Tai Moses: Before and After: September 11 — ‘The events of September 11 divided our world into two radically different eras. We watch wistfully as the pre-9/11 world drifts away on its raft of memory, cast in Technicolor shades of nostalgia. We will remember that assassinated world as idyllic, secure (never mind that it was neither), we will speak of it in the reverent tones reserved for the dead.
Meanwhile, the post 9/11 era looms like an unmapped wilderness. As with other unclaimed territories throughout history, a fierce battle is being waged for its psychic, political and material capital. Former president Bill Clinton has called this conflict “the struggle for the soul of the 21st century,” and the spoils of war include some of our most cherished values and liberties. Leading the charge are the warriors of the Bush Administration, a battalion of securitycrats and generals who are attempting to colonize the future with their own repressive agenda.’
On the beautiful, glass-bright morning of September 11, a man — an ordinary, unremarkable American — called his wife on his cell phone. “We’re all going to die,” Thomas Burnett said as United Flight 93 careened over the Pennsylvania countryside, “but some of us are going to do something about it.” All we know of the rest of Tom Burnett’s narrative is that his life ended horribly. He and his fellow passengers did not let what must have been abject fear prevent them from acting — that is the true definition of courage.
What happened aboard Flight 93 was the country’s first real victory against terrorism, and it came out of the tradition of democracy. The passengers came up with a plan and they voted on it. Some of the men would rush the hijackers and force the airliner to crash, rather than allow it to be used in another suicide attack on Washington DC, where it was surely headed.
It’s a terrible irony that for a short time, while the condemned jet was aloft, the ideal of American democracy also reached its apex. The rest of us can only strive to do as well. Fortunately, Tom Burnett’s last communication to the world was an unintentional gift to us all, a battle cry for the age of anxiety. We are all going to die sooner or later. Let that consciousness not prevent us from acting in each other’s best interests, from trying to create a better, safer world.
AlterNet
