"The March of the Mind"
9-11 should be recognized for the singular event it was, and marked and remembered and commemorated as such.
My school chose to commemorate 9-11 with a service in the chapel (this is a Methodist school) and reflections on the deaths of innocent people over time. Bizarrely, this included remembrances of 9-11, Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust, and Darfur, and a reading of the Gettysburg Address. Huh? Which of these things is not like the other?
My history students discussed this today (one of them had gone). They seemed especially struck by the oddity of juxtaposing these unrelated events and by the absence of relevant events, like the bombing of the USS COLE, for example, or the bombing in Oklahoma City. Doesn't it render all of these events incoherent to mush them together into one "remembrance"? Isn't it not just possible but necessary to draw distinctions between unique historical events, especially when some have happened here in the U.S. and some have not? Are we to commemorate 9-11 on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, for example? Why, for instance, include either the Holocaust or Darfur? The Holocaust was state-directed, industrialized mass murder on a gargantuan scale. How is that horrific crime relevant to a spectacular terrorist attack by a group of Islamic radical terrorists? How is the murder of millions and millions of people to be commemorated alongside the murder of 3000? Are these comparable events in any stretch of the imagination? Both are murder, but so is the murder of people every weekend in Washington, DC. The lesson of the Holocaust was "never again," or at least that was the slogan. Darfur kind of set that on its head, but never mind that. And wasn't the lesson of the al Qaeda Embassy bombings in Africa and the bombing of the Cole "never again"? What about the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center? Why not throw in the Aremenian genocide? The 1980 Gwangju massacre in Korea? Or how about the massacre at Tiananmen Sqaure? Wasn't that essentially state terrorism against innocent people? Cambodian genocide? 1983 Marines barracks bombing in Lebanon?
What exactly was to be commemorated?
And as long as we are asking these obvious questions-- how is the Gettysburg Address related, for pete's sake, great and historically significant as that speech is? I know it was read at in 2002 at the WTC site, but that doesn't mean it made sense.
Why not Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" speech, which defined American interests in World War II and after?
Surely the best speech to have read would have been George Washington's Farewell:
Or, even better, John Quincy Adam's "Monsters to Destroy" speech:
"
9-11 should be recognized for the singular event it was, and marked and remembered and commemorated as such.
My school chose to commemorate 9-11 with a service in the chapel (this is a Methodist school) and reflections on the deaths of innocent people over time. Bizarrely, this included remembrances of 9-11, Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust, and Darfur, and a reading of the Gettysburg Address. Huh? Which of these things is not like the other?
My history students discussed this today (one of them had gone). They seemed especially struck by the oddity of juxtaposing these unrelated events and by the absence of relevant events, like the bombing of the USS COLE, for example, or the bombing in Oklahoma City. Doesn't it render all of these events incoherent to mush them together into one "remembrance"? Isn't it not just possible but necessary to draw distinctions between unique historical events, especially when some have happened here in the U.S. and some have not? Are we to commemorate 9-11 on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, for example? Why, for instance, include either the Holocaust or Darfur? The Holocaust was state-directed, industrialized mass murder on a gargantuan scale. How is that horrific crime relevant to a spectacular terrorist attack by a group of Islamic radical terrorists? How is the murder of millions and millions of people to be commemorated alongside the murder of 3000? Are these comparable events in any stretch of the imagination? Both are murder, but so is the murder of people every weekend in Washington, DC. The lesson of the Holocaust was "never again," or at least that was the slogan. Darfur kind of set that on its head, but never mind that. And wasn't the lesson of the al Qaeda Embassy bombings in Africa and the bombing of the Cole "never again"? What about the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center? Why not throw in the Aremenian genocide? The 1980 Gwangju massacre in Korea? Or how about the massacre at Tiananmen Sqaure? Wasn't that essentially state terrorism against innocent people? Cambodian genocide? 1983 Marines barracks bombing in Lebanon?
What exactly was to be commemorated?
And as long as we are asking these obvious questions-- how is the Gettysburg Address related, for pete's sake, great and historically significant as that speech is? I know it was read at in 2002 at the WTC site, but that doesn't mean it made sense.
Why not Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" speech, which defined American interests in World War II and after?
Surely the best speech to have read would have been George Washington's Farewell:
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it 7 It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. ...
...Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them. "
Or, even better, John Quincy Adam's "Monsters to Destroy" speech:
"
America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit...."
[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.
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