By Lee A. Daniels
A man driven to sponsor and inspire incalculable horror and sadness around the globe is dead. He chose a path of profound evil, cloaking his megalomania and blood-lust in religious piety, and it’s led him to a watery grave at the bottom of an ocean. Of course his name will be remembered as long as human society exists. But like his blood-drenched historical predecessors – men for whom the description “mass murderer” is pitifully inadequate – he’ll be regarded, to put it bluntly, as a freak of human nature: a monster.
But, in the midst of our, for some, jubilation; for others, a quiet, even grim satisfaction, we would also do well to remember along with his other crimes not only the terrible acts of mass murder he sponsored that 10 years ago beclouded a bright, sunny day in New York City, in suburban Washington and in rural Pennsylvania.
We would do well to recall what those crimes revealed to us Americans.
For one thing, they underscored that, while many in American society were contesting who is an American – that is, who is entitled to equal opportunity here – the practitioners of terror had no doubt who is an American. They knew and acted upon the fact that all Americans are all equally Americans – and thus, equally a target for their murderous rage.
Timothy McVeigh, born and raised in America, understood that. So, Americans of all ages of African, Hispanic, Asian, Arabic, Native American, and European descent who worked in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City died one awful day in April 1995
So, too, did those murderers who struck at the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998: Americans (and Africans and Europeans) of all backgrounds died that day also.
And so did the practitioners of the 9-11 terror who brought so much agony, death and destruction to America’s shores.
Like Timothy McVeigh, they deliberately struck not just at just at the “symbols” of the American nation. They attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon during the workday, when both places would be filled with the people of America: people of African, Hispanic, Asian, Arabic, Native American, and European descent. Those who died and were injured were members of our families, our friends, and our neighbors.
The terrorists showed, once again, that while they often condemned America for its history of discrimination against Americans of color, they wouldn’t hesitate to target Americans of color for murder, too.
They understood that we are all equally American, whether our ancestors arrived on the Mayflower or the slave ships; whether they fled pogroms in Europe or tyranny and poverty in Latin America, Africa, or the Middle East; whether the governments of our ancestors’ country of origin were democratic or authoritarian; whether our families came three centuries ago or yesterday. (Of course, we know that these murderers don’t value the lives of any human beings. Citizens of forty countries worked at the World Trade Center, a crossroads of the world. They, too, were among the missing and the dead.) It would seem that some Americans are the only ones who don’t understand – or don’t want to accept – that we Americans are all equally American.
And we would do well to remember that the evil done on September 11, 2001 inspired at the sites of the catastrophes the opposite of evil. It inspired many acts of kindness and bravery. Many of those deeds we’ll never know, of course: the doers and all who witnessed them died in those awful moments. But other stories survive.
One of the most exalted was told by a woman who worked in the World Trade Center offices of the financial giant Morgan Stanley. After the first jetliner hit the Center’s Tower 1, officials ordered an immediate evacuation of Tower 2, where she had an office on the 64th floor. The problem: she walked with crutches. At first, several co-workers tried to carry her down the hot, humid and crowded stairwell. “It was incredibly difficult,” the woman told the New York Times. “They had me over their shoulder for 5 or 10 flights and just couldn’t do it.”
Then, she said, a co-worker she knew only as Louis came upon them. He lifted the woman on his shoulder and began to carry her by himself down the remaining 50 or so flights. The woman said that around the 15th or 20th floor, a security guard, saying the danger at that level has eased, urged Louis to leave her and continue on his own. Louis refused and carried her all the way out of the building, “all the way to the E.M.T. guys, and he stuck with me until we got one who said I could go in an ambulance.”
Louis then left, heading hopefully out of the danger zone. We know nothing more about him.
Before 9-11, many people might have expressed surprise at such acts, as if they were unusual.
But 9-11 taught us, at a horrible cost, that such acts of compassion and courage are not unusual. Indeed, the rapid response of ordinary people to mobilize on their own substantial aid for their fellow human beings victimized by natural disasters has become commonplace in the last decade. 9-11 compelled many people in America and around the world to realize that such acts of kindness are what decent people do when mass tragedy befalls the innocent. Helping others becomes a balm to the deep wound in our individual and collective psyches. It enables us to immerse ourselves in grief over the fate of the innocent while simultaneously celebrating their, and our, determination to persevere.
Ten years ago, in the days and weeks following September 11, we heard many such stories: Of shopkeepers along the routes of the flood of refugees from lower Manhattan passing out bottles of water, juices and other refreshments. Of Americans from all parts of the country flocking to the devastated World Trade Center site to volunteer for the clean-up effort. Of the more than 2 million Americans who donated blood for the blood banks for the injured. Of the millions across the globe who expressed their sorrow and sense of solidarity in innumerable ways.
All these were a declaration that, contrary to the credo of the Osama bin Ladens of the world, kindness is the most powerful and lasting human sentiment.
Mary McAleese, then president of Ireland, said that week that the terrorist attacks were “a crime against the foundations of our common humanity. Our response must be to stand shoulder to shoulder.”
Amid the great sorrow of that day and the weeks and months to come, it was wonderful to realize that millions of people across the globe didn’t need a world leader to tell them that.
Lee A. Daniels is Director of Communications for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. and Editor-in-Chief of TheDefendersOnline.
