9/11 and its impacts today Benny YP Siahaan  ;   An alumnus of Tsukuba University in Japan, who currently lives in New York City

JAKARTA POST, 20 September 2014

                                                                                                                       

                                                      

The attacks in New York on Sept. 11, 2001 claimed almost 3,000 lives. Since then, every Sept. 11, in commemoration of that horrible day, all the names of those victims have been read out aloud on the very site where the tragedy took place. It took more than five hours for relatives of the victims to read out their names (frequently interspersed with crying) and the event was broadcast live throughout the US. It was very emotional moment, particularly for those who directly experienced it or were in some other way personally affected by it. One of my staff, an Indonesian Muslim woman who is married to an American Catholic, said the 9/11 commemoration was not an easy day for her as it usually sparked a quarrel with her husband. “When my husband is watching the 9/11 commemoration ceremony on TV, there is always the possibility that he will say the tragedy was the work of Muslim people,” she replied when I asked her why. She said she would then respond to her husband to dispel any misperceptions about Islam. My staff member’s husband was one of the survivors of the 9/11 attacks. He worked in one of the Twin Towers and he lost many of his friends and colleagues. According to his wife, the tragedy had left him traumatized and inflicted a psychological wound that stayed with him for several years following the carnage. So, the act of commemoration, which is supposed to offer peace, homage and respect to the victims, in many cases may enflame hatred, revenge and even retribution. Today, Ground Zero, the site of the Twin Towers in New York City has been cleared and a museum dedicated to 9/11 opened there. To replace the Twin Towers, the One World Trade Center building, which is 541 meters tall, was built and is due to be opened in the coming few months. Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, has also been killed in the intervening years. With each passing year, the 9/11 remembrance day has come to be seen as a new symbol of US patriotism, aside from July 4. There is nothing wrong with remembering such a bitter tragedy; it is akin to the holding of Holocaust Memorial Day. The essence of the annual commemorations is to ensure that this kind of barbaric act does not happen again in the future. However, it may have another, darker side to it. It may provoke paranoia, hatred and a desire for revenge toward people who share the same faith as the perpetrators. We should start to worry if it emerges as part of the national psyche and becomes exploited for a particular political or personal agenda. This kind of thing happened when former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic exploited the national psyche of his fellow countrymen and later perpetrated ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Milosevic provoked his people through a memorial day, held every June 28, to commemorate the brutal Battle of Kosovo, during which Serbia was defeated by Ottoman troops in 1389, which marked the beginning of 500 years of occupation under the Ottoman Empire. Retributive justice has ruled the thinking and actions of US political and military leaders since 9/11. When the so-called War on Terror was declared, the US government at the time introduced a number of policies that had nothing to do with it, such as the invasion of Iraq, a country that played no role in 9/11, under the misguided pretext that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Not long after 9/11, the Patriot Act was passed and it continues to infringe the individual freedoms of US citizens. The practices supported by the Patriot Act were then expanded overseas, not only to civilian populations but also to foreign leaders, until the Edward Snowden case erupted and brought chaos and shame to Washington. Indonesia was also affected by the policy through the actions taken by US allies in Asia Pacific, such as Australia. In addition, individuals suspected of being terrorists were imprisoned, and many were held without charge or due process in Guantanamo Bay. “Enhanced interrogation methods” (torture) were rampantly carried out there. Furthermore, assaults using drones have been launched in since 2008 in countries suspected of plotting terrorist acts. One estimate stated that around 2,000 people had been killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere by drone attacks. Hence, the recent brutal and ugly killing of two US journalists by Islamic State (IS) militants - even the emergence of IS — have been cited by many as byproducts of the US’ belligerent behavior. After 13 years, the 9/11 tragedy has impacted not only the US but also the world, including Indonesia. It has changed many of our lives. Excessive security checks at airports, buildings and shopping malls constitute one of the more noticeable impacts of 9/11. We detest and condemn all acts of terrorism, but it is crucial that we handle them with care and prevent them from giving birth to yet more terrorism. As the saying goes, violence to fight terrorism breeds violence. ●