"For months after 9/11, people watched planes. They watched skyscrapers. They looked over their shoulders in crowded places — at baseball games, college graduations, New Year’s celebrations. They eyed bearded men on planes and trains, glanced nervously at suspicious packages in shopping malls, and listened for the lilt of Arabic in airports and bus stations. They profiled relentlessly and shamelessly, and waited for the next attack to come."
-New York Times
THAT was the level of paranoia in the American citizen up until yesterday. All we see is jubilation outside the White House today. While the threat of an arbitrary terrorist act has not yet disappeared, today marks a huge victory, not just for the U.S., but for the peoples of the world.
I was eight years old when I watched the Twin Towers come crashing down on television. I remember I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor of my parent's room. It was pitch dark, when my parents received a call from an uncle in Chicago, urging us to put on the news. In retrospect, little kiddie me could have just gone back to sleep. Because the same footage was played on loop for weeks after, drowning many newsworthy issues in the home country. The sombre tone of journalists, the fearful conversation over dinner just dragged on. It had finally happened. Someone had had the guts to attack America, a country that for a long time, I believed was some sort of paradise, thanks to all those travel shows. My father's mailbox was filled with chain mails depicting photographs of the disaster from various vantage points, some Photoshopped, but gruesome anyway. The words 'terrorism', 'jihad' and 'extremism' made their way into my vocabulary. And you KNOW something is important, when asked to write a speech on terrorism for 15 marks in your English final.
Osama is finally dead.
Reporters are running overtime broadcasting this story, heading to the scene for that 'exclusive coverage'.
Wikipedia has already updated its page on the man.
Google Maps rapidly found the location of the Abbotabad compound.
And it's old news on Twitter.
-New York Times
THAT was the level of paranoia in the American citizen up until yesterday. All we see is jubilation outside the White House today. While the threat of an arbitrary terrorist act has not yet disappeared, today marks a huge victory, not just for the U.S., but for the peoples of the world.
I was eight years old when I watched the Twin Towers come crashing down on television. I remember I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor of my parent's room. It was pitch dark, when my parents received a call from an uncle in Chicago, urging us to put on the news. In retrospect, little kiddie me could have just gone back to sleep. Because the same footage was played on loop for weeks after, drowning many newsworthy issues in the home country. The sombre tone of journalists, the fearful conversation over dinner just dragged on. It had finally happened. Someone had had the guts to attack America, a country that for a long time, I believed was some sort of paradise, thanks to all those travel shows. My father's mailbox was filled with chain mails depicting photographs of the disaster from various vantage points, some Photoshopped, but gruesome anyway. The words 'terrorism', 'jihad' and 'extremism' made their way into my vocabulary. And you KNOW something is important, when asked to write a speech on terrorism for 15 marks in your English final.
Osama is finally dead.
Reporters are running overtime broadcasting this story, heading to the scene for that 'exclusive coverage'.
Wikipedia has already updated its page on the man.
Google Maps rapidly found the location of the Abbotabad compound.
And it's old news on Twitter.
The newspapers will have sensational headlines tomorrow morning, run timelines, showcase editorials on the justice of it all.
Yet, that first moment of happiness and relief when you heard/read the words this morning, 'Osama's dead,'; that is the memory you will have of this day. That original feeling of 'the world is a safer place' is what you will take with you, when you narrate the story to another.
1 comment:
Thanks for stopping by my blog and deciding to stay for a while! I remember when the twin towers came down...my kids were at school and my daughter called me and told me to turn on the tv. We turned it on just before the first tower collapsed. It was terrifying! I surely hope that without Bin Laden things will be better. It's not good to live in fear.
Sandy
www.twelvemakesadozen.blogspot.com
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