Seven years on

I was in a Physics lesson when the 9/11 attacks in the USA happened. This wasn't when I found out about them; that was much later, but I remember working it out later, given the time difference and the order of events... I was sitting in a Physics lesson. I guess the magnitude of the events on the other side of the Atlantic, something I can't really even begin to explain, are devastatingly juxtaposed against the image of my fourteen year old self, staring out of the window into the unusually bright September sunshine, clock-watching, willing the lesson to end. Wholly disinterested in GCSE Physics and not overly ecstatic to be back at school.

I was fourteen years old.

I found out about the attacks a few hours later. When my sister and I were younger, we used to walk up to my Nana and Grandad's house after school, where we'd get biscuits and warm drinks in the winter and watch Countdown but never be able to crack the conundrum. I remember thinking it was strange that day, arriving at my Nana's house to find the television and radio off.

"Let's play cards or draughts or something instead, shall we?"

My Nana seemed somewhat frantic, but I guess I was really too young and self-absorbed to think too much about it. I think she figured she could maybe shield us from what was happening, maybe not forever, but an event like that was an unprecedented loss of innocence, something that myself and my nine year old sister probably weren't ready for. I spent a long period of my childhood overhearing but not really understanding stories of IRA terrorist attacks on the news. I had this recurring nightmare that would creep over into the day time that one day there'd be a knock on our door and one of my parents would answer it to an Irish soldier and be shot on sight. They'd rush our house and kill us all and it terrified me. Maybe it was naive of my Nana to think that she could protect us from something this big; maybe you don't agree with that level of censorship - but it was borne out of nothing but love. Who wants to have to explain something like that to two kids? Who really can? Where do you even begin?

It was a whole new conundrum, and it even had Carol stumped.

I think, in a way, time was on my side. At the age of fourteen, despite - like every other teenager in the world - thinking I knew it all, I was really too young too be able to even begin comprehending what was going on. I was detached from it. I remember my Mam picking us up and my Nana intercepting her in the hallway, and having a conversation in hushed tones

"It's like something out of horror movie"

And I think that's how I saw it. On our way home in the car, my Mam explained to me that there'd been attacks in America, and tried to explain in layman's terms (if such a think is possible) the concept of terrorism, fundamentalism, Islamic extremism. Thinking about the 9/11 attacks today makes tears prick at my eyes, and I don't say that to try and sound like a 'good' person or a humanitarian or whatever; I say it because it's true. I think it took a few years, a few anniversaries and X amounts of minutes' silences to really allow me to understand what had gone on that bright Manhattan morning when hate turned day to night. I grew up in a post-9/11 world and I think it has had an impact on me. I remember getting the bus to school the next day with my friends, one of whom has dual UK/US citizenship and who's family live in Pennsylvania, where United 93 came down. She'd had no sleep that night trying to contact her family, she didn't know whether they were alright or not. They were, thank goodness.

But what about those who weren't?

At the time, one of my best friends at school was Pakistani, and it had never been an issue before. Suddenly, people were giving her and the other Asian kids at the school sideways looks and glances, as if it was their fault, or maybe just because they were genuinely scared. Within our own group, even though the events in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania were all anyone could talk about, as soon as she happened upon the conversation it stopped dead. Not because we thought she was a terrorist or anything that ridiculous, but for the first time in any of our lives, race was an issue. We didn't want to offend her or upset her and we didn't know if talking about it in front of her would make her upset or angry or what. Again, it's not something I remember fondly, but it was a hard time. In all honesty, I think she preferred it that way. At the age of fourteen, all you want to do is fit in - being different is one thing, being different because you're labelled dangerous because of your heritage is something I can't even begin to imagine. We've discussed it since, and she told me it wasn't as hard as people imagine, or even as she thought it would be.

She told me she can't get on a plane now, without being treated like a criminal.

Whether you like to admit it or not, 9/11 changed the way non-Muslims view Islam, and that saddens me more than anything. If you see a Middle-Eastern face in the departure lounge, a part of you, sub-conscious or otherwise, hopes that they're not on your plane. It's not right and it's not a nice thing to admit, it's something that many people are uncomfortable with admitting, but it's true nonetheless. It's a devastating byproduct of being a part of the 9/11 generation: fear and suspicion. These two emotions are very dangerous as the majority of people aren't intelligent enough to convert these feelings into anything other than hatred. I don't think that this is because people are inherently 'bad' or 'evil', just ignorant and scared. I flew from Paris to Newcastle last January and there was a guy with a Pakistani passport on our flight. He let me in front of him in the boarding queue and just seemed a genuinely nice guy. That counted for nothing amid the uneasy looks of our fellow passengers. They weren't glances spiked with hatred or anger or malice; simply terror. Which is exactly what terrorism is designed to inspire.
But what the extremists don't seem to realise, is that they're making things as uncomfortable for 'their own', for Muslims as well as Christians, Jews, Hindus, Atheists and Jedis.

