8/4/2019 9-11 Reflection - Christina Ward

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Ten years on Reflections on September 11th

I remember every detailmy physics lab partner shouted and I turned to see smoke billowing out of the 110-story

skyscraper of offices. Now its me sitting in my own office block in London ten years later. As I watch another 80-

story skyscraper, The Shard, being erected with what looks to be fragile glass panes, exposed in the air across the

Thames River, I ask myself, has anything changed? Am I different? Is America different? Is the world different?

And how?Ive looked to my own experience, the experience of others in history, and what I see our government

doing for the answer.

Last week, I paid Prague a visit. Its a place where history is still fresh . I considered the parallels of their WWII

experience and asked how the war had changed Central Europe and reshaped peoples identities. I saw degrading

images of the Jewish quarter Id just passed outside in museum displays, images of death spawned by the clash of

world-views. Yet through WWII and the communist era, an undercurrent ran where the Czech people felt compelled

to define or re-find themselves, a sense that has still left an impact on Czech culture through its music, its art, and

its academics. I saw something related in Germany just after 9/11, as an unlikely team of actors a high school, a

corporation, and the governmentreached out to me and New York high schoolers after 9/11. They undoubtedly all

had a mix of motivations, but it was with palpable empathy you could see the knowing emotion in the eyes of the

older generations, and see that the memory and knowledge of what WWII meant had been passed down in school

and home lessons to the younger ones. Yes, their knowledge of themselves as a nation had changed.

However 9/11, as an event and not a period or era, is a slightly different animal. It did not change our sense of self asNew Yorkers, and the same is largely true for other Americans. It was a tragedy. And with it we lost our innocence,

but gained a new understanding of our relationships beyond our bordersan intimate awareness of other countries,

particularly those we have meddled with directly or indirectly. But there is a fundamental difference to the

experience of Germans: it is not so much that we have changed, but that the perception of our place in the world has

shifted. As a nation we have grown, but our core remains the same.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. In some ways its liberatingthat we havent changed. Our state of being post-

9/11 reminds me of one of my favorite poemswhich I only discovered while leafing through the poetry book

I gave my German host that winter after the attacks: A voice said, Look me in the stars And tell me truly, men of

earth, If all the soul-and-body scars Were not too much to pay for birth. Robert Frost is saying, bring it. Bring life

and live abundantly because were still thrivingly us. While New York was a ghost town the day after 9/11, it still

had a shocking buzz even on 9/11 just 30 blocks uptown as smoke billowed upand the same buzz is there now.

Thats how we do.

In other ways its scary; the ways in which America has not changed. For the faction of America that was ignorant

and remained ignorant, changed perceptions of the world coupled with an unchanged approach to politics and

society proved frightening. It meant persecution for anyone who looked vaguely Arab and crossed the wrong crowd,

and fodder for those hawks to begin an equally tragic war in Iraq. While much has changed about the specifics of

foreign security dialogue with the threat of stateless terrorists, the undergirding views have not moved so far, for

better or for worse.

Times change faster than people do. Our generationevery witnesswill carry it with them. Yes, as a tragedy but

not as a burden. It is an experience that both re-affirms who we are and shapes our minds. The same is true for our

cityour people still shine and will react boldly as themselves to every new challenge these uncertain times

throw. America is still its patriotic, melting pot self and will always step up to its leadership role, though now with a

more outward looking focus than was true a decade ago.