9/11: A Decade Later

It's so strange to write about 9/11. I feel like it's when the Western world lost its mind. 9/11 became a watershed moment, paving the way for the invasion of Iraq and exacerbating the already complex war in Afghanistan. As I see it, 9/11 gave Western governments license to do whatever they wanted in the name justice and retribution, namely violate human rights and implement measures such as torture, imprisonment without charge and racial profiling, to name just a few.

But this demonstration of might did little to prevent further terrorist attacks, rather it triggered four more: Madrid, London, Bali and Moscow. After all, violence begets violence, and this past decade has been the bloodiest I have witnessed in my lifetime.

Instead of remembering just those who died on 9/11, we should also be thinking of all the innocent people killed in Madrid, London, Bali and Moscow, and the civilians who have died as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We should also remember the young women and men who have been sent by our governments to fight battles on their behalf and who have not returned or have returned physically and/or psychologically disabled.

If we are all inextricably linked by the world's events, maybe  more of our tax dollars should have been put into researching the cycle of violence rather than into military spending. But then military spending has made many people rich. Just ask Dick Cheney.

On Facebook today, I noticed that few people wrote about 9/11. It's just too big an event to put into words. But I did reflect on how shaken I felt on that day and what transpired in the world in the weeks subsequent to the attacks. I remember all the fingers pointing at so-called "liberals" because they were slow in reacting. They were the "unpatriotic" ones because they did not give in to their knee-jerk reactions. In hindsight, I think that they were on the right track.

How many people have died or been injured in the last decade as a result of 9/11? What was the cost of retribution?


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The above mural, entitled "the Sixth Sphere of Culture," covers 1,500 square feet and was created under the artist direction of illustrator, painter, comic artist and author Dominique Desbiens. The central figure is none other than mother nature, and the four corner figures represent the four continents: Africa, Asia, America and Europe. The mural took 18 weeks to complete and is located at 7255 La Jeunesse in Villeray.

2 comments:

Anonymous | September 13, 2011 at 4:17 AM

Beautiful Mural

Heather | September 13, 2011 at 7:46 PM

It really is lovely isn't it, Ida.

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