The memory of 9/11, twenty years on
The 9/11 terrorists could not breach our Capitol. We did that ourselves.
A week or two ago, I paged through a collection of memories of the attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001. Two decades ago. Folks who were in the buildings, in the neighborhood, who were first responders, who waited for loved ones who did not come home, recalled the events and emotions of that day and the time since.
I started out sad, moved by the stories of loss, and hopeful, moved by the stories of people helping one another.
Then I read the snippet about the plane that passengers helped crash in a field in Pennsylvania before it could get to its likely target: the halls of Congress.
And I felt anger.
Just a few months shy of twenty years later, those same halls would be breached, violently. Not by terrorists from a foreign land who sought to undermine the United States’ geopolitical stance, or to show that the U.S. was weak or evil. Not by people who saw themselves as the enemies of the U.S.
In January of 2021, those halls of Congress were violently overrun by the United States’ own people, seeking to interrupt and prevent the peaceful transfer of power. Many of the participants in the insurrection believed (and still do) they were the ones saving democracy from the results of a (falsely claimed) illegitimate election.
The 9/11 terrorists could not breach our Capitol. We did that ourselves.
The violence of 2021 resulted in far fewer lives lost, and for that I am grateful. But the people in power who knowingly promoted the lies that triggered the insurrection, who continued to do so as the Capitol was breached, as law enforcement officers were assaulted, as lawmakers were threatened with violence and death, and who still to this day continue to do so - those powerful people violated more than a building or an institution.
They dishonored the bravery of ordinary people on United Airlines Flight 93, folk who likely knew they would not survive, but did everything they could to protect the intended targets of the terrorist attack. It is cowardly and despicable to use the belief of Americans in our democracy against the democratic principles that keep our democratic institutions alive.
If we do not hold the leaders who prompted the insurrection of January 6, 2021 accountable, we will have failed our democracy.
And if we do not act to protect full and fair access to the ballot, to protect the human and civil rights of women and immigrants, to support ordinary people who are still battered by the pandemic, we will be holding ourselves to a much lower standard than those individuals on September 11 who gave the full measure of their lives to protect the democratic operations of our government, and to save as many of their fellow humans as possible.
Let’s turn the anger to action. It’s been two decades since the horrible attacks on 9/11, but there is no time limit on protecting democracy and constructing the fair, inclusive, honest communities we all deserve to live in.