9/11 REVISITED

The official inauguration of the 9/11 museum (?) in lower Manhattan was dignified.  The visitor will probably be somewhat perplexed by the juxtaposition of the trivial and the tragic.  Wrecks speak louder than rags. The more than 3000 faces of the people who perished, haunting like yesterday's daguerreotypes, speak louder than voices.  Still the museum strikes a balance between the personal loss and the staying-power of an event which changed the world stage forever, as only Shakespeare might have imagined.

Since that fatal blue morning sky a lot has happened, often for the worse.  America, too reluctantly maybe, has to face chaos instead of leading others into a normative world, a "paradise lost". The hijackers of the four planes are now seen as the avant-garde of the rogue actors we see appearing at random, from Nigeria to Yemen, in quiet streets in London or Boston.

In the "normal" world civility looks like an endangered species and instead of bringing individuals together, the tragedies which confront all of us are often used for the political gain of some.  The Manhattan "cenotaph" should be a place of remembrance and healing.  I would have liked to hear President Bush or Mayor Giuliani, since their words and actions then united and galvanized. They stayed out of the limelight (by choice?) and the ceremony, although moving, missed an opportunity to be also transubstantiating. It was normal that President Obama was the first to address the audience, but it would have been symbolic if the former president and mayor, who inhaled the toxic dust of death, could also have spoken. Their words might have been less ceremonial and more familiar with this truly sacred ground.

Tragic historic events have to be remembered indeed. They should never be allowed to become traps wherein remembrance repeats rather than relives.  The unspeakable magnitude of the Holocaust is better served by what remains than by any monument, with the exception of the Yad Vashem in Israel.

The United States remains stuck in a jam of its own making.  No opportunity should be lost to bridge a divide which looks too often like an abyss.  Congress is despised and the political class would easily fit in the amphitheater of the absurd of the EU Parliament.  Do I have to say more? Let us come together in lower Manhattan and be still.  The sound of permanent flowing water is worth listening to.   Besides it blocks invective and soundbites.