I was sitting at my computer at work, doing some morning tasks that need to be attended to at my job first thing. On my headphones, I had on some Irish music playing on a portable CD player, a lovely tune called "Raglan Road". My supervisor came over to me and motioned that he wanted my attention, so pausing my music and taking off my headphones, my boss mentioned to me quietly that his wife had just called from home to mention that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center and to see if I could get on the Internet to find out what was going on. We both figured, oh, some small plane, maybe the pilot blacked out or something, the thing crashed and maybe there were a few casualties, nothing more. I found it difficult to get on the MSNBC.com web site, and the few times I succeeded in getting a glimpse of it before Google couldn't connect me, it appeared that a jumbo jet had hit one of the Twin Towers. It seemed an odd thing to happen given how safety oriented commercial flight is, and the prospect of quite a few casualties grew with that scrap of knowledge. My boss and I looked at each other in vague alarm.....something seemed.......odd. But maybe it was just a very tragic accident......until we heard that a second plane had hit the other tower shortly thereafter. Then we
knew that something was definitely amiss. Before long, our entire workplace became aware that this beautiful sunny September morning was not going to be just another workday. Within an hour, we heard of the attack on the Pentagon and the crash in western Pennsylvania, and it was now knowledge that our country was being attacked by some group of terrorists. Needless to say, that morning in 2001, our workplace ground to a halt, a large television was erected near the circulation desk in the library where I work, and we all stopped what we were doing, library patrons and staff alike, to stare in horror and disbelief at the events unfolding on television that warm sunny September morning nine years ago. Particularly surreal was the moment tha the first tower collapsed. To see something so huge just implode and melt away in a cloud of dust was so strange, as if we were watching a disaster movie on television with incredible special effects, but this time, it was real.
So here we are, nine years later, and once again, Muslims are being singled out as the boogeyman, to be feared and hated. Remembrances today have become highly politicized because of the proposal to build an Islamic cultural center about two blocks from Ground Zero in New York and the threat of a wacko fundamentalist preacher in Florida threatening to burn copies of the Qu'ran today. That was called off due to worldwide pressure, thank goodness, but controversy still reins over the whole cultural center issue. There are those who feel that it compares to building a monument to Hitler near a concentration camp site in Germany or some other absurdity. The thinking is that because Muslims, albeit extremist radicals, perpetrated the 9/11 crimes on New York, that it would be highly insensitive to the survivors and relatives of those who died in the attacks to build this structure so close to where their loved ones died. So now, in addition to Hispanics in this country, Muslims are the other boogeyman that people are raising their voices against. There are those who think that Islam is an evil and violent religion and should be banished off the face of the earth. The amount of misinformation out there is staggering and is being fed by right wing media pundits who are fanning the flames of hate, bigotry and intolerance. Our sagging economy isn't helping, either. Historically, when our country has gone through long periods of economic downturns as we are in now, nativism, fear and xenophobia result as people circle the wagons against "the other", that being the foreigner, the stranger. Add to that the fact that today is the annual commemoration of the 9/11 attacks and the rise of anti-Islamist fervor is just making the whole thing that much more painful because Muslims also died in the Twin Towers, as did Jews, Christians and a whole host of other folks of varying beliefs. It's sad that people forget that it was al-Qaida that attacked us, not a particular country or belief system, but a shadowy, world wide terrorist network. It's wrong headed to blame one faith for all this country's ills. But I suppose when times are tough and people are down, they have to find a scapegoat, so right now, it's Muslims. It's been Hispanics, and it may be someone else that people will whip up a fervor to dislike. I can only hope that better times are ahead when people will lay aside their fear, paranoia and hatred and remember that we are all one brother (and sister)hood of people who bleed the same red blood, who laugh, who cry, who love and grieve and are human beings beyond that which separates us. The sooner people remember that, the stronger humanity will be in the end.
I was sitting at my computer at work, doing some morning tasks that need to be attended to at my job first thing. On my headphones, I had on some Irish music playing on a portable CD player, a lovely tune called "Raglan Road". My supervisor came over to me and motioned that he wanted my attention, so pausing my music and taking off my headphones, my boss mentioned to me quietly that his wife had just called from home to mention that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center and to see if I could get on the Internet to find out what was going on. We both figured, oh, some small plane, maybe the pilot blacked out or something, the thing crashed and maybe there were a few casualties, nothing more. I found it difficult to get on the MSNBC.com web site, and the few times I succeeded in getting a glimpse of it before Google couldn't connect me, it appeared that a jumbo jet had hit one of the Twin Towers. It seemed an odd thing to happen given how safety oriented commercial flight is, and the prospect of quite a few casualties grew with that scrap of knowledge. My boss and I looked at each other in vague alarm.....something seemed.......odd. But maybe it was just a very tragic accident......until we heard that a second plane had hit the other tower shortly thereafter. Then we knew that something was definitely amiss. Before long, our entire workplace became aware that this beautiful sunny September morning was not going to be just another workday. Within an hour, we heard of the attack on the Pentagon and the crash in western Pennsylvania, and it was now knowledge that our country was being attacked by some group of terrorists. Needless to say, that morning in 2001, our workplace ground to a halt, a large television was erected near the circulation desk in the library where I work, and we all stopped what we were doing, library patrons and staff alike, to stare in horror and disbelief at the events unfolding on television that warm sunny September morning nine years ago. Particularly surreal was the moment tha the first tower collapsed. To see something so huge just implode and melt away in a cloud of dust was so strange, as if we were watching a disaster movie on television with incredible special effects, but this time, it was real.
So here we are, nine years later, and once again, Muslims are being singled out as the boogeyman, to be feared and hated. Remembrances today have become highly politicized because of the proposal to build an Islamic cultural center about two blocks from Ground Zero in New York and the threat of a wacko fundamentalist preacher in Florida threatening to burn copies of the Qu'ran today. That was called off due to worldwide pressure, thank goodness, but controversy still reins over the whole cultural center issue. There are those who feel that it compares to building a monument to Hitler near a concentration camp site in Germany or some other absurdity. The thinking is that because Muslims, albeit extremist radicals, perpetrated the 9/11 crimes on New York, that it would be highly insensitive to the survivors and relatives of those who died in the attacks to build this structure so close to where their loved ones died. So now, in addition to Hispanics in this country, Muslims are the other boogeyman that people are raising their voices against. There are those who think that Islam is an evil and violent religion and should be banished off the face of the earth. The amount of misinformation out there is staggering and is being fed by right wing media pundits who are fanning the flames of hate, bigotry and intolerance. Our sagging economy isn't helping, either. Historically, when our country has gone through long periods of economic downturns as we are in now, nativism, fear and xenophobia result as people circle the wagons against "the other", that being the foreigner, the stranger. Add to that the fact that today is the annual commemoration of the 9/11 attacks and the rise of anti-Islamist fervor is just making the whole thing that much more painful because Muslims also died in the Twin Towers, as did Jews, Christians and a whole host of other folks of varying beliefs. It's sad that people forget that it was al-Qaida that attacked us, not a particular country or belief system, but a shadowy, world wide terrorist network. It's wrong headed to blame one faith for all this country's ills. But I suppose when times are tough and people are down, they have to find a scapegoat, so right now, it's Muslims. It's been Hispanics, and it may be someone else that people will whip up a fervor to dislike. I can only hope that better times are ahead when people will lay aside their fear, paranoia and hatred and remember that we are all one brother (and sister)hood of people who bleed the same red blood, who laugh, who cry, who love and grieve and are human beings beyond that which separates us. The sooner people remember that, the stronger humanity will be in the end.
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