X: Remembering 9/11

It’s been 10 years after that fateful day that changed the world.

I remember staring at the TV, stunned. Unable to move, I cannot believe that what I was seeing was from the news. It was so surreal, something you’d expect out of a movie in 2001: the twin towers of the World Trade Center hit by airplanes and then collapsed.

And that was a decade ago.

I thought of writing something for the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks weeks before. It seemed timely as we associate events with numbers and certainly the 10th is something short of a milestone.

I watched documentaries of the attacks from previous years and did not get to finish watching the memorial on Ground Zero the other day. I also caught some important parts of Vice President Joe Biden’s speech about the 9/11 Generation at the memorial service on the Pentagon.

Despite everything that was happening that day, the reading of the names on the former WTC site and Biden’s moving speech about the heroes, victims, victories and losses, and the lessons we should never forget, in a way it’s still hard to believe.

BBC’s documentary, The Day that Changed the World” gave a detailed account of what was happening behind the scenes – the outs and abouts of the Bush administration that fateful day when the unprecedented events happened.

When I realized it was almost September, I decided to dig up online resources, videos and articles about the attacks to give a more meaningful and appropriate tribute. It was an important number after all: the first decade.

Paying respects to those who perished and showing compassion to their bereaved loved ones, analyzing how and why a handful of people were able to penetrate inside the US and get close enough to actually pull the whole thing off, what could have been done to have the whole thing prevented and to finally get justice and start healing were the main areas I was looking to write about. I meant to write something that would both chronicle and narrate what happened, what I felt about it and how it changed me, and my reactions to the things that happened thereafter.

It was meant to be more of a narrative.

Instead I was surprised and overwhelmed when I saw various sites and materials online about the 9/11 attacks. I honestly asked myself what had I been doing the past 10 years, so much material has been written about 9/11 one can’t hardly tell which is fact and fiction. Deciphering all these literatures is like watching 24, ALIAS and Sleeper Cell all at once. The twists, claims and counter-claims, reports and counter-reports looks like it came out of a Clancy, Loodlum and Brown collaboration...a plot that Hollywood has yet to come up with.

I meant no offense or belittlement to anyone, the lives of 3,000 people is no laughing matter after all and if anything, I wish all these is just a bad joke we can walk away from.

Apparently, writing the piece will take a lot longer than I expected. The amount of information is astounding that saying something intelligible would prove to be a challenge if one has not gone at least half of the materials and understand where they came from or why they exist.

Officially, it is said that a bunch of Muslim terrorists affiliated with Al Qaeda did it. Conspiracy theorists say it was all the government’s ploy. Scholars claim there was a cover up. The media said they reported the truth. Critics said there are gaps and misinformation was used. Experts say the whole thing could have been averted. The whole thing had been over-sensationalized and went out of hand.

However, whatever the case might be and whatever is indeed true, let us remember that 10 years ago, people died. A lot of people died and no matter what we did after that or what we’ll do in the next 10 years, we can never bring them back. Let us remember them: the lives they lead and the families they left behind.

We owe it to them to never forget; we owe it to them to fight for justice; we owe it to them to find the truth. Though truth and justice can never give back to the families left behind what has been taken from them, we owe it to the men and women who lost their lives on that September day. We owe it to them.