That’s what people call September 11th, 2001. Three years ago today. They say it’s the end of the innocence of the world. That, when the towers fell, three thousand people died. But what also died was our faith in the goodness of people and our sense of security. That it, too, lay in the rubble.
But it wasn’t the end of the innocence, of course. Not really. Maybe the end of the delusion, but that’s it. Human beings have never had a true age of innocence. We’ve been warring with each other, killing each other, and destroying each other’s civilizations since time immortal.
It’s the third anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, true. But, even considering only the latter part of the 20th century until today, it’s also:
- Thirty-two years since 11 Israeli athletes were massacred by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Olympics.
- Twenty-one years since 241 American Marines were killed in a suicide attack in Beirut, Lebanon.
- Sixteen years since Pan Am flight 103 crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland after being hijacked by Libyan terrorists, killing 259 people aboard.
- Eleven years since the last World Trade Center bombing that killed six and injured more than 1000 people.
And let’s review what we have learned since then:
- October 12, 2002, over 200 killed in a terrorist bombing in Bali, most of them Australian tourists.
- November 2002, a bombing in a hotel in Mombassa, Kenya targeted Israeli tourists. 13 people were killed.
- May 12, 2003, bombing attacks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killed 34 people.
- March 11, 2004, over 190 people were killed and nearly 2000 wounded when bombs exploded on commuter trains in Madrid.
- Last week, hundreds of children and adults were killed as a school siege in Beslan, Russia came to a horrifying end.
- More than 70 major terrorist attacks in Israel have claimed 400+ innocent lives since 9/11 alone.
These are just a few examples. Here are many more. The thing is, evil has been present and trying to take over for a very long time. It’s not the end of the innocence. Maybe it’s just acknowledgement that innocence never existed in the first place.
Despite that, we have not been defeated. Despite all the attacks, all the lives lost, we continue to flourish.
Which is why, today, I propose not just sadness and remembrance, but also celebration. Celebration that we’re alive, that we’re free people living in a free country. Remembrance not only that we’re fighting, but what it is we’re fighting for.
If that’s the only lesson to