Voices after September 11

THE events and developments since the terrorist attacks in the United States remain incomprehensible to most of us. The only way to try and understand them seems to be to just listen to the multitude of voices, some sane and some insane that are being uttered around the world. Here is a selection, many of which have escaped notice. Some go with the grain and the others against it.

1. Soon after the events of September 11, Gallup conducted a poll in 38 countries about how the U.S. should react. One question was whether, once the identity of the terrorists was known, the U.S. should launch military action or use legal means to extradite the suspects. In only three of the 38 countries did the majority of the respondents call for military action: U.S. (54 per cent), Israel (77 per cent), and India (72 per cent). In all the other countries - which included the United Kingdom, Ukraine, South Africa, Argentina and South Korea - the overwhelming majority favoured extradition and were against military action. (http://www.gallup-international.com/terrorismpoll-figures.htm)

2. "I think it was only because Frank saw me leave that he decided he could stay ... He knew that I would be safe and the children would be looked after. That was why he felt he could go back to help the others. He loved the towers and had complete faith in them. Whatever happens, I know that what he did was his own choice ..."

Nicole De Martini, an engineer at the World Trade Center (WTC), speaking about her husband's decision to persuade her to leave the WTC after the bombings while he stayed on to help people trapped inside. (Reported by Amitav Ghosh in the New Yorker, September 24, 2001)

3. Tom Gutting, a journalist at the Texas City Sun, was sacked for writing that on September 11 President George Bush, who stayed away from Washington until late evening, was "flying around the country like a scared child, seeking refuge in his mother's bed after having a nightmare". The publisher of the paper later apologised on the front page saying the article had made him "sick". (New York Times, September 28)

4. In the aftermath of September 11, in every media there has been an attempt to understand and analyse Islam, most of them full of prejudices. Here is an observation from one such article in The Economist: "(European colonialism) ... ended up freeing India's Hindus from centuries of Muslim overlordship". (September 22-28, 2001. The magazine claims is to take part in "a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress".)

5. "I have heard angry rhetoric by some Americans, including many of our nation's leaders, who advise a heavy dose of revenge and punishment. To those leaders, I would like to make clear that my family and I take no comfort in your words of rage. If you choose to respond to this incomprehensible brutality by perpetuating violence against other innocent human beings, you may not do so in the name of justice for my husband. Your words and imminent acts of revenge only amplify our family's suffering, deny us the dignity of remembering our loved one in a way that would have made him proud, and mock his vision of America as a peacemaker in the world community". - Amber Amundson, whose husband, Craig Amundson, a military staffer was killed in the attack on the Pentagon (Chicago Tribune, September 25, 2001).

6. Farida, a former teacher, a 40-year-old widow and mother of four, who begs on the streets of Kabul: "I have not seen Osama. I do not know Osama. Why when things happen in the east, the west or the north of the world, do the problems have to come here and hit straight at the people of Afghanistan? I pray to my God that as soon as America attacks the first missile hits my house and kills me and my family." (AP Report, September 25)

7. Former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali visited the ruins of the WTC on September 20. When reporters asked how he felt about the suspects sharing his Islamic faith, Ali responded, "How do you feel about Hitler sharing yours?" (Posted on the Net)

8. "I lost my son, and I have got 50 funerals to go. I do not feel anything ..." Mr. Bernie Heeran, owner of a pub in the New York suburb of Rockway, which has 90 people presumed dead in the rubble of the WTC including Charles Heeran. (NYT, September 30).

9. Most commonly heard slogan of peace: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" (Mohandas Gandhi).

C. RAMMANOHAR REDDY

E-mail the writer at crr100@india.com

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