Letters from New York City
I lived in NYC for three years. I have many friends who still live there. I immediately
called them after the destruction of the World Trade Towers to see if they were alright.
Thankfully they were. They were shaken by the horrific events. One friend compared
the scenes of people emerging from the rubble to the bombing of Hiroshima, another
to the Holocaust. From the last century, we have plenty of experience with evil of
such magnitude that it leaves us speechless. I suppose it's understandable that,
when people find their voices, they start singing patriotic songs. A deepened sense
of community is a natural response to massive tragedy. But my New York friends did
not seek refuge in the nationalist version of community. Having lived through the
period of the Vietnam War, they know that nationalism is a perverted expression of
community because the nation is defined by what it excludes. Arab Americans are beginning
to find that out. Torched gas stations, bullets fired into community centers, assaults
by teenage gangs, and school children tormented by their peers are just some of the
expressions of the nationalist sentiment now on the rise.
Just as importantly, the flags and the songs are being trotted out right now, not
so much to comfort people, as to prepare them for more massive violence in the future.
They have served that function very well in the past. They have been used to justify
20 years of bombing Iraq, a million dead there; the US-backed destruction of Afghanistan
in the name of anti-communism (the average Afghani now has a life expectancy of 40
years); the unending suffering of the Palestinian people. My friends in New York
know all this. Which is what makes the nationalist response seem to them somewhat
obscene.
We're capable of deeper and more humane thoughts and feelings regarding the NY tragedy
than the ones you evince in your e-mail message. It's the duty of teachers and intellectuals
(I will not shy from the word) to articulate such thoughts and feelings. In any event,
no one, intellectual or not, should help pave the way for further bloodshed.
Gary
I thank Gary for his sane response to the jingoistic messages and crude, sentimental
preparation for war.
I live in midtown Manhattan. I can see the smoke of what used to be the WTC from
where I am writing this in my apartment right now. I live in a high rise right on
the river and on the same avenue that leads down to where the towers stood. The pier
in front of my house has the hospital ship tied to it. It's where the rescuers come
and go, get refreshed and washed up and return to their depressing work. The debris
is trucked past my house day and night; there are jets overhead; one of the morgues
is on another pier in front of my building. We have intermittent phone service and
until yesterday could not buy milk or fresh vegetables. Yet all this, all this constant
reminder, is nothing compared to the sadness of the thousands who lost folks.
It is also nothing compared to the sadness and death and destruction that the politicians
are beginning to get us excited about. We must resist! Our adjunct fight for justice
and equity must be tied in with a fight for justice and equity for everyone. Revenge
is not justice.
Contact the War Resisters' League at http://www.warresisters.org/
Peace, Anthea
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 10:51 PM Subject: [adj-l] RE: Canadian Editorial
regarding our tragedy Tuesday
Fellow Teachers:
I have been watching and reading this listserv for a few weeks, and have wanted to
respond to some of what I have read, but recently have not. The horror of this past
week here in New York City has been frankly more important, so I haven't come to
the support of Ms. T., for example, or questioned Ms. F. on the "Education Code",
among other things. When I read your two responses to Ms. F.'s latest post, however,
about this weeks disaster and including the Canadian editorial, I find I cannot hold
myself back.
You call the post "knuckleheaded nationalism", and "shallow cheerleading".
As an adjunct professor and student of communication I can tell you the most effective
message is always the direct one. At a time like this, when thousands are dead, and
a nation is shaken to it's core, we need some messages of clarity which touch the
soul. Hearing the words, "O beautiful for spacious skies" at a candle lit
vigil; Seeing a family of immigrants carrying American flags on the subway; Reading
a letter about what one Canadian thinks we have been and can still be capable of-
these messages strengthen us as a people. I too have seen the editorial before. Old?
Yes. Easily refuted? Sure. Shallow? OK. But at some points in our lives a little
knuckleheadedness can be a good thing, I think. If we lose the ability to be touched
by simple nationalism, I will truly despair. But I guess I'm not as intellectual
as some of you.
I say thank you to Ms. Fraser, for a good deed in a weary world. And to you gentlemen
I say I hope you don't live in New York, and that you were not directly affected
by the tragedy of the past few days, as many of us have been. I'm sure you would
not have been so callous if you were.
Samuel, New School University, New York University
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