Wednesday, September 12, 2007
11 September
Where were you on the 11th of September? Amazing how this date has become etched in our world consciousness. And unlike many other "important" dates, this one is really global. On this day the world order was seriously changed...
I had gone over to my "second" apartment, to build cupboards and shelves for my girlfriend, who had just moved in. There was an air of optimism and hope... she was starting a new life, her son was upstairs sorting out his new room. What was the weather like? I don't know any more, anyhow it was not as beautiful as the bright fall morning in Manhattan.
Her son clattered down the stairs, saying that his cousin had called to say that there had been a serious plane accident in New York.
We didn't have any way to hear the news, she hadn't hooked up her radio yet and she is seriously against TV.
I called our friend Eva, who lived one floor down, to ask if we could watch her TV. She said grumpily, "Well, if you HAVE to... I have a terrible cold and I am in bed". But we came down and watchted in horror with the rest of the world.
Over the next few hours, I tried desperately to get hold of my youngest brother, whose wife was a stewardess for American Airlines... not only that, his bike ride to work takes him directly past the Pentagon. But the lines to America were all busy.
That night we had a concert... our (American) principal conductor changed the program at the last minute and just did one piece.
Sometime late the next day, I heard from my brother. Yes, he was all right, had been biking past the Pentagon just after the plane crashed... but the real miracle was that his wife, who had been scheduled to fly in one of the doomed airplanes, had traded the flight with a colleague, and who had to realize with growing horror, that her collegue and several other friends had been killed.
And do you remember how hard it was for the media to find a name for the collective atrocities on this day? It took weeks for a consensus to form, now it is just called "the events of the 11th of September" or 9/11.
But I am still convinced that the further developments would not have been so tragic if we had had a different president. One who had had at least some dim understanding of the world outside his ranch, or at least had the humility to seek qualified opinions on what actions to take.
I cannot help feeling that we are all now in that period when there are terrible fires in the towers, and none of us can imagine that the towers could at any moment collapse.
I had gone over to my "second" apartment, to build cupboards and shelves for my girlfriend, who had just moved in. There was an air of optimism and hope... she was starting a new life, her son was upstairs sorting out his new room. What was the weather like? I don't know any more, anyhow it was not as beautiful as the bright fall morning in Manhattan.
Her son clattered down the stairs, saying that his cousin had called to say that there had been a serious plane accident in New York.
We didn't have any way to hear the news, she hadn't hooked up her radio yet and she is seriously against TV.
I called our friend Eva, who lived one floor down, to ask if we could watch her TV. She said grumpily, "Well, if you HAVE to... I have a terrible cold and I am in bed". But we came down and watchted in horror with the rest of the world.
Over the next few hours, I tried desperately to get hold of my youngest brother, whose wife was a stewardess for American Airlines... not only that, his bike ride to work takes him directly past the Pentagon. But the lines to America were all busy.
That night we had a concert... our (American) principal conductor changed the program at the last minute and just did one piece.
Sometime late the next day, I heard from my brother. Yes, he was all right, had been biking past the Pentagon just after the plane crashed... but the real miracle was that his wife, who had been scheduled to fly in one of the doomed airplanes, had traded the flight with a colleague, and who had to realize with growing horror, that her collegue and several other friends had been killed.
And do you remember how hard it was for the media to find a name for the collective atrocities on this day? It took weeks for a consensus to form, now it is just called "the events of the 11th of September" or 9/11.
But I am still convinced that the further developments would not have been so tragic if we had had a different president. One who had had at least some dim understanding of the world outside his ranch, or at least had the humility to seek qualified opinions on what actions to take.
I cannot help feeling that we are all now in that period when there are terrible fires in the towers, and none of us can imagine that the towers could at any moment collapse.
# posted by vailian : 12:07 AM