Surely that's defeating the point.

I hate the world how it is, and I hate the fact that religion, something that people are supposed to take comfort from, something that is touted as a set of rules to which one should adhere to lead a good and honest life, is predominantly the cause of it. I don't understand how someone can harbour so much hatred and anger towards another predominantly because their beliefs differ from their own. It's madness. I know eco-warriors and people who denounce global warming. I know hyper-liberal Guardianistas and right-wing, Hitler-esque Daily Mail readers. I know chavs and goths, readers and gamers, 22-year old virgins and people who've been shagging everything that moves since they gave it up to some guy named Terry in the back of a Nova at fourteen: Once you pop, you can't stop! People inevitably have different beliefs, interests, morals and ideals. We all see the world in different ways, want different things and have very different visions of our own, private Utopia, which is precisely why it can never exist. We seem to have lost the art of compromise, of tolerance.

No one seems to remember that we're all human.

It tears me up inside, as I realise that to most people, that counts for nothing.

Everyone is very quick to denounce 'Islamic Extremists', and I think with statistics on your side, that's very easy. The events of 9/11 still make me feel sick to the core: 2, 823 people died on that day in New York alone. 17 babies were born without fathers. We'd never seen anything of that magnitude before, and despite being too young to fully comprehend what was happening at the time, thinking about it in retrospect makes me feel - well - there's a torrent of adjectives I could use here, each laced with the utmost in negative connotation, but none of those are really appropriate. They're just words, and no matter how much I condemn what happened, it's never going to change the events of that day. Couple that with the subsequent al-Qaeda attacks in Bali, Madrid and London (I apologise if I've forgotten somewhere). Sure it's easy to hate the Muslims, right? But what about us? Dated 10 September 2006, this article from the Independent cites 62, 006 dead in the name of 'The War on Terror'. That's 20 times as many people who died in New York on September 11 2001 and that was two years ago; that number's risen every single day since then and will continue to do so. How are we okay with turning a blind eye to mass murder of Iraqi and Afghanistani people when it's essentially no different to what happened in New York, London... where ever? I think people justify it with a well they started it attitude. What are you, eight??!!

As Gandhi said, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

And I really think we're getting to a point where none of us can see.

Extremism isn't unique to Islam. People blather on all the time about 'strong Christian morals', but let's not forget Christianity's checkered history. In America's bible belt, today there are around 50, 000 militant Christians who believe that we are in the 'End Times' and that the Rapture is almost upon us. They support a US-invasion of Gaza and other areas of the Middle East because the sooner we eventually head into (what I hope is NOT) an inevitable nuclear war and the world is completely fucked, the sooner God will save all of them and unleash full-scale fire and brimstone on the rest of us. They don't care about us because we don't believe what they believe. A right to choose is not an option.

In this context, how is Christianity in middle America any less dangerous than Islam?

Just because they aren't flying planes into buildings and blowing up tubes doesn't mean their hatred isn't very real.

I'm not attempting to whip up any sort of backlash against Christianity here, I'm just trying to illustrate how it's very easy to only see what you want to see, and how much the media influences us. Constant reports on 'The Dangers of Islam' do nothing but reinforce the fear in people's minds; fear of what they don't understand. The fact of the matter is, 99.9999999% of Muslim people are not going to try blow you up. Fifteen years ago we were all terrified of the Irish, but now everyone's sort of forgotten about hat as a new subject for media scaremongering has emerged. All this does is lead to further segregation and hatred and whilst I'm not naive enough to think it will - or even could - go away over night, I wish it would. We're all people at the end of the day.

The events of 9/11 were truly abhorrent, and I know that for millions of Americans and other affected nationalities around the globe there are scars that will never heal. I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like to see the towers come down in person, and I won't belittle what the people who had to endure that terror had to go through by attempting to guess what it might have been like. That would be disrespectful, and I don't see how it would help. All I know is that I don't want to live in a world like this, and it saddens me more that I can coherently explain that I don't have a choice.