With the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I wanted to share my experiences of the event with the new cohort of students as a way to remember. Preparing for the lecture though, I realized that most of them weren’t even born at the time or were only 1-2 years old. How do you describe the importance of a world event that is imprinted in your memory, to someone who wasn’t even alive at the time?
Here’s what I said in the end.
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This past weekend was the 20th anniversary of 9/11. As you may have seen there have been a lot of activities around the city remembering the date, but I realized most of you were too young or not even born at the time so you won’t have any experience to recall. Many of you may even be wondering - Why is this such a big deal?
I think it’s a big deal and it’s important to listen to the stories and remember because people are storytellers. The story of 9/11 is one of resilience – not just individuals getting through, but also of communities persevering. I don’t want to glorify the event – this is not a simple rosy story. You may have heard how New York City became a kinder place in the months after 9/11 and how people came together in a shared sense of loss. This was true.
But we also have to question the circumstances around the event. The security lapses that allowed the event to happen. The instability and income inequality in Middle-Eastern countries that engendered an attack on the US. The spike in hate crimes that occurred in the ensuing months on Middle Eastern and Sub-Continent individuals. And the 20-year war that was instigated in Afghanistan which only now is ending
That’s why we reflect on these historical events, because we only understand their impact by remembering the stories. The same is true of the story of the pandemic which is going to be imprinted in your memory and is still being written.
Everyone around the world remembers exactly where they were when they found out the planes hit the Trade Towers. It was a global event. Everyone (including you) also remembers where you were when the lockdown happened, e.g. our TA’s remember clearly the day that we stopped classes and the University evacuated all students.
Similar to 9/11, the pandemic was a global event shared by almost every single human on the Earth. It is seared into our brains. We don’t have many of these – End of WWII, John F. Kennedy assassination, Moon Landing. But when the global events do happen, they remind us that we are all tied together.
And just like 9/11, the pandemic brought people together, but it’s also not a rosy story. We had lapses in management of the virus. We have an unstable national health care system that made the spread easier. We had a spike in hate crimes against the East Asian community. As for the future, we don’t know yet what the implications will be. Maybe it will tear our country apart or pull us closer together.
An interesting aspect about both of these events is that although global, in some ways NYC was the epicenter or ground zero for both of them. Although planes went down in Pennsylvania and Washington DC, the impact on downtown NYC is starkly remembered. Similarly with the pandemic, in the first few weeks of Covid-19 NYC was experiencing an additional 800 deaths a day just here in the city (usually the rate is around 200 deaths a day).
So next time you listen to these stories of reflection of past activities – I’d encourage you to do two things: 1) write down your own experience with the pandemic, so you can share your story later; and 2) appreciate that we are living in a city that’s been through a lot but it keeps going. And that’s pretty amazing.
