September 11th 2001

by Robbie Rae

So there it goes.

The sun has set on the 10 year anniversary of those events that have come to be known collectively as ‘9/11.’

I wasn’t there. I didn’t lose anyone I loved.

If it wasn’t so political, it wouldn’t really be any of my business.

But it is nonetheless an event in my life. Rightly or wrongly.

At the time, I didn’t know anything of America outside of popular culture and a bit of Enlightenment history. I didn’t really know what the World Trade Centre was.

I, like most of the world, was a spectator that day.

And I had an immature, student-view of the whole thing.

My contemporary history had never been great. If anything, it seemed to me like the little guy had hit back. You can’t go round treating people like the USA had been doing and expect them to lie down.

(It was only with hindsight that I could see 9/11 as it really was: a vile but brilliant act of defiance by a group of people who could never win a foot war, but knew the historical importance of symbolism.)

But that didn’t make it any less awful. Those people, jumping. The feelings of empathy.

However, even then, it wasn’t real heartbreak. Not like you’d actually lost someone you loved.

If you were a spectator it was different. It was, more than anything else, a really fucking massive event.

They hadn’t been all that forthcoming in my life up until then.

The first time I was exposed to anything like it was the Challenger disaster in 1986. Our primary school had let us watch the live broadcast. We saw the space shuttle take off and we saw it burst into a bunch of ugly, chaotic, orange patterns in the night sky and the spectacle was over. The TV was turned off. We didn’t know what to say. “Was that supposed to happen?” We were kids. An adult told us the astronauts were dead. It seemed a bit sad. Like E.T (only not nearly that sad).

The Hillsbrough Disaster in 1989 was the next one. I watched the scenes in my parents’ living room after coming back from playing rugby. But, in truth, I was more worried about the upcoming FA cup final. Everton had beaten Norwich in the other semi. “They aren’t going to cancel the final are they?”

It couldn’t really bring myself to care about the deaths. That’s how a 12 year old boy thinks. Too happy to be sad.

Then it was Diana. 1995. Older. Working a bar in Edinburgh. Didn’t give a shit. My mum died the year before and no-one gave a fuck. Balls to Diana. One person, it happens every day. I was too busy thinking about which of the girls I was working with I was going to try and score with. But I still remember the news like it was yesterday.

And then, ten years ago today, some psychopaths flew two planes into the twin towers.

An event like the others but much, much bigger.

I was older, but I still felt no personal loss. How could I?

(Many faked grief. Who outside of family members and friends of the dead, New Yorkers, or patriotic Americans could have felt genuine loss? Most people were just rubber-necking a traffic accident and feigning concern)

I was too interested in the poltics to feel what is honestly called ‘grief.’ The discussions were interesting and informative. The news was too good.

(For a kid from the countryside, this was a TV event set in the land of Hollywood. It was gripping viewing. I had been conditioned to enjoy this kind of thing)

((During the London riots, the Northerers on my facebook were settling in with a beer to watch London burn on TV while we in the capital shat ourselves. Then the trouble started up there. And it suddlenly seemed to matter to them. No more jokes. News vs Real Events))

Today, I have fond memories of September 11th 2001. It’s one of those exceptional dates in history where you can remember what you were doing.

It’s a kind of existential safe-box.

The boomers had the Kennedy assasination. We had 9/11.

I remember the surroundings. I remember the faces, the names and the personalities of the people in that moment. And thanks to 9/11 I probably always will.

This was a great year in my life. It was my first job as a copywriter. I was in a big agency. I was making friends. I was learning from adults other than teachers.

It’s nice to remember. You know, really remember.

Generally, life moves on. We move on. We forget.

But big events are different. They paint an indelible picture of a moment-in-time in our consciousness.

“Where were you when you heard about 9/11?”

Me? I was surrounded by brilliant people at a brilliant time. I remember hearing the collection of sounds “all kai eed ahh” from my unfathomably intelligent boss (only the most assiduous follower of contemporary events knew who they were at the time). I remember an email from a senior-management moron saying how we could all go home in case the next attack was on Coca Cola’s offices in the Hammersmith Broadway (oh how we love to make misery our own).

I remember it all perfectly – such was the imprint of the terrible events that had happened stateside.

It is strange that I owe such a pristine recollection to such an unspeakable disaster. But it’s the same with Challenger. The same with Hillsborough. The same with Diana.

These terrible events enable us to remember where we were on a single day in history – and that is something quite special.

Now.

My heart goes out to anyone for whom today is a day of true personal sadness. I understand grief and I hope your private moments of mourning today have taken you a little closer to closure

I also appreciate, I suppose, the minute’s silences around the UK’s football grounds for a tragedy that happened in another country. I can just about respect the facebook updates of condolences that won’t be read by anyone who was affected. I’ve nothing against these, what would you call them? Prayers? They are well-meaning and uplifting acts of human behaviour.

But I was a spectator to those events.

And the truth is that spectators enjoy terrible news events. We lap them up.

Wars. Riots. Disasters… It doesn’t matter who gets hurt.

Unless, of course, it is ourselves.

You know.

Then it’s different.