September 18, 2001 - I have lived in this city for nearly twenty-three
years. Most of the time I’ve loved it, and some of the time I’ve
hated it. It’s that kind of a city, one of extremes, one where
the middle of the road is where a taxi runs you down. I have never
missed New York City like I did during the week following the carnage
and destruction that was visited upon its southern tip.
If I hadn’t gone to see my mum in London after attending Visa
Pour L’Image in Perpignan I would have been home on the Sunday,
but mum is nearly ninety-two, and although in remarkable shape, needs
all the TLC that she can get. So I stayed with her for two days, and
on Tuesday, September 11, I boarded a plane eager to get back. We
took off at 2 pm Greenwich Mean Time, 9 am Eastern Standard Time.
An hour out, somewhere over the Atlantic, the pilot came on the PA
to inform us that US airspace was closed and that we would have to
return to Heathrow. It wasn’t until we landed that we learned
of the unbelievable story that was devastatingly real.
The rest of the week was spent calling United Airlines, watching television,
and reading newspapers and trying to stay in touch with New York as
best as possible. There is a special kind of frustration and stress
that comes from separation, from not being a part of something that
is happening to a part of you. Even after finding out that my loved
ones and friends were safe I still wanted to be there, to be doing
something, even if it only involved hugging and crying. However there
was consolation in the reaction of the British people to the disaster.
It was immediate, heartfelt and enveloped anyone from the United States.
Assistants in stores asked if you and your family were OK, flowers,
messages and candles piled up in front of the US Embassy, and people
lined up for over an hour to sign the book of condolence. On the Friday
after the attack three minutes of silence were observed all over Europe.
In London people stopped whatever they were doing, wherever they were
doing it. Traffic halted in even the main thoroughfares as drivers
stood by their cars. Television and radio were silent. For me it was
especially moving as I watched my old country offer sympathy, solidarity
and respect to my new one.
An hour later a service of remembrance was held at St Paul’s
Cathedral. St. Paul’s has a special place in the hearts of Londoners
as being the symbol of British defiance during the Second World War
when it stood unscathed amidst the smoke and destruction of the Blitz.
It is a beautiful Wren building that holds about 2,000 people at a
push. The push that day involved over 10,000, most of whom heard the
service relayed to them over speakers as they stood outside. When
the Queen emerged she had tears in her eyes, something that I think
was never seen before in public. The previous day she herself had
ordered that the band of the Brigade of Guards play the Star Spangled
Banner at the daily changing of the guard in front of Buckingham Palace.
Again this was unprecedented.
As I describe these extraordinary events I realize that you probably
know about them already. You know about them in the same way that
I know about Rudy Guiliani’s remarkable press conferences, and
the volunteers lining up to give blood, most of which tragically was
never needed. In the same way that we both know what Osama Bin Laden
looks like, or at the other end of the humanity spectrum what a New
York City Firefighter looks like after working twenty hours straight
at Ground Zero. We, and the rest of the world, know this because journalists
reported these stories. We, and the rest of the world, know this because
journalists were also working twenty hours straight at Ground Zero,
also breathing the foul air through masks, and also needing counseling
for them maybe to come to terms at some point with the horrors that
they witnessed in those awful hours. For once in this world of inverted
values in which we live, Peter Jennings was more important than Jennifer
Lopez, camera crews and photojournalists more valuable than Yankee
outfielders.
I hate the term “the media”, a term that is nearly always
used pejoratively nowadays. It is too broad a brush with which too
many ordinary, hard working journalists are tarred. Of course there
are bad journalists who abuse their positions of trust, but I don’t
think proportionately more than embezzling bankers or corrupt politicians.
There are also editors who, in the scramble for readers, sensationalize
the already sensational. But to hear it told “the media”
is responsible for all that ails this country, whether it’s too
right wing or too left wing, too patriotic or too cynical, too isolationist
or too interventionist. We’ve taken the rap from the left for
George W. being elected, and from the right for Hilary’s rise
to Senator. What is rarely heard, however, is an acknowledgement of
the good that journalism does; an acknowledgement that journalists
risk their lives to bring information and understanding out of chaos
and danger; an acknowledgement for showing to the world that brave
and resilient people live in New York City, and all the other places
on our troubled planet where courage and fortitude are required; a
recognition that a free press, however bothersome it may be, is one
of the foundation stones upon which our democracy is built, and whose
vital role is acknowledged in the constitution. If there ever is a
coalition of states dedicated to fighting terrorism it will be in
no small measure because of the images that people around the world
saw and that appalled them and motivated them to do something about
it.
Around town there’s a lot of talk about getting back to normal,
although, as one of my friends pointed out, New York was never normal
in the first place. That’s always been one of its charms. New
York normal isn’t the same as Minneapolis normal, but having
said that we are nowhere near achieving even that limited state. As
I write this, military helicopters are thundering overhead, there
are police on every midtown corner and police and the National Guard
downtown. The most painful and abnormal feature however is the missing
person flyers that are pasted to walls, street lamps, on panels in
Grand Central Station, in Union Square Park, in front of hospitals
and anywhere that desperate people hope their loved ones will be miraculously
recognized and returned to them. The photographs on the leaflets are
heart wrenching: wedding pictures, vacation pictures, fathers playing
with children, friends drinking beer on picnics, young people looking
at the cameras with all the optimism appropriate to their youth.
There is a frequently expressed determination to never forget the
events of September 11, 2001, and it is certain that those who lived
through them never will. As with the assassination of JFK, everyone
will remember where they were when they heard the news. For those
Americans like myself who were very far from home at that time, the
connection to the violation of our country and its citizens through
the scenes that we saw on television and in the newspapers was both
horrifying and vital. Those images not only told us what happened,
but prepared us for our return, especially if we were returning to
New York. The people of this city owe a huge debt of gratitude to
the firefighters, police, construction workers, emergency medical
personnel and all the other rescuers who toiled endlessly in conditions
of indescribable horror. To this list of heroes I would like to add
the journalists, whether they work in television, print or on the
Internet. We owe you a large thank you as well.
©
2001 Peter Howe
peter.howe@verizon.net
