Remembering is a tricky thing. When is it okay to forget? We are people that are a little sensitive to the whole forgetting thing. I mean just look at today’s post about the Petach Tikvah Nazis and you’ll see that the reminders can pop up even at home (as unbelievable as that seems….).
I read the papers today about 9/11 and about how some are saying that its time to forget. How Americans should put it behind them. So I was wondering when is it enough? When should we put away painful memories? Should we just downgrade 9/11? I personally can’t put away the horrible pictures from that disaster, like the falling man for example. If it was my family member that was killed in those buildings, I could never forget. I also think that as an ex New Yorker (not sure there is such a thing) I still am very much aware of the gash left behind in the city I love.
I think that beyond the unthinkable numbers of dead and horrendous destruction of 9/11 there is a different reason I can’t forget. Like other turning points in history, that for me include the murder of Rabin, Kennedy’s assassination and the destruction of New Orleans, this is a pivotal event in world history. It’s a reminder that even after the year 2000, we are only as socially and morally advanced as the weakest link on our planet. It also proved once and for all that nothing is sacred and that we need to be ready for anything. It was also the official marking of what has in essence was the start of the 3rd World War.
I found that Haim Harari in his “View From The Eye of The Storm” really covers it:
The events of the last few years have amplified four issues, which have always existed, but have never been as rampant as in the present upheaval in the region. These are the four main pillars of the current World Conflict, or perhaps we should already refer to it as “the undeclared World War IIIâ€. I have no better name for the present situation. A few more years may pass before everybody acknowledges that it is a World War, but we are already well into it.
September 11, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Like the example of the Holocaust, if we forget, then something as bad or worst will happen again.
The really bad guys are still out there and until they are accounted for then we are all still in danger.
Judging from the sames of the victims read off at Ground Zero, a wide mix of humanity perished there that day, six years ago, and a certain number of them were Muslims who worked in the buildings or immediate vincinity.
I’m quit sure they had not planned on becoming “holy Shaheddim”.
Al Qaeda may very well strike again; so we should all be vigilent.
Their “proxies” in the form of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and others are active enough.
And they all belong to the same “source”.