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Sunday, February 28, 2010

A Missed Opportunity

The other night I watched an NBC segment on how the people of the remote community of Gander, Newfoundland in Canada responded to the thousands of air travelers that were forced to spend several days in their community in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the complete shutdown of air travel in North America. It prompted me to reflect upon the reaction of the American people in the days, weeks, and months after these attacks. It seems like such a distant memory as I recalled the uplifting stories of people helping strangers all across our land. Memories of emergency personnel traveling to New York and Washington at their own expense to help in the search for victims and survivors. Stories of strangers coming together to share suddenly scarce rental cars in their attempts to get home to family and friends. Stories of sacrifice and sharing on a heroic scale. I even had faint recollections of how it seemed that we were coming back together as a people, that our shared tragedy would restore a level of national unity and shared purpose.

As I look at the social, political, cultural and religious atmosphere in the United States today, I have to wonder if we didn't miss out on a golden opportunity to restore our historical sense of pride and unity. Would anyone have predicted, in the aftermath of 9/11 and our shared grief, that less than a decade later our country would be more divided, more partisan, more rancorous than at any point in our history since the Civil War? What would the 9/11 victims have to say to us as a nation if they could speak to us now? Personally, I think they would be utterly disappointed that their deaths didn't result in a greater sense of unity among the American people. I think they would wonder out loud whether the terrorists hadn't in fact accomplished one of their primary goals: scaring and diving the American people. No one can legitimately argue that we are stronger, more prosperous, more secure, more at peace in our divided state than we would be if the promise of that initial post-tragedy unity had been achieved. Is it too late to change it, or is this outcome the final, lasting legacy of 9/11?

1 comment:

  1. Thoughtful commentary. We missed an opportunity to take advantage of our common national unity, our renewed patriotism, and empathy from the international community. What if we had persued the real enememy rather than getting bogged down in Iraq? What kind of country would we be now?

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