“Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
Every national tragedy we think of where we were. I was 22. On 9/11/01, I was working at Duke and had been at work for a half hour getting started on whatever sciencey thing I was doing that day. People have music or maybe NPR or throughout the labs and so we heard about it as it was happening or as it was reported. One event, then another, then another. And another. Stunned silence. Dread. The other dread. Numb the rest of the day. Wondering if or when there'd be another. Is this war? How many attacks will there be? In how many cities? How big is this?
And then WHO. Soon it was apparent. I wanted it to be anyone but who it was. Let them be wrong this time. My boyfriend and I were talking marriage. He's Palestinian, so a target for anything white people were going to be dishing out. (It turns out we were lucky based on the experiences of so many Arab Americans, but I didn't know that then.) And future kids, how would this affect them? Should we even have kids? His dad's a citizen, but would that be respected? Will we be able to fly? Will we be followed? What about hate crimes? What kind of lists will we be on and how will that affect job prospects and life in general? So "who" brought on a whole other set of questions.
We remember the lives lost. So many all at once, senselessly. But what is a sensible death? I guess being taken in tragedy, too soon, it might seem, heightens the grief. That wasn't nature and we couldn't prevent it. Our response and the deaths that resulted, we could have controlled. We could have stopped those deaths. But we didn't. Our president said "bring it on."
Every year I recall how the victims of our tragedy were used by the powerful to generate support for more killing. Instead of healing and peace, we got war cries and insidious persistent hatred disguised as patriotism and unblinking "respect" for barely elected incompetent leaders.
I have this demoralizing memory of overwhelming hopelessness and disgust with the reaction of fellow Americans: attitudes, flag waving, narrow definitions of patriotism, hatred, warmongering. The policies and perceptions driven by the same bigotry remain today with the Muslim ban, kids in cages, hatemongers wearing red hats and racists in the White House.
I knew in the pit of my stomach things were going to get bad. Overt hatred of Muslims and Arab Americans was going to be in fashion. I knew that. And the way things went, I thought internment camps weren't off the table with that guy, W. Instead, we got the Patriot Act, jailing innocent people and a slew of laws aimed at getting rid of and spying on our Muslim brothers and sisters. Not a whole lot better.
Flags came out in support of war and killing innocent people and I was devastated. Dissent was quashed in the name of patriotism and God. Not even journalists were questioning this rush to war and patriotic fever for such a long time. Americans didn't care that war would only be revenge and not a real solution. All Muslims and brown people were the enemy. Pacific Islanders? Same thing! Can't be bothered with facts! (See, it's always been that way. ) It was all- War! Enlist! Fight! Don't be a pussy! Country!
Peace was laughed at, even among Christians who I thought at the time would see war as tragedy and value life. To me peace is honorable and strong and I trusted that others saw that as well. I was wrong on the last bit. At various times I sat through sermons on how Islam was evil and murderous. (What happened to God is love?) Peace was for the weak, you know, women! (What happened to blessed are the peacemakers?) Real men want to fight to protect you. .. from this tragedy that already happened. .. Nothing made sense. Values I'd learned from the time I was a child were failing to help me comprehend the world now. It caused me heart-wrenching dissonance. Could I be a... a liberal? Say it isn't so!
It became clear to me that war doesn't protect anyone and it isn't brave or just, it just slaughters and sends people to the slaughter- one side we imagine a force of evil, the other we make into heroes. They all died preventable deaths if only we could get over this exceptionalism, greed and hyper masculine gun worship.
Remember the victims. ...of the day... just as much as of the invasions. In the style, if not exact words, of my middle school social studies teacher: War is stupid. War is bloody. War is ugly.
Work for peace instead.
As Kurt said - "Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
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