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| New York is my grandson's oyster in 2010 (Photo Philipsen) |
Everyone has their own story on how they learned what was happening on that sunny September morning in 2001; how they reacted and what it meant to them at the time; the individual memories warp and shrink just as much as the collective ones.
I learned about the news in my downtown bank at the corner of Light and Baltimore Streets. TV monitors showed the CNN live stream just when the second plane hit the World Trade Center, evaporating any doubt if the first tower had been hit intentionally. I was mulling this over in my head when I walked back to my office, noticing how Baltimore mobilized in its own kind of me-too moment, as if it could be the next target. The general emergency dispatch make me afraid, more feeling sorry that this city would really consider itself a potential target. And pride that our own Johns Hopkins Hospital prepared for the many injured that were expected to be brought here but never came.
The daylong barrage of images one would have considered just a few hours earlier as absolutely impossible, slowly changed the perspective. As a member of the baby-boom generation I had a good idea about the horrors of WW II, but had only seen a progression towards prosperity, more knowledge and more comfort in my lifetime. I took it for granted. The many wars after WWII were distant for those who hadn't been drafted. With the demise of the Soviet Union even the Cold War seemed to be over. The 21st century looked to to my generation as the promise and culmination of the age of enlightenment: full of progress, discovery and opportunity. As the century to finally overcome war, hunger and maybe even develop a lifestyle that would be more sustainable. Many countries had begun taking down their military expenses in what was dubbed the peace dividend. Treaties kept everyone in check. This idyllic view exploded within the 12 hours it took world for the world to see the two symbols of America's might collapse into gigantic clouds of toxic dust, filmed from every imaginable angle.
These were the promises and the USA was the country where they had found their apex. I had selected it as my new home. On 9-11-2001 global coordinates shifted, that much was clear. Some type of war seemed likely or, judging from those horrible images, was already unfolding. A war literally coming out of the blue, something not only baby-boomers hadn't seen before.
I recall talking to my kids that day, some already adults and away from home. Trying to provide the orientation a parent is supposed to give. What would happen next? What did it mean? Were they safe? My usual instinct is to take events a notch down by providing perspective, staying calm, avoiding panic and especially fear. But there was too much foreboding in this day; plus a president in the White House, whom I and many others, didn't consider trustworthy, or worthy the presidency at all, having come into office thanks to hanging chads, judges and incompetence. I recall concluding a phone call to one of my daughters with predicting that "starting today, nothing will ever be like it was before". Of that I had been certain.
With a president of whom I and all my friends think even less heading to Shanksville, PA, it is predictable that this man will try to harness the horror of 9/11 for his own agenda of fear and confusion. Since 2001 the US has had good and bad times, but there is no doubt that the status of the country in the world is now greatly diminished. Bush's Iraq war, the Wall Street financial crash and now this president each have taken the country down from its lofty heights of power and its position as a beacon of the world. Until recently, all that had been left of our might seemed to be Hollywood, fashion, social media, Apple and Tesla. As well exemplary environmental and civil rights laws. Each of these accomplishments are now also slowly disintegrating in sexual scandals, data abuse scandals and ugly images of insults and denigration. Idols are falling to the earth like Ikarus when he got too close to the sun. Civil rights are being stepped on every day.
Those who always held the cynical view that in truth money, sex and power were all that was making the world go round seem vindicated. A president boasting that North Korean dictator Kim "has said some terrific things about me" describes the new low. Or maybe the new low is the forceful government ordered separation of children from their parents and the incompetence to unite them again when the courts demand it. Or the dismantlement of our contributions in the fight against global warming. Or neo-nazis shouting against Jews. The new lows have many faces.
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| Manhattan 2018 as seen from Freshkills Landfill, now a Park, where the 9/11 rubble was deposited (Photo Philipsen) |
Does this new state of affairs hail back to 9-11? Or is to suggest so just another warped view shaped more by 2018 than by what really happened then?
Historic materialism holds that history is shaped by the forces of production, not by the ideas of men, as idealism would have it. Attributing a global shift to human emotion and the terms of psychoanalysis is probably not getting to the root causes of the tectonic global shifts we are witnessing. Still, it is how I would describe what happened: 9-11 has replaced hope with fear.
The attack has made fear the modus operandi of the United States down to the way we enter public buildings, airplanes and now even schools. The short period when a president held up hope as the guide-post could hardly undo it, by then it was too late. All kinds of bad characters had discovered the true vulnerabilities of an open society, the world over, using civilians as victims to instill fear. Obama's attempts of bringing marginalized groups into the big tent of an open society has only increased the fears of those who used to "own" the country or at least the illusion that they would.
Fear now guide Baltimore and America alike. Except that in this city the marginalized are the majority. Feared by many of those in the suburbs around them, many citizens of Baltimore are themselves consumed by fear because conditions in many neighborhoods have become unbearable. Fear of the police and fear of an impotent police hold an unholy balance.
A 17 year retrospective and its somewhat bigger arc may not be enough not to succumb to gloom or enough to identify the true causes of calamity. Yet, it should be clear: The real enemy is rarely the other, it is fear itself and as such it is in us where we have to look for it. Religions of all stripes have always known to speak up against fear, but they keep things on the individual level. But it takes many to take fate in their own hands to break free of fear and oppressive conditions. It also takes voting for leaders who thrive on ideas and opportunities, not for those who use fear for their own power. There is still so much untapped opportunity, in ourselves, in Baltimore and in the country. The 21st century is still way too young to give already up on it.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
Baltimore SUN editorial about 9-11
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