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Wednesday 12 September 2012

9/12


Well yesterday the western world apparently celebrated the attack on the twin towers.
While some will baulk at the word celebrate and jerk their knee in disgust at my using of it, tell me what other word is apt?
There was the usual communal outpouring of empty grief from people who think that sharing a picture on facebook somehow matters.
Most probably didn't give much of a shit on the day it happened, will rarely consider why it happened, and neither will the ramifications of it keep them awake at night.
Even if some do, the majority certainly wont on any other day other than the anniversary, and many of them wont give it any more thought than the seconds it takes to click share on said anniversary either.
Reposting an image apparently replaces real compassion and empathy now.
Similar to how asking people to repost a picture of a bald headed girl with cancer doesn't do anything practical apart from salve the conscience of those who post the image the wave of similar 9/11 ones serve no real purpose either.
Social media was literally ablaze with remembrance memes.
When I see the words' never forget' I take it to mean that we should never forget the atrocity, and therefore collectively work towards ensuring that we never see such a horror repeated.
Others apparently consider it a mental note to never forgive, never give any quarter, and in some strange way as permission to wage war on.........well on anyone they want basically.

I seen a few posts from people who were respectfully putting across the point that violent deaths were an affront to us all as human beings regardless of where and when they happen, and to who they happen to, and that maybe we should try to be more inclusive in how we remember 9/11.
No one I seen said anything along the lines of it not mattering in the face of all the tragic violent deaths anywhere.
People were respectful to a fault, but the reaction to their posts were brutally repugnant.
People screaming in block capitals that 'it's not a fuckin' competition' as if anyone had said it was.
No matter how it was explained that the original intent was to highlight that all deaths are individually as important it just wouldn't sink in.
The aggression shown against anyone that dare utter anything about us learning from the terrible crime that was visited upon the US was frankly disgusting.
A disrespectful affront to the memories of those who did die, and the families that will carry the burden of grief forever.

Every single victim on that day was the mother, father, brother, sister, daughter or son of someone, and the impact on how they left this world will haunt those who loved them forever, but no more so than the impact of any other person who has lost a dear one to a violent death.
If we can't say that then what are we really saying?
Are we saying that the lives of those who died in New York are more important than that of any one else?
We can't do that.
We must not do that.
All life is precious.
Everyone matters to someone.

So who is really respecting the memory of the victims.
Those who will oppose the violence to all, or those who feel offended at those who strive for global peace?

9 comments:

  1. Some would claim 9/12 to be an analogy for 9/11. I say what is 9/11? Does it mean a terrorist attack, or does it mean the numerous readings people may interpret a terrorist attack as meaning. I wonder.

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  2. No offence intended, but i have no idea what you mean.

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  3. Interestingly I was over in the US three months after the atrocities that went on on NY and PA that year...and whilst the majority of the workmates were in a gung ho , let's phucking nuke 'em attitude, I had a very in depth conversation with a manager who just so happened to me an ex-Marine.

    He did ask how we in the UK had dealt the the Provo / Republican atrocities over the previous 20-30 years and how the UK government had dealt with that....and coming from a guy who lived in one of the can collecting areas for the PIRA (Boston,MA) I found his opinion to be very understanding.

    Whilst the very public - no concessions to terrorism persona was in place, there had been negotiations going on in the background for years on this side....he much preferred that to the scattergun approach taken by Bush and Blair. But I guess him being ex-military he knew what the probable outcome was going to be....too many lives were going to be lost for no other reason an ass whipping.

    And to be honest that same measured approach seemed to be prevalent from any US citizens I met over the following years with a military background....they all knew that there should have been retribution, but only to those who perpetrated the acts....not the hundreds of thousands of innocents of foreigners and thousands of military from the "Allied" forces.

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  4. I would agree with that.
    Most US citizens are exactly as you describe them.
    I just wish more of them would make the effort to provide a balance to the fundamentalists from all over.
    Dip into the 'net and the majority shouting loudest appear to be the ones with the least grip on the matter at hand.

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  5. Without delving into the murky waters of conspiracy theories and lending any sort of credence to claims of lizard men running the world, it does deserve mentioning that globally very few people are supporters of acts of terrorism to acts of genocide.
    Rational human beings shy away from the ugliness of the actions of what are a minority.
    So I suppose the question is why do we, the majority, allow these acts to happen, and why do those who represent us fail spectacularly to support the majority?

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  6. I can see the point of the initial outrage given the severity of the atrocities of 9/11...with just over 3,000 people losing their lives the feeling , certainly amongst those people I met at the time, was for revenge and retribution.

    But as I say those who knew where I came from were aware of what had gone on over here for the previous 30 odd years and were willing to learn from that.

    I suppose one of the best things to come out of it was the drying up of funding for PIRA/Sinn Fein on the Eastern seaboard....so much so that Sinn Fein had to change their tack and eventually denounce the violence that would lead to a shared government in NI.

    However the times I visited over the next 8 years the majority of Americans were as pissed off as the many millions over here at the ongoing activities in Afghanistan and Iraq....they knew it was just sabre rattling that was still ultimately costing US lives. The only really got closure when Bin Laden was finally executed

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  7. The initial outrage was completely justified.
    People need to vent.
    They need time to get to grips with the horror of the situation and initially the very first thing that most of us would want to do is lash out.
    That's natural.
    Sickeningly that urge to vent was manipulated to suit those in power though.

    I'm not sure if there was much closure when Bin Laden was killed though.
    Certainly he was the bogeyman figure, but his demise hasn't apparently mattered at all in the grand scheme of things.

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  8. I do believe the Obama administration is doing the right thing and removing the troops from over there...that was one of his tickets for getting in..and he at least has stuck to his promise.

    Just hope to feck Romney gets nowhere near the red button as he is the bastard love child of mad Reagan and Dubeeya!!! He will go after anyone who dares look at the starsn'stripes in the wrong way!!

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  9. Romney is a scary proposition for the world.
    Thankfully he seems to have made a major mistake with his comments on the embassy incident.
    Even his own supporters have stepped away from that clusterfuck.
    You would think that his reluctance to provide clear records of his finances and his background in asset stripping would tell people that this is a man who has no morals.
    That the republicans can name him as their candidate is frightening.
    Is this the best they have got?

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