Today is the day, isn't it? It's been gnawing at me every time I catch a glimpse of the date somewhere.
I was in the office, doing nothing special when one of my colleagues called me into the boardroom: "Someone has just flown a plane into a building." I got there just in time to see the second one live.
I can remember so clearly the awful sense of bewilderment at what I was seeing, the taste of bile in my mouth, the cold fear -- not for myself, but for a world that was changed irrevocably.
And it has changed, hasn't it? Al Qaeda did actually win, not in the sense that they conquered us, or installed an Islamist state; but they won in the sense that they gifted the deeply unpleasant totalitarians who rule us with the reason to destroy our society and our values.
Those poor people faced their death, knowing the moment was imminent and coming inexorably closer, that they would never see their families and loved ones again, would never do all the things they had planned to do.
A double tragedy then, that their deaths were used to unpick the very fabric of our society and way of life, not by "the enemy", but those we trusted to govern. Their deaths were used as an excuse for evil to be foisted on those they left behind.
Today is a day when those who died should be remembered and honoured. If those who rule us have a shred of decency left in them, they can honour them by not destroying the way of life they enjoyed and wished for their own.
For tonight, my very sombre thoughts will be with those who were left behind.
Normal blogging will resume tomorrow.
1 comment:
I was working a saturday job at Debenhams whilst making myself ready to go to Uni; I remember I worked in the Childrens and Sports section and that we had a sky box showing some rubbish sports channel; I remember a colleague coming down telling us the radio had announced a horrible accident in NY, and turning on the big screen SKY news just in time to see the second tower hit, and just sitting on a bench in front of it with my boss, another till-jockey and about a half-dozen customers, jaws agape.
I remember later listening to the reaction of a senator who appeared to know more about who'd done it in those 5 hours after than George let on for months following and what he felt the US should be doing, and hoping they would never squander the good will that would naturally come from such a tragedy.
And years later seeing them waste it and lay waste to a lot more besides.
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