Five Years
Andrew Sullivan is commemorating the tragic events of September 11th, 2001 by celebrating the West's ongoing commitment to freedom.
Check in throughout the day for images and words that will gall Islamists everywhere, quotes that reveal tenacity and lack of fear, videos that expose the failure of the medieval bigots who struck five years ago, tributes to people who have stood up to these bullies and who have shown that we have not submitted yet; and never will.That is the best way I can think of to remember the events.
Thinking back to everything that has happened since that day, it seems like a very long five years. But watching the memorials on T.V. and reading people's recollections of the day, it feels so immediate that it seems impossible to believe that so much time has passed.
3 comments:
I agree that one of the best way to commemorate September 11th, and to irritate the Islamists, is to live out the freedoms that we currently enjoy. It's damn easy thing to do: just keep doing what you're doing. Maybe "do more" and participate more fully in the thing we call society. OK, sounds good.
But to add to that, we should probably take care to understand, strengthen and renew the freedoms we have in North America and around the world, to ensure that future generations enjoy the benefits we do.
I say this in part because I think we don't hear any kind of fear and doubt about the sustainability of our civilisation being expressed in the mainstream media. No one wants to admit to being scared about our civilisation collapsing at the hands of barbaric lunatics who have no idea what it means, pragamatically let alone morally, to eliminate Western society. Which makes a lot of the commemorative 9/11 stuff seem toothless and futile, like failed propaganda. Democracy needs defending because it's not unbreakable.
Another thing we can do is to speak out more specifically against the religious fanatics and fundamentalists who deny the idiocy of their beliefs. Currently, the most concerning of the crazies happen to be Muslim, and we shouldn't tip-toe around that fact. Criticising the role of religion in terrorism is something almost taboo.
Instead, the mainstream media have delivered what seems to be a continuous and relentless stream of sappy, sentimental, maudlin tributes to the victims of the attack. It's been so tedious, self-indulgent, and self-righteous that, at least to me, the coverage has been insulting to the victims and their families.
I can only imagine the terrorists being too pleased at the sulking and melodrama.
I think if you read Andrew Sullivan's blog, you'd see that he believes much the same as you do. He regularly speaks out about the threat of religious fundamentalists, about promoting democracy, and about protecting civil liberties in times of crisis. On Monday, he chose to celebrate Western freedoms rather than memorialize the dead.
Having said that, I am of mixed emotions about the "sappy, sentimental, maudlin tributes to the victims". It is true that the September 11th attacks were about more than those murdered that day. But it is also true that we value human life in our society, something that those responsible for the attacks, with their nihilist ideology, couldn't begin to understand.
I think I should probably read Andrew Sullivan's blog more frequently ... Adding him to my bloglines account.
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