One day, I’d like to go to
ON THIS SITE OF WHAT WAS THE
KNOWN COLLOQUIALLY AS THE
ON SEPTEMBER 11TH
THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS
AND A NUMBER OF VISITORS FROM
OTHER NATIONS
LOST THEIR LIVES
IN AN ACT OF SAVAGE BARBARISM
FOUNDED ON HATRED
AND BASED IN THE DARKNESS
OF THE VILEST DEPTHS OF HUMAN
VITRIOLE AND DESPAIR
YET THOUGH DEATH AND DESTRUCTION
BEGATS HEARTACHE AND SUFFERRING
THE DARKNESS WILL NEVER
PREVAIL OVER THE LIGHT
AND THE LIGHT NOW SHALL SHINE AS A
TESTAMENT
TO HUMAN VALOR AND THE
UNQUENCHABLE STRENGTH
OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT
THEIR SACRIFICE SHALL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN
BUT
IT WASN’T ANY WORSE THAN WHAT
HITLER DID TO THE JEWS
IT WASN’T ANY WORSE
THAN WHAT
DID TO THE NATIVE AMERICANS
IT WAS NO WORSE THAN WHAT
THE AMERICAN SOUTH
DID TO THE AFRICANS
AMD IT ISN’T ANY WORSE THAN WHAT
AMERICANS,
HAVE DONE TO THE MUSLIMS AND TO ARABS
THROUGHOUT THE LAST CENTURY
THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST
SO THOUGH IT IS UNDERSTANDABLE
AND HER PEOPLE
DESIRE THIS TRIBUTE
FOR THE TRAGEDY THEY HAVE
ENDURED
FROM WHICH THEY
BRAVELY STRIVE TO
RECOVER
THEY SHOULD NEVER IMAGINE
THAT THEY ARE ALONE
NOR EVER FORGET
THE OTHERS
FROM ALL NATIONS
FROM ALL TIMES
WHO HAVE SUFFERRED AS
GREATLY
OR EVEN MORE
LET THIS MEMORIAL THEN
NOT BE HELD AS A
TESTAMENT
TO ONE PERIOD OF SUFFERRING
BUT TO THE SUFFERRING OF ALL
MANKIND
OF ALL RACES
ALL CREEDS
ALL COLORS
THE WORLD STOOD BY
IN ITS DARKEST HOUR
OF NEED
SUFFERRING
THEREFORE LET THE WORLD
STAND HERE TOGETHER
THIS DAY
LET THE WORLD SHINE HERE AS
ONE WORLD
UNITED
Now I’m sure the sarcasm I intended here will probably be lost on some people, and there are some who will think this is for the most part appropriate and desirable. If you do, I doubt there is any thing I can say to convince you otherwise. With some tinkering, my words, or other similar such sentiments, could well end up at the site. To which I have only one question-
WHY?
5 comments:
I've been studyng up on the whole IFC vs. families of 9/11 vicitms. If the IFC center, which would probably have a memorial reading very much like the one you posted is allowed to build on the site of the WTC...well, it just won't be good, in my uncharacteristic understating mood.
Nor in mine. As far as I'm concerned it would be no different than a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust having included on a plaque something like the following:
"But just to be fair, let us pause and remember the cities of ancient Canaan, the inhabitants of which were all mercilessly slaughtered in a similar Holocaust by the ancient Israelites, ancestors of the Jews."
The Jews understandably would be aghast at such a development, as well they should, and this kind of thing at the World Trade Center Memorial, if it is ever finally buildt, would be not one iota different.
This is really the problem with so many of those Holocaust memorials. Aside from the fact that they seem to be popping up in the most inappropriate places, they tend to de-historicize the Holocaust, one of those events that should never ever be de-historicized. They take this attitude that what caused the Holocaust was 'intolerance' most generally, of which we're all guilty after all. Well, no. What caused the Holocaust was a very historically specific manifestation of intolerance. A specific group of people did specific things for which they are guilty, and for which they will always remain guilty. Trying to turn tragedies into 'teaching tools' is always offensive, most of all to the victims of those tragedies. It's already deeply depressing how quickly 9-11 rememberance became kitsch.
It's almost like a bunch of kids arguing over who has the best father, or the later extension by which adults argue who has the best god. Only this turns it into who sufferred the worse tragedy. At the same time it looks like an attempt to minimize the sufferring that occurred in 9/11, maybe even excuse it to a point.
However they try to spin it, most Americans aren't going to be happy or accepting of other groups intruding on what amounts to our own private tragedy. In fact, I think they denigrate their own causes in the minds of most Americans by attempting to do so.
I agree totally. I mean, I'd be totally down with visiting the IFC....I'd probably learn a lot. I'd probably enjoy it thoroughly.
Just not there. I can't get past my own emoitonal nonsense to even see their cause if they put it there.
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