As the day concludes on this ten-year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, I find myself at an unusual loss for words. The magnitude of the events on that day still baffle my mind, and the pain that continues to reverberate through the nation remains strong, rippling outward and touching us all. It makes me wonder if the nation will ever truly recover and if we won’t constantly keep one eye on the sky, waiting for the next terrorist attack.
Still to this day, we ask how such a thing could have happened. We contemplate what could have been done to prevent it. We hunted those down responsible, and we have tried to make them pay. But will any of those things help the victims (we as the nation are those victims) still traumatized by the crime? For the criminal we truly seek isn’t a single person, or a group of revolutionaries, or a country. The true criminal is a tradition of hate and violence.
That is what we have to change.
When I think of the tradition of destruction this world and its nations have so far emblazoned on the skin of our planet, I am reminded of a short story called “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson and published in the late 1940’s. In this story, for those of you unfamiliar with its plot, an unassuming town in Somewhere, USA holds its annual lottery. Slips of paper from an old black box, which is battered and contains remnants of the original box used in the town’s first lottery, are drawn. The family that plucks the slip of paper with the black dot will produce the winner. When The Hutchinson family unfolds their paper and see the black dot, additional slips of paper are added to the box, one for each member of the family. Each family member must then draw from the box, and the one who drew the paper slip with the black dot is the winner. When the mother of the family, Tessie Hutchinson sees the black dot on her slip of paper, she begins screaming “It isn’t fair!” The town then converges on her and stones her to death.
Why did this happen? For the simple reason Jackson gave us in the story: “lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.” The town’s lottery is a sacrifice to the fertility gods, and the purpose of the lottery is to guarantee a bountiful harvest for the upcoming season. As then and still to this day, readers wonder why would Jackson write this story? What was her point?
For me, the point is quite simple. Jackson is comparing the barbaric tradition of stoning someone for the sake of a good harvest to traditions themselves that are hurtful and destructive. According to Jackson, such beliefs shouldn’t be allowed to exist. They should be changed. If not, then someday we will become the victim of hateful and destructive tradition. We march through life hurting others, through our actions and/or thoughts, and rarely give them a second thought. It’s time we all start thinking and start changing how we live and how we treat others in our family, in our neighborhoods to the cities and states and countries beyond our own personal spheres.
If we can do this as inhabitants of this planet, not just this country, then further hate and destruction like 9/11, the Nazi Concentration Camps, or the Spanish Inquisition, to name a few will never happen again.
We have all been given this same planet by God, or fate, or providence, or natural evolution (whichever you believe for it doesn’t really matter), and we need to treat each other with only love and nurturing if we intend to survive as a species.
Sometimes it takes a disaster like 9/11 to realize the true power of hate, which only begets more hate. While it may sound cliche and/or simplistic, the only thing that truly heals is love and hope for a better tomorrow.
9/11 Never Forget