that in 
a decade totaled half a  trillion $.  There are even those  who think that 
trade, commerce, and employment in security industries and  institutions is 
good for the US economy!
 
The Story.  The most  common in the media that is still used to plug and 
pluck on the heartstring of  America is the picture of a nation under siege.   
Innocent America got a wake-up  call, the story goes, and the rude 
awakening is forcing it to deal with ugly  global realities it did not know before.  
 

Not so.  Two views (and  there are many) are contained in the comment: “one 
person’s terrorist is  another’s freedom fighter.”    Indeed, Osama bin 
laden, the alleged 911 mastermind, was our Mujahadeen freedom fighter against  
Russia in Afghanistan!
 
The American view for the last decade remains that of the victim who  needs 
to shore up defenses against the stranger and the foreigner.  Military 
strategy graduated into “the  best defense is offense.”  All  aliens are 
suspect until proven innocent.
 
But there are those convinced that the United States is just getting  back 
what it liberally ladles around as the sole sovereign empire in the world  
with its 150 military installations outside of its sovereign boundaries.  
 
We are solicitous of rapacious corporate tentacles, exploitative  machines, 
addictive chemicals, impersonal engines, and arrogant personnel, yet  we 
are baffled by the question often asked: “Why is there animosity against US  
in the world?”
 
Inflicting psychological fear is an established State-sanctioned  tactic.  
Applied in reverse,  we rejoice in the effects of the  Jasmine Spring 
uprisings in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria because those who  have long been 
downtrodden are finding vengeful voices to say “NO” to the  stranglehold of 
their political lords. 
 
The Necessary Deed.   America transformed the tragic terrain of terrorism 
into the  memorial gardens of the World Trade Center with cascading waters 
into recessed  pools and an eternal pose for reflections in the shadows of the 
104-floor  Freedom Tower and the shorter World Trade Center 4.   The pit 
has turned into an  architectural wonder that is worth every visitor’s time.  
Good Morning America is saying, “Yes”,  to a new day!
 
The deed of 911 has since evolved into an acute awareness of global  
experiences of terror beyond the WTC, from the continuing devastation of the  
planet to the seemingly endless human capacity to inflict pain and suffering  on 
others – women, children, the helpless and the weird, the marginalized and  
the unprotected, of which the American hand is not clean.  What has become 
clear is that there is  no defense against terrorism of any kind, more so of 
those officially  sanctioned by the State.  Indeed,  as commemoration 
occurs today in Manhattan, no one feels any safer than they  were ten years ago. 
 
But we see a new ground zero swelling in the ordinary and common  heartland 
and mindscape of America.   It is a profound resolve to segue into 
sustainable global economics  that honors the integrity of the planet, the equitable 
distribution of  resource and production for all, and invites the whole 
world, not just Wall  Street, to take over ownership of its processes.  
 
America’s democratic tradition baptized with fire in its shoddy  treatment 
of African-Americans, and its fear of immigrants that constitutes  its 
political DNA, nevertheless moves on the consensus of et pluribus unum, and makes 
it a  world-wide call as well. Main Street is making the call.  It invites 
the whole world to take  responsibility for emerging a New World in common 
efforts among the world’s  people.  
 
More importantly, we see emerging a genuine humility that is distancing  
itself away from the old dominating trait of patriarchy and imperialism into  
practices of cooperation and collaboration.  American flags ‘Made in China’ 
fly in  porches today, a telling reality. No need to apologize.  The pride 
of Ground Zero is not about  being a victim, but on being a vanguard in the 
creation of the new human; its  strength is not on being fearful of others 
but in being interdependent in  concert with others.
 
“Where?” the skeptical asks.   Go look into the mirror.   Then ask 
yourself: “Why not?”
 

Jaime R Vergara  


All of yesterday,  thanks; all of tomorrow, yes; all of today, let it  be!





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