Conflicted.

Mona Eltahaway in the Guardian:

No dignity at Ground Zero

I could hear the cheers as I got out of the taxi, two blocks away. I could hear them from right in front of Park 51, the site of a planned Islamic community centre and mosque that met ferocious opposition last year for being too close to the "hallowed ground" of Ground Zero. It was minutes after President Obama's announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed, and I was heeding a friend's suggestion that we – both Muslims – take candles and stand in vigil where the World Trade Centre stood before Bin Laden's footsoldiers took it down.

So it was a shock to find hundreds of others had turned that hallowed ground into the scene of a home crowd celebrating an away victory they hadn't attended, the roots of which they were probably not there to experience or were too young to remember.

There was always something sickening about tourists taking pictures of themselves posing in front of that big gaping hole called Ground Zero. "Me at site of mass slaughter, NYC" as holiday photo caption is wrong in every language, surely.It didn't take 10 minutes for the frat party atmosphere to sicken me. Olympic-style chants of "USA! USA!" I could just about take as a freshly minted American, as of Friday. But "Fuck Osama! Ole ole ole!" crushed any ambition of dignity for the thousands killed, many of whom had jumped hundreds of storeys to their deaths, their bodies shattered to pieces close to where we stood.

Go read the rest. I've never read anything that enunciates so clearly what I've felt since 9/11.

I have spent the last ten years shaking my head in disgust at the seemingly ghoulish tourists who've flocked to "Ground Zero" (now a construction site, still they snap away), towing babies in their "9-11 Never Forget" onesies, grinning and pointing to the site as if having their photos taken in front of the crater would serve as a vicarious "I was there, too!" moment. Except they weren't there, and despite their protestations that they are united with the victims and survivors of the attack, they aren't. They aren't kept awake at night thinking of what might have been, but for bin Laden. "If only my husband were still here to argue over what to have for dinner." "If only my child had been able to gone on that Outward Bound trip she had planned for so long." "If only my father were here to walk me down the aisle." Those tourists may enjoy the luxury of their intact families, lie undisturbed by the sound of an airplane flying low overhead in the middle of the night, can still be startled by the sight of a machine gun-wielding policeman standing by the subway turnstile, inspecting the bags of dark-skinned citizens, can remain oblivious to what exactly the hellish mix of burning computer parts, construction materials, office furniture and human flesh smells like.

I work in the WTC neighborhood so I have to make my way through the crush of camera-wielding tourists every day and yes, I still feel anger and resentment at the voyeuristic nature of their curiosity. I wasn't at the World Trade Center on 9/11. I was a mile away, watching from my roof for the entire day. I didn't see the bodies fall from the sky; my neighbor next door did, and I can only assume that he will grow old with those horrific images forever etched vividly in his mind. But I feel protective--perhaps overly so--of my city and my neighbors who were victimized by bin Laden's madness.

What happened that day affected everyone in some way or another no matter how far from the World Trade Center or Pentagon or the field in Shanksville they live. Yet those of us who witnessed it firsthand suffered a far different injury. And with bin Laden's death, those old wounds have been reopened, never healed properly in the first place, thanks to BushCo's exploitation of the murders as an excuse to invade Iraq instead.

I do understand that everyone deals with grief in his or her own way and that for the predominantly middle school- and college-aged revelers, bin Laden has been a bogeyman for most of their lives. As a friend of mine said quite sagely, the whooping and hollering may be the only way some people know how to exorcise their own demons. It was an incredibly emotional situation, but it seems that not everyone took the time to think about why, precisely, they were climbing up a lamp pole and showing their tits.

I think Mona is right. Behaving as if it were a city-wide revenge kegger does an incredible disservice to the nearly 3,000 people who died and their families that awful day. Personally, I choose to use bin Laden's death as a somber remembrance, not a Gatorade cooler-dumping celebration. We can all be glad that Al Qaeda's figurehead is dead, and we can move on. There are far more important changes going on in the world that need our attention and support.

As always, your mileage may vary.

/End of sanctimonious rant

[Attribution pending]

AP/The Pantagraph/David Proeber

AP/Tina Fineberg

AP/Alex Brandon

--WT

Comments

[MarkC]

Excellent rant. Thank you!

[Mad_world]

War is hell.

We were attacked.

We finally got one of, if not the, mastermind.

