9/11

[I'll write this post in English since I'm trying to practice (and need to) writing in this language. I might not have any English native speaker as reader but still I'm pretty sure that my regular readers will understand my writing, specially because I write like a 6 years old boy, using only the simplest words and ordering sentences in a very basic manner. Plus, it's not Swahili...]

Being in New York the day of the fifth anniversary of the most important terrorist attack in recent history (for its consequences and impact in the international relations and world configurations more than for the number of deaths or economical damage) brought me to make some reflections about that event. I had classes today so I couldn't go to "ground zero" but I didn't really want to. I had been there last week and I experienced very different kinds of feelings: anger, sadness, hope. Instead, I went to Riverside Park. I dwell in a building in, literally, the west end of Manhattan. Think in Manhattan as an island (the fact that it is, actually, an island could help, lol) surrounded in the west by the Hudson River. Well, Riverside Park, as the name suggest, is a park all along the river and it's just across the street from my place. I really enjoy being there and it was a perfect spot to stop by for a while and think about 9/11 (nine eleven stands for "once de septiembre" since dates are written in English first the month and after the day, but also 911 suggest the idea of emergency, since it's the telephone number in the whole United States to ask for help in an emergency).

I spent a nice quality time all by myself (don't think wrong, I wasn't jerking off, lol) looking the sunset with the sun reflecting its last rays of the day in the river (by the way, I don't know the concept of water in your hometowns, but in Sonora we call 'rivers' even the creeks that are completely dry half the year, so rivers like the Hudson in my conceptual framework are easily compared to the open sea). Well... the color of the water was blue in a heavenly sense and the New Jersey's buildings in the opposite side of the river started to turn on the lights like if they were naively smiling to the neighbor State, with no awareness of the new yorker's snobish mockery toward them. Everything looked calm, everything felt calm. I could smell the moist leaves lying on the grass. I could easily listen the wind whispering in the trees wearing their exhuberant summer clothes. So, the moment favoured emotions and some thoughts. I felt happy and self-confident about me and my world but at the same time a kind of uneasiness became an overwhelming sensation when I recalled the images of "ground zero", five years after the terrorist attack killed almost three thousand people (just thinking that amout of people is three times the Huásabas population almost made me feel sick).

September eleventh, 2001, changed the world and not exactly for the good sake of humankind. That day hatred found its sovereign place in a world that just had crossed the exit door of permanent nuclear threat. Cold war was over, but Intolerance war was not. The unbalanced power of countries had found its way to inflict its dreadful reactions to American unilateralism. Others "enemies of God" were also in sight: Madrid and London had to pay their share, too. But there were no States against whom you could adress in an effective way to fight this new war. The international community had to chose some states (preferably in the Middle East: In Oil we trust!!!), and make war to regimes unable to cooperate with the Holy War on Terror. But... mmmhhh... terrorist networks weren't states. They had an independent and, unfortunately, very vigorous life. Terrorist leaders and martyrs lived (and still live) in numerous countries like Afghanistan, Irak, Iran, Siria (and... United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium). Not even a world war could resolve it (as if any war could resolve something).

But we still had very supportive huge arms companies that will be very happy with a war that deceives people making them believe that "we are fighting against terror" (by the way, Jesus Christ would be very satisfied with this conservative methodist president of the US that fights violence with violence, I mean, 2 thousand years before he came to preach exactly the opposite, what could make him happier that such a loyal disciple using him in every speech and acting so consistently with the Gospel?). Plus, this huge leader had a people fearing the worst and willing to give away a lot of individual rights and economic prosperity in order to feel safer (it didn't matter that much if the war was that efficient... killing thousand of Arabs was a secondary issue while there were at least a dozen of Osamas between the corpses). Suprise!!! Five years later Osama and several terrorist leaders are still alive, thousands of civilians have been killed, lots of Arabs prisioners have been tortured, United Nations and the international system of conflict resolution are in the most serious credibility crisis that they ever had, security is the main topic in the world agenda replacing human rights, migration, and enviromental questions and, like in the worst of two worlds, people in advanced democracies aren't at all secure of terrorist attacks. Those little things and a couple more meant 9/11. And the hollow that still lays in ground zero is a very painful reminder that every kind of hate takes us away much more that it can give us back.