9/11: Social Identity, Hatred, and Patriotism

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 comes to a close, I write this blog. Please excuse me, as this will not be so much about the environment; but most definitely about the world.

Like many of you, I'm sure, I've spent the last week talking and thinking much about that fateful day. Where I was. How I felt. I remember the disbelief, sitting in front of the television for days. Crying everyday as the death count climbed.. seeing those holding out hope that their loved one would be found alive. And even now, as I've been watching all the documentaries and specials; it still tears me up. But my opinions on what that event has really taught us have grown exponentially since that day. I had doubts about what I should share; as my thoughts on the matter may not be so popular.. or may be misinterpreted, but I suppose that's the beauty of opinion, and our country. I'm free to have one.

So, before I go into the rest of my thoughts, let me assure you that I feel an extraordinary amount of love and gratitude for our first responders and the military. They make our way of life, including my freedom to have and share an opinion, possible. On 9/11, we lost many heroes.. and continue to lose them as the years go by. My heart goes out to them and those that love them.

You see, I remember, ten years ago.. the groundswell of patriotism; or national pride. But I also remember the desire for revenge. The hatred for an entire religion and location on our planet. I wished the two didn't seem to go hand in hand, but they did. So many people, including close friends, would make remarks about "towel heads" and how we needed to just bomb the entire Middle East.

Sure, I 'get' the desire for revenge. I do. Especially for those that lost someone. It's a natural emotional reaction.. but it is just that.. Emotional. Surely, no sound person can think that ridding the planet of a geographic location or a religion, would make it a safer place overall. There is always a new evil or chaos to take over where the last one left off. But the fact that so many Americans used patriotism as a mask for hatred, did.. and still does.. bother me. The onslaught of beatings and murders of Muslim Americans, in the name of patriotism, was the saddest disgrace of all.

But it wasn't all negative. For a short window of time, if you were an American (a Christian looking one, anyway).. you were my friend. We were more patient. We were kinder. We honked our car horns for signs celebrating the U.S.A. We plastered our homes with flags of every size. We even put them on our car.

Not surprisingly, the outward show of patriotism has long since faded. We stopped flying our flags, and buying everything red, white, and blue we could get our hands on. We stopped being so courteous, just because. Within months, we were back to the norm.

But a strange thing happened.. Though the outright hatred of Muslims seemed to fade, the perception (or misperception) is far from gone. Not just two weeks ago, at a cook-out, with fairly intelligent, middle class folks, a discussion of politics broke out. I cringed as it shifted to religion, and one man stated to another, "You know man, those Muslims.. they don't pray to the same god that you and I do. Every one of them is taught that we're the enemy. Their book tells them to kill us all." And I sat there in disbelief as a majority of the people around this table nodded their heads. Not one of them, I'm sure, has ever read the Qu'ran; or apparently, even had a long discussion with an active Muslim.

Most people, even if they bother to research it, just google a few excerpts from the text and say, well, there you go. Proof that they are ordered to murder all nonbelievers. Well, like any text, especially religious text, anything can be pulled out of context. I don't want to go too much on a tangent here, but the Islamic faith is not generally a violent one and they are taught that self-defense is okay, but not outright murder. Like any faith, though, anyone can take things to an extreme. There are extremist Muslims and there are extremist Christians. Thank goodness all Christians are not judged by the acts of those few.

In the aftermath of 9/11, and through to that cook-out, "Us vs. Them" had never been quite so apparent to me. "Them" became dehumanized. Let's just bomb "Them." "They" don't believe like "We" do. But this wasn't just about religion. This was also about our, and their, location on the map. And really, this just spoke to a greater issue for me. The critical error of mistaking patriotism for superiority; or vice-versa.

While watching a 9/11 documentary with my husband, they were showing footage from that day and the weeks following. It included countless clips of people in other nations, crying for us.. holding vigiles for us.. Countries having national prayer days for us. And it became glaring obvious... We don't do that for other countries. We see tragedy around the globe every day. Occassionally, if it's really bad, we do a telethon and donate a few dollars. But as a nation, we generally shrug, and say "Aww, that's a shame." and go about our day. That's if we have a reaction at all.

Yes, I do realize that's a sweeping generalization. And yes, I know that some people are profoundly affected by news from around the world. But my general point is that we Americans, as a whole, don't really pay attention. So, when it got onto our soil, it was a huge tragedy. One documentary showed a woman at Ground Zero, days after it happened, crying and saying "I don't think anyone really understands. It's like a war zone. Nobody can understand this." When the truth is, there are people around the world that live in that kind of destruction and terror, every. single. day.

But "we" don't know that.. because "we" don't pay attention. Sure, part of the problem is that we're inundated with too much. Dozens of 24 hour news channels starts to make you a little a numb. I get it. But I'm not sure that we can use access to too much information as an excuse for not noticing that millions of people live every day in fear.. and only truly caring when it happens on our soil.

So, what's the point of sharing all these thoughts? My hope is just that we pay more attention. That we stop using the term "Patriotism" for an excuse of groupthink; of hatred.. as a rationale for violence against a whole population. Because patriotism deserves better than that. Pride in country doesn't mean ambivalence or dislike of another. It doesn't mean "Take care of our own first." It isn't about "Us vs. Them" (or US vs Them) It should be about pride in where we come from, our freedoms, and our future hopes.

It was a great feeling for those few weeks when being an American was enough to make you my friend. The problem was, it came with the baggage of making others into enemies. It doesn't have to be that way.

I don't believe in taking care of "us" first; as a sweeping statement. I've seen so many people say that, even in response to sending help after earthquakes and tsunamis. "Why are we sending money over there? We need to take care of our own." Of course we need to do a better job at taking care of 'our own.' But I do believe in sending aide for natural and manmade disasters. I'm patriotic. But I've just never seen an American life as more important than any other. Perhaps that's not a popular idea; but I choose to have equal compassion for all mankind.

My hope is just that we, ten years after the heart-breaking event of 9/11, realize how lucky we are, that we don't have to experience those things on a daily basis. As terrible as it was, it truly was inevitable. We weren't unlucky that day. We were just lucky every other day. I hope that it has taught us to open our eyes, and hearts, to the tragedies around the world. That we don't allow ourselves to become numb and uncaring about the pain of others, just because they are outside our borders.

The world map is so much more beautiful, without the borders drawn on...

Choose Reality

This is going to be a fairly short post, as I wanted to bring a website/cause/event to your attention. All my fellow tree huggers ;-) know a lot about global warming (now politically called climate change). So, if you know a little or a lot about the topic, I urge you to get involved and to use this event as a way of spreading the word to all you know.

http://climaterealityproject.org/

It's all breaking loose in just a few days. Event will be on Sept. 14. "24 Presenters. 24 Time Zones. 13 Languages. One Message." Get involved and report back what you thought of it.