(To maintain the continuity, please read my blog entry 9/11/2009, posted on this day exactly two years ago.)
They say that scars are the best decorations of a hero. As long as the hero himself does not dwell on them. A preoccupation with one’s scars defines a victim. A victim is never a hero, and a hero is never a victim.
America is a great heroic nation. As such, it is her duty to the past and to future generations, that after each tragedy she stand up, build up, and march on. This is exactly what she ought to have done after 9/11/2001. Today, ten years later, we should have been seeing a magnificent set of tall and proud buildings, rising over the site of that terrible tragedy, with a solemn memorial wall, down below, honoring the tragedy’s innocent victims. Those would have been symbols of defiance, remembrance, and national greatness.
Instead, we are seeing a pathetic eyesore, an insult to the nation herself, and certainly to the victims of 9/11. In Balzac’s words, America prefers to “montrer ses plaies,” in other words, to play the victim, rather than to be a hero. Today’s Ground Zero, like the two still ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus all other American military engagements, defy, rather than define, heroism. Solemn remembrance has become endless whining, military heroics have degenerated into bullying of the weak, and useless self-destructive recklessness, as if the only lesson of 9/11 had been to instill and perpetuate victim mentality in the American public, allowing the powerful to gain more power in the country through the sheer fear of “terror.” To which I say, slightly paraphrasing FDR, that by far the worst terror imaginable is exactly the fear of terror, rather than “terror” itself...
9/11/2011 is supposed to be a day of remembrance, but I shall add no more whining or empty pep talk to the chorus. The best way to remember the victims is to remind America of her heroic nature, currently under attack from within. As for the condition of the supposedly sacred shrine known as “Ground Zero,” all I want to do is to cry out-----
-----SHAME!!!
They say that scars are the best decorations of a hero. As long as the hero himself does not dwell on them. A preoccupation with one’s scars defines a victim. A victim is never a hero, and a hero is never a victim.
America is a great heroic nation. As such, it is her duty to the past and to future generations, that after each tragedy she stand up, build up, and march on. This is exactly what she ought to have done after 9/11/2001. Today, ten years later, we should have been seeing a magnificent set of tall and proud buildings, rising over the site of that terrible tragedy, with a solemn memorial wall, down below, honoring the tragedy’s innocent victims. Those would have been symbols of defiance, remembrance, and national greatness.
Instead, we are seeing a pathetic eyesore, an insult to the nation herself, and certainly to the victims of 9/11. In Balzac’s words, America prefers to “montrer ses plaies,” in other words, to play the victim, rather than to be a hero. Today’s Ground Zero, like the two still ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus all other American military engagements, defy, rather than define, heroism. Solemn remembrance has become endless whining, military heroics have degenerated into bullying of the weak, and useless self-destructive recklessness, as if the only lesson of 9/11 had been to instill and perpetuate victim mentality in the American public, allowing the powerful to gain more power in the country through the sheer fear of “terror.” To which I say, slightly paraphrasing FDR, that by far the worst terror imaginable is exactly the fear of terror, rather than “terror” itself...
9/11/2011 is supposed to be a day of remembrance, but I shall add no more whining or empty pep talk to the chorus. The best way to remember the victims is to remind America of her heroic nature, currently under attack from within. As for the condition of the supposedly sacred shrine known as “Ground Zero,” all I want to do is to cry out-----
-----SHAME!!!
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