A moment of silence

The world changes. The world stays the same.

The events of this day five years ago barely touched my life. I came home from school - early: the inaugural Mass of the school year had just ended, and as compensation for a boring hour or two of prayers, we were freed of the last hour or two of classes - to my mother phoning me from work. "Turn on the television, quick! Just turn it on!"

I turned it on in time to see replay footage of the first tower falling, before the second tower fell. The BBC reporters - usually calm, collected newscasters - were babbling disbelief. I remember seeing them run the footage again, and thinking That looks like a special effect. Like a film. It can't be real.

And then, People are dying there.

It seemed important to watch, somehow. To bear witness, if that was the only thing you could do. To watch, and not to turn away.

It didn't touch me. It wasn't my city, nor my country, nor even my continent. No one died, whom I knew.

But in a sense, it did touch me. And remembering, I have the urge to say, I remember. I won't forget.

I watched. I can't forget. The towers fell, and thousands of people died in the space of an hour, and I watched, because that was all I could do from the safety of half a world's distance. I can't forget.

September 11th, 2001, has been used as the excuse for two foreign adventures on the part of the United States' government. The war in Afghanistan might have been justified, perhaps. The subsequent so-called 'peace' there, however, is not. One thing to tear a country down. Another to fail at rebuilding it afterwards, for lack of effort and will.

The effort and will that could have been spent to procure a lasting, meaningful peace in Afghanistan were turned, instead, towards the lies and propaganda that would excuse an invasion of Iraq. Thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians have died in that country, for a war that was begun under false pretences. The sum of the WTC's deaths has been equalled ten times over. Not all at once, in an hour or a morning, but in the slow attrition of airstrikes and 'collateral damage', bombings and firefights, in a crossfire that has destroyed their lives immediately and by inches.

I haven't watched that. It isn't shown on all our screens. It doesn't interrupt regular programming, or shock us all down to our marrow. These acts of violence don't shake the foundations of our world.

People are dying there.

When I remember September 11th, I remember that, too.

As then, so now. It seems important not to turn away.

A moment of silence

The world changes. The world stays the same.

The events of this day five years ago barely touched my life. I came home from school - early: the inaugural Mass of the school year had just ended, and as compensation for a boring hour or two of prayers, we were freed of the last hour or two of classes - to my mother phoning me from work. "Turn on the television, quick! Just turn it on!"

I turned it on in time to see replay footage of the first tower falling, before the second tower fell. The BBC reporters - usually calm, collected newscasters - were babbling disbelief. I remember seeing them run the footage again, and thinking That looks like a special effect. Like a film. It can't be real.

And then, People are dying there.

It seemed important to watch, somehow. To bear witness, if that was the only thing you could do. To watch, and not to turn away.

It didn't touch me. It wasn't my city, nor my country, nor even my continent. No one died, whom I knew.

But in a sense, it did touch me. And remembering, I have the urge to say, I remember. I won't forget.

I watched. I can't forget. The towers fell, and thousands of people died in the space of an hour, and I watched, because that was all I could do from the safety of half a world's distance. I can't forget.

September 11th, 2001, has been used as the excuse for two foreign adventures on the part of the United States' government. The war in Afghanistan might have been justified, perhaps. The subsequent so-called 'peace' there, however, is not. One thing to tear a country down. Another to fail at rebuilding it afterwards, for lack of effort and will.

The effort and will that could have been spent to procure a lasting, meaningful peace in Afghanistan were turned, instead, towards the lies and propaganda that would excuse an invasion of Iraq. Thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians have died in that country, for a war that was begun under false pretences. The sum of the WTC's deaths has been equalled ten times over. Not all at once, in an hour or a morning, but in the slow attrition of airstrikes and 'collateral damage', bombings and firefights, in a crossfire that has destroyed their lives immediately and by inches.

I haven't watched that. It isn't shown on all our screens. It doesn't interrupt regular programming, or shock us all down to our marrow. These acts of violence don't shake the foundations of our world.

People are dying there.

When I remember September 11th, I remember that, too.

As then, so now. It seems important not to turn away.