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email22.xml

born-digital

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2002-02-15

My Home Town
Friday, September 14, 2001


It was a spontaneous outpouring of sorrow and solidarity. Our Brooklyn neighborhood gathered at a local elementary school just as darkness was falling. The rain clouds had lifted by then, and in the fading warm light of the western sky we could still see a trail of smoke and dust rising from ground zero.

There was no organization to speak of, no speeches, just a few cop cars and fire trucks blocking traffic, clearing the main street of Park Slope. Shoulder to shoulder a cross-section of our community -- young and old, children in tow, Black, White, Asian, Latino, and Muslim stood in solemn silence with candles held aloft.

And then we began to march. And the pockets of song began: Amazing Grace, We Shall Overcome, America the Beautiful, This Land is Your Land, Give Peace a Chance. Not always in pitch, but heartfelt, tears flowing. Thousands of individual flickering flames burning a point of hope in a very dark week.

And then we arrived at our local fire station. Fire Squad # 1 is an elite unit and was one of the first at the inferno. Twelve of their fire fighters are missing and presumed dead. Men who went into a burning building to save lives. Men whos own lives will never again lighten the eyes of wives, children, parents, and friends. This is the same fire station where my daughter, Lucia Kai, often went to sit in the drivers seat of the hook and ladder truck, a heavy firemans helmet sagging over her eyes.

I spent the past week in a shocked, listless trance, spending hours in front of the television, following a story that makes no sense. Trying to find some community of understanding that will allow me to process the swirling, confused emotions that have descended on this city, indeed, on all of America.

What kind of religion or political cause can justify the brutal destruction of 5,000 innocent lives. What kind of hatred does it take? How can this evil arise in a civilized world?

And I fear for the future. Even while we mourn the loss of life, I have enormous apprehension about how the Bush administration will respond. I think the brutality of this terrorist strike will make many people, liberals and conservative alike, cheer a retaliation against the perpetrators, if they can be found. This can be argued. But it is not what I fear most.

Already the conservative forces in this country, with Bush as their champion, are turning this event into a clarion call for their own "religious war." We are rapidly descending into a second Cold War. We will live by fear, fighting enemies real and imagined. Shadows of suspects around the globe will be created by our political ideology.

And if history repeats itself, as it always does, this new Cold War will justify an enormous abuse of power. We will once again divide the world between them and us. Once again, every global and domestic decision will be seen through the prism of this new ideology. On our side will be only those countries and individuals who support our interests. Everyone else will be an enemy.

It will likely spawn an evil, not as blunt as this recent terrorist strike, but a slow, creeping evil that will erode our soul as a country. During the last Cold War, we justified overturning democracies, supporting dictators and right-wing hit squads, and the loss of countless innocent lives. There is no reason to believe this new Cold War, fueled by a similar ideological view of the world, will be any different.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world had begun to seem wonderfully Technicolor. Now, I fear it is quickly reverting back to black and white.

Today, the New York Times quoted an old saying from the 1960s: "We dont know what [weapons] World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with rocks."


Perhaps, a glimmer of hope lies in the spirit of a different America. An American, not of political slogans, but a country that simply stands, truly stands, for its ideals. A number of times in the past week my 4.5-year-old daughter has taken her building blocks and rebuilt the twin towers, so that she can "save all those who became dead." This time she says, she will build the towers out of bricks so they cant burn down. I like to think that each of those indestructible bricks is a voice against the hatred that occurred on September 11th, and the hatred that is now building in this country.


Michael Penland

September 14, 2001

My Home Town