It’s funny. Proud as I may be of my native-New Yorker status, and proud as I am to have a deep knowledge of the city, I feel no more of a kinship to the Ground Zero site than, say, a tourist from New Zealand. Though I pass Ground Zero on my way to work each day, and have perfect view of it from my office’s window, I feel nothing but a sad astonishment (which is probably what any true American feels when he or she thinks to that day). The only way to have a real kinship with the site, I believe, is to have been directly affected by Sept. 11. Did you get soot on your face? Did your loved one never make it home? Did your life’s work vanish in seconds? If the answer is yes to any of the above, then you can claim the site as yours, for better or probably worse. I was safe at college that morning and feel almost dirty when pondering how the absence of the Towers makes me feel, even as a New Yorker
The bigger question: do any of us ever have the right to comment on anything in which we've played no part or on pain we've never felt?
1 comment:
Every human should feel affected by what happened on 9/11. It wasn't a NY loss, or an American loss, but the loss of all humankind.
If you go through the directory of offices that we destroyed on that fateful day, you will find people from every country on this planet. As with any major loss of life, the cost can never be defined, we may have lost someone who had the cure to aids, or the solution to world hunger.
Personal loss, and I lost a number of friends that day, doesn't grant any more ownership, then someone who lost no one. We ALL lost something that day.
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