This weekend represents the 20th Anniversary of 9/11. To be totally honest, this tragic milestone was not front of mind for me, but then a Croatian Journalist reached for an interview.
Below are my written answers to his questions. They were incredibly thought provoking, forcing me to consider how the events of 20 years ago brought us to where we are now.
Traveling back to New York, I was also struck by the two pillars of light emanating from ground zero. Looking at them across the east river, I felt a shiver of fear go down my spine, hoping we never experience that sort of tragedy ever again.
1. How do you personally remember that horrible day? Where were you living, how old were you, what were your parents saying?
On 9/11 I was a 13 year old living in Ohio. The day, to use a cliche, started like any other. We were in the middle of math class when the school P.A. System told students to go back to their home rooms. The T.V. Was turned on and we watched coverage of the terrible events. I’m happy that they did not try to shield us, but instead let us see for our own eyes that there is evil in the world, and how easily our bubble of tranquility could be popped. My parents picked me up that afternoon. They did not say much, we just watched the news. It all took a few days to process.
2. How do you think that Americans today, and people in New York, remember 9/11 in the broadest sense?
I think broadly speaking both Americans and New Yorkers remember the day for the heroism of those in the middle of it. They think about the bravery of the passengers and crew of flight 93 and the first responders who rushed up the towers. There are also the iconic images of the planes hitting, Rudy Guiliani walking in the debris, and firefighters unfurling the flag over the Pentagon.
New Yorkers have a deep memory of the fear of that day. Everyone expected more attacks, that this was just the start. Evacuating subways and public spaces, they felt once solid ground shake under their feet.
For Americans this was also the real start of the 21st century. It made clear the dark side of globalization and that the march towards liberal democratic capitalism wouldn’t go unopposed.
3. One of the first memories some have about that day was not only the attacks, but also the very strong response by firemen, policemen, medics and ordinary people. That was especially the case in New York. It seems from the outside that terrorists were not successful at installing fear in America. Would you agree?
I think there are two answers, one from the individual perspective and another from the perspective of the system.
Individuals proved to be incredibly resilient. Very quickly, faster than anyone could have dreamed, NYC got back on its feet. Institutions like the Tribeca Film Festival sprung up to revitalize lower Manhattan. I think you’re right to point to first responders as an inspiration to move forward and not let the terrorists win.
From the perspective of the system and the state things were different. Fear was institutionalized and used as an excuse for all sorts of things. Security at airports became much more intense and you couldn’t see relatives to the gate. The Patriot act normalized intelligence services spying on Americans in a manner that never would have been accepted before. Politicians were happy to trade our freedoms for the perception of increased security.
4. How do you think 9/11 changed the US emotionally, and how did it politically? What do you think is the biggest change in America between August of 2001 and 2021?
It ended the era of naive optimism that America and its leaders felt after the fall of the Soviet Union. We genuinely believed the American way of life had triumphed and we were about to exit the horrors of the 20th century. After 9/11 Everyday citizens began to think about parts of the world they had never considered before. Americans became more cynical and less idealistic.
A lot of opportunistic politicians took hawkish positions they would later regret, Hillary Clinton comes to mind. I think it normalized a much more powerful executive branch of government. It also directed a lot of funding to Intelligence services. At this point, with the disaster in Afghanistan, no one can say that was money well spent.
5. Many people today think that the US foreign policy response was not good. They point to Afghanistan as an example. How do you feel about that? Today sympathy for foreign interventions in the US seems to be quite low.
Pretty much everyone was for the Afghanistan war at the time. It’s easy to critique history, but I have a hard time seeing how the United States could have emotionally or politically avoided that conflict.
The problem I think was twofold, one side was just plain bad management and the other was an overoptimistic agenda. It has been common knowledge since the 2019 Afghanistan papers that the conflict was not being prosecuted efficiently or effectively. Also, I think it was a mistake to make western style democracy our primary goal. It’s hubristic to believe you can control people in that way from across an ocean.
Iraq was a different matter. I feel like it did much more to show the difficulties of Foreign intervention. There was not much justification other than Neo Con bullshit about spreading democracy and Bush’s personal vendetta against Sadam. This was the source of much cynicism about intervention.
You’re right, today Americans have zero desire for more foreign interventions. They are sick of death and destruction.
Republicans, to their credit, learned their lesson from these wars. It’s a big reason for the populist and isolationist direction of the party. Trump was able to make a pretty profound case against elites who had pushed these wars for their own profit at the expense of the nation.
Democrats I fear might stumble into another interventionist conflict. They still have the arrogance to believe complex international problems can be solved with theories cooked up at Harvard.
6. Today Republicans and Democrats are very divided. They were much closer right after those attacks. Do you think something else can unite red and blue America, and not just these terrible tragedies?
I don’t buy the premise that unity is a good thing. We were united at that time and it led to terrible outcomes like the Iraq War and Patriot Act.
CoronaVirus is a great example. Because the United States was not united, large parts of the country escaped draconian lockdowns that will in the long run cause way more harm than the virus. A unified country is at the mercy of politicians.
It’s true we’re divided at the moment, but that’s because the United States faces major decisions about what our future will look like. My biggest issue is that there are only two silos, right and left. I feel like we need more diverse dissenting voices, not ones that fit neatly in boxes.
That’s the problem authoritarian states have, they have no system for dealing with dissent. It looks less messy on the surface, but historically this has caused these systems to collapse from within. I think conflict builds strength.
7. How do you think Americans, and New York, remember George W. Bush? After him, they saw presidents Obama, Trump and Biden. How do they compare him to those leaders?
In many ways Bush feels forgotten about. For most people he was the last vestige of an old country club Republicanism that no longer exists. Obama will have a much larger place in history, Trump and Biden will have to contend with his legacy more than Bush’s.
It’s funny, the Democrats have come to embrace George W. Bush while Republicans have turned their back on him. There’s a famous picture of Bush being hugged by Michelle Obama and he’s done all the talk show rounds to promote his art.
Mainstream media is rehabilitating Bush, a guy they used to despise as much as Trump. I find this hard to understand because by almost any definition Bush is a war criminal. Trump, for all his faults, did not start endless wars or plunge the country into a financial crisis.
Republicans on the other hand, have lost respect for Bush. For the base, the entire Bush dynasty epitomizes the political swamp. This is pretty obvious, for the first time in 40 years no Bush was at the Republican convention.
Bush’s presidency was also home to the Neo Conservative movement, which gave birth to the War in Iraq. These guys now make their home in the Democratic Party. David Frum, author of Bush’s infamous Axis of Evil speech, is a big leader in the never Trump movement.
8. How do you think New York will honour 9/11, 20 years later. Do you plan to participate in any of the commemorations?
The primary way New York commemorates 9/11 is by reading the names of the victims at the 9/11 memorial. Probably there will be small ceremonies across the city to mourn the loss of loved ones.
I am getting back to the city on September 10th and will probably go down to the memorial for a quiet moment. The use of negative space and water falling really strikes a chord with me and allows me to truly conceptualize what was lost.