5 years later (part 1)

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Five years ago last night, I was on an American Airlines plane between San Francisco and Boston. I think I was on the penultimate journey of AA Flight 11, the plane that was hijacked the next morning and was the first to hit the WTC, although I was too shocked to check my ticket stub to make sure. [AA 11 was an LA bound flight, my flight was LA to SF to Boston].

I remember waiting for the flight at SFO very vividly. It was delayed, so I sat patiently, nursing a novel. There were three wisacres in the padded reception seats facing mine, and they decided to pass the time by making remarks about how I was a terrorist, as if I was somehow deaf or couldn’t comprehend what they were saying. I lowered my book long enough to glare at them, and then went back to my reading.

That was in the good old days, back before such behavior was criminalized, back before I learned to shuffle, shuck and jive, to grin broadly like an idiot and look at my feet, back before passengers counted the number of times you went to the bathroom to pee. It was a long time ago.

I took a cab back to my place and fell into a deep dreamless sleep. Because we had arrived late, I decided to sleep in the next morning and was awoken not by my alarm clock but by my father, calling on the land line (back when I had roomates and no cell phone).

“Beta, turn on the TV,” he said.
I did. And I saw. But I did not yet comprehend.

I stayed in the living room all morning, watching events unfold on television, and talking to my father in NYC. I was lucky, I never had any trouble getting through. I didn’t realize then how much everything would change. How much, even five years later, things would not be the same as they were just 24 hours before.

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p> I’ve been meaning to post something personal on this topic for years, but never got around to it. You know that I rarely talk about myself in my posts, both to preserve my anonymity but also because I’d rather you paid attention to my words than my person when I’m talking. This is hard for me to talk about. Last night, I was clenched down to my stomach in anticipation. Ironically, it was the sight of all the blather in the newspapers this morning that made me feel distant from the event, and which gave me enough perspective to start to write.

In typical desi fashion, I’m going to have to wing this. I’m going to write this in segments throughout the week, week permitting. I don’t know how well they’ll fit together or how much of what’s on my mind I’ll be able to share. Just bear with me as I post parts 2-?, and we’ll all get to see how it turns out together. Just don’t expect a happy ending to this one.

111 thoughts on “5 years later (part 1)”

  1. manju:

    are you paraphrasing bishop Tutu?

    err, no. I was referring to an old Bush quote. More accurately:

    Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.

  2. err, no. I was referring to an old Bush quote

    Yes, I know Sakshi. My point was only that phrases like “with us or against us” or words like “evil” were not always considered so un-nuanced and simplistic. It’s worth considering why.

    No one here expressed any sympathy for the jehadis. I think you are mixing up two groups, who have very different objections. There are: a)jehadis who have a long-fermenting ideological hatred for the US, b) perfectly ordinary people who are irritated by American foreign policy over the years.

    Your point is well taken. But the mixing of which you speak is taking place on both sides. I think it would help if those who have grievances with American foreign policy stop projecting these grievances on Jehadis. Their ideological hatred for the US goes far beyond US foreign policy (and for that matter, far beyond the US period) and to the extent that they are upset about it, it is that the US supports regimes that are not oppressive enough (for their tastes).

  3. There was a New Zealander who kept going on about how terrible it was and he was really starting to get on my tits. So when he asked me for the fifteenth time, “Isn’t it just terrible?” or words to that effect, I told him, “Look, there are too many people in the world anyway. Don’t you think it’s great when some of them are eliminated?” He was not a happy Kiwi afterwards.

    Eurodesi, you’re about as smug as they come.

    I don’t think you realise that caring about Iraqis, Palestinians and whoever else is on your list of street cred-worthy people to think about as you walk around campus with your obligatory Chairman Mao satchel…is not really your exclusive prerogative! There are plenty more people who care about such issues that you think. They just don’t do so in the smug, self-righteous way that you do. If your so good at empathising with the plight of innocent people, why couldn’t you extend this to the civilians who died in 9/11?

    And don’t insult Kiwis 😛 We’ve got the world’s yummiest ice cream, we don’t support the war in Iraq and our government will negotiate with the Palestinian government to free NZ hostages. All ‘Euro’s’ are famous for is trashy skank music 😛

  5. Manju:

    Yes, I know Sakshi. My point was only that phrases like “with us or against us” or words like “evil” were not always considered so un-nuanced and simplistic. It’s worth considering why.

    This is a specious argument. The level of respect where you are allowed to make statements like that and taken seriously has to be earned; it is not granted as a right. Rev. Tutu earned it through a consistently principled, peaceful and non-violent stand. American attitude towards Islamic fundamentalism has been consistently hypocritical; I don’t think there’s a single Islamic dictatorship in the world that has not been supported by the US one time or the other.

    I have no problems with America looking after its own interests. But wouldja please stop taking the moral high ground. Give people some respect, no one is that stupid. And what trivialized the word ‘freedom’ more than naming french fries freedom fries.

    I think it would help if those who have grievances with American foreign policy stop projecting these grievances on Jehadis. Their ideological hatred for the US goes far beyond US foreign policy (and for that matter, far beyond the US period) and to the extent that they are upset about it, it is that the US supports regimes that are not oppressive enough (for their tastes).

    The jehadis hate the US for completely ideological reasons, but the sympathy they carry among many muslims, which is essential to their survival, has political grounds. Hamas and Hezbollah both have strong public support because of the perception that they are what keep Israel at bay in the middle east. I am not supporting either Israel or Palestine in that conflict. I just want to say that trying to bring some kind of resolution to these conflicts, may help the cause of peace.

    Comments like the ones I make above have been made before on other discussions, and I probably should have resisted the temptation. But I was piqued by comments that seemed to tar all dissent by the same brush.

    This was a post to commemorate the dead of 9/11, and in respect, I think I will shut up now. I, and most of my friends in India, felt sorry for the Americans that day. As the Le Monde said, ‘we are all Americans today’. My kneejerk reaction when I heard of the attack, was a ‘we-told-you-so’ as I admitted, but the very next moment I was horrified and stricken, and was so, for the whole day.

  6. MD,

    As Sakshi (Comment #. 105) pointed out in the comment above, I just went to Le Monde’s editorial five years ago: Le Monde on September, 12, 2001 editorial was

    In this tragic moment, when words seem so inadequate to express the shock people feel, the first thing that comes to mind is this: We are all Americans! We are all New Yorkers, just as surely as John F. Kennedy declared himself to be a Berliner in 1962 when he visited Berlin. Indeed, just as in the gravest moments of our own history, how can we not feel profound solidarity with those people, that country, the United States, to whom we are so close and to whom we owe our freedom, and therefore our solidarity? How can we not be struck at the same time by this observation: The new century has come a long way.

    This is not schadenfraude. Maybe, critical in parts. However, I am not totally nullifying your observations, as we discussed in earlier comments on this thread.

    However, I am afriad we are becoming blind-sighted bordering demagogues by default, more so visible minorities in their mad rush to be the sole protectors of the flag or their identity.

    Peace……..

  7. Oh give me a break Kush. I work a day job. Give me some time. And, why is your example so much better than my example of BBC Question time? Are you calling me a demogogue. Prove to me that there was no schadenfraude, from some of the usual sources, on the 12th, 13th, 14th.

    And you are not playing fair. You are cherry picking. In that same article, it states that America might be responsible after all, “might it not have been that America created this demon after all? Be that as it may…..” What do you say to that? It sounds a tired, weary sort of cynicism to me to bury that deeper down. Read further.

  8. The US isn’t the only one who has consistently supported Islamic dictatorships. But, somehow, we are the only ones who are guilty of this hypocrisy. This is what gets me. Not the criticism of the US. But the lack of similar self-knowledge by other nations. And this self-knowledge is as guilty as any US action. You provide moral cover for dictators, blind anti-americanism does that. That’s the point I’m trying to get across. It’s like how everyone forgets who really armed Saddam….why do the french and german and russians get away with it? That’s all I’m saying. don’t let anyone get away with it, us included. sheesh.

  9. sorry, but it does a disservice to those who dies on 9-11 not to discuss these things. So, I will post one last comment on this thread: if India does a oil deal in the Sudan, are Indians responsible for the Sudanese deaths? What does India deserve, then?

  10. All ‘Euro’s’ are famous for is trashy skank music 😛

    Hey! 😛 Plenty of good bands here in Euroland…Mew, Kashmir, Kaizers Orchestra, Kent, dEUS…if you’re so hung up on the ‘trashy skank music’ I could recommend some good Euro bands 😛

  11. Sakshi:

    The level of respect where you are allowed to make statements like that and taken seriously has to be earned; it is not granted as a right.

    I see you’re attacking the messenger rather than the message, as you’re entitled if you wish. But I’ll take that as a begrudging acceptence of the argument itself.

    As far as the messenger goes, politicians do not have the luxury of keeping things pure, as men like Tutu or MLK have. Men like Nehru and Mandela, both of whom coddled dictators (Mandela praised Castro and even received money from him as dissidents rotted in his prisons; and of course there’s Nehru’s misguided admiration for the Soviets), still used this moralistic language when fighting great tyranny; as did Reagan and Bush.

    The jehadis hate the US for completely ideological reasons, but the sympathy they carry among many muslims, which is essential to their survival, has political grounds.

    I think it’s naive to assume this sympathy is rooted in an aversion to tyranny or a yearning for democracy. If it were, we would see the emergence of a Mandella, King, or Gandhi in these societies, not al quaeda, hamas, or hezbollah. The symapathy, which you correctly say “is essential to their survival,” is rooted in a common bigotry and hatred for “the other.”