Free to celebrate or mourn as you like.

I'm sure some of the victims would be jubilant at OBLs demise as well.

[donna]

People celebrate when wars are over, too. It doesn't mean they forget all those who died. It means we are happy that something has been accomplished and now we can go on to better things.

Give people their celebration, we all react differently. Doesn't make it better or worse.

Judgment of others is the entire root of war and hatred. Let it go.

[wa ching]

We're #11!

[Molotov]

nice boobies

[watertiger]

Molotov - LOLOL!

[pansypoo]

but she left her bra on! USA won the war pennant! USA WON THE WAR PENNANT!

[Old Zeb]

As a friend said nearly ten years ago: "Sometimes we're a sad bunch of chimps."

And yet again...and likely not the last.

Thank you, WT, well stated.

[Ruckus]

I wasn't there either. I was on a plane heading west, sitting next to a girl whose company was headquartered in WTC. As freaked out as most of us were, she was beside herself thinking maybe/hoping not that all her co-workers/friends were killed. Fortunately they had already left to attend the same conference as her. I often wonder how she and her friends are doing. The lucky ones.
And as much as I understand the wish to celebrate what looks to be a milestone event in one's life, looking at this makes me sad. Not that OBL is gone, but that so many have suffered and died because of so many horrible decisions made in our names. Think how different the last ten years could have been, had there been adults in charge.

[Gen]

Thank you, WT.

[Lesley]

MSNBC interviewed teenagers who were toddlers in 2001. I almost threw up.

Osama's dead, long live patriotism. Meanwhile scores of people died for nothing in Iraq and Congress is putting 9/11 responders through terrorist screening before they can get any health care costs paid for.

Osama was the least of America's enemies.

[Teddy Partridge]

Thank you.

I love you, WT.

[Megan]

Thank you WT! I loved your post. It disgusts me that some get their kicks from other people's misery. People are ghoulish. There are people that flock to the apartment where Madeleine McCann was abducted and have their picture taken there. I just don't get the rational behind doing something like this. "And here I am at the apartment where little Maddie was taken". Look at the door, it's weathered". Blah, blah, blah.

As for the teenagers at the kegger patriot parties, they have no clue what they are doing. Besides showing the world that we glorify death and the hunting down of another human being, they have no idea how this makes people feel. Yes, I'm happy bin Laden is gone, but I don't need to be waving my American flag to the world. It's basically sticking our middle finger up at the rest of the world. It's rude and unacceptable behavior.

[karen marie]

Initially I was a little put out at the scolds, but I was attributing the jubilation to initial relief. Not living in NYC, I was not aware of the kind of Disneyland quality of the daily scene where the World Trade Towers once stood.

But today I find myself siding with the scolds. What you're describing as the celebratory scene there today is shocking. It's attributable to people who were too young to be aware of the horror of it. I cannot erase from my mind images of people jumping to their deaths, or the clouds of disintegrated buildings chasing others through the streets.

It was a day of absolute horror. It's too bad that someone couldn't have organized a zone of respectful silence in the area around the hole in the ground.

While these foolish children gleefully dance in the streets, I am at my desk choking back tears in remembrance of that day.

[Ashleigh Burroughs]

Can you spell "sanctimonious"? American's won't buy American cars, can't trust the government to protect our retirement, have no confidence in our major institutions (banks, MLB, FEMA to list just a few), and most of those young people can't find employment. Finally, our might and intelligence does something right and people are happy. Sure, someone died. A bad seed, a hurtful hateful man is dead. Are we happy at the loss of one human life or delighted that one speck of horror is vanquished? I think it's possible to hold both thoughts in mind.

These kids have never known a time when OBL wasn't the bogey man, just in the way that Eichmann was Evil Incarnate to their boomer parents. Would anyone have understood sorrow at the death of one man had Eichmann been killed and not captured? I think not.

I don't want a picture or a video nor to hoot and holler to the world myself. But I understand the instinct and the desire to celebrate 2 dozen young, well-trained SEALS who did an impossible job oh so very very well.

OBL's death is the maguffin in the situation; the successful execution of an amazing American military action is the root of the cheering. I say, let it be.
a/b

[tata]

Kiss my entire ass, AB. Your contribution to the Douchebagging of America is noted.

Thank you, Watertiger.