email646.xml

email646.xml

born-digital

email

unknown

yes

2002-09-02

This is an unashamed exercise in writing about the US
and what happened there. I just want to write about
it.

The horror of the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon
remains on my mind. Very much so. I keep asking
myself - what kind of rancid, horrific, evil,
fanatical hatred could have caused the events of Sep
11 2001? It thoroughly eclipses Dec 7 1941 in US
history as a date that will live in infamy.

Yesterday was thoroughly immersed in it. Defence is
now on a special security alert. I'm not sure how much
I can say about the details, other than that they are
there.

I'd spent the night that it had all happened in a
anxious state over a Toastmasters speech on passive
smoking that I would be giving the next day, and being
quite unable to get myself to rehearse it. I first
heard about it at about mid-morning at work when I
picked up a copy of the Canberra Times and saw the
huge headlines.

At lunchtime, every TV available at work was turned
on.

But it was in the evening when I got off a bus at
Manuka to go to the Manuka Toastmasters meeting that
things picked up. I went past a Catholic cathedral at
Manuka [inner Canberra] with police surrounding it, and discovered that a VIP church service was held held to commemorate the victims. I looked in and it was quite crowded.

I arrived at the club and rehearsed my speech. I very
nearly changed it to cover the events I had now learnt
about. At one point I went out and got called in by
Kaye, the club president, who was watching the events
on two TVs tuned into two different channels, together
with another long-term member called Mike. Both
channels were concentrating what had happened with
some precision. As soon as a talking head appeared on
one of them, the other switched to replays and vice
versus. I couldn't bear to watch the scene where that
second plane crashed into the second WTC tower more
than about twice and soon returned to rehearsals.

The entire meeting itself took place under the shadow
of the events of the day. Shock and emotion were
apparent. Still, we got things done, the meeting went
by quite smoothly with little reference to Sep 11 and
I passed my speech - which stuck to the topic of
passive smoking.

Most of us stayed for dinner afterwards and Sep 11 was
the main topic of discussion. Many had seen it on TV
last night and reference was made to seeing people
jumping out of the doomed towers.

Speculations were made as to where the fourth plane
was headed and what happened. Comparisons were made
with "Independance Day" , "Air Force One" and other
such productions.

I did however get a seat at the table that faced those
wretched TVs,and I departed in a glum mood after
getting six more replays of that second plane hitting
the tower and the collapsing towers. I departed to
several goodbyes.

But there was no escaping it in Kingston [ a neighbouring suburb]. I looked around and nearly every pub in the Kingston area had a TV on showing what had happened. The only one that did not had a barmaid who I know casually, who knew
someone who had been lucky enough to survive the WTC
attack.

I went home and managed to get to sleep eventually.
Today was quieter but still noteworthy for the shadow
of Sep 11.

One more thing worthy of comment was a passage from a
book that I had read quite some time ago. I remembered
it last night,and it makes a comment of sorts about
the media side of this affair. In page 47 of "How to
become Prime Minister", ex-ALP MP Barry Cohen wrote of
how there had been a very little-known massacre of
25000 persons in Syria. But because it wasn't on TV
after Sale of the Century and because Bob Hawke didn't
cry (the passage was in the context of the Tienaman
Square massacre) noone was moved by it.

What Cohen would have to say about the Estonian
deaths, tortures and deportations of 1941 (10,000+
people involved there) must be speculated upon. My
maetrnal grandfather and his family was only too
vulnerable to this. They certainly came close enough.
But Cohen's argument about not being on TV applies
here too.

Will war break out over this atrocity? We shall see, I
guess.

Oh well, I hope all is well with you. Actually, I did
see a portion of a sermon on TV where a gentleman of
Negro origin - I did not catch the name or
denomination - mentions that if vengenance was taken
we would be headed for an eyeless and toothless
society is worth mentioning.

14 Sep 2001

Sep 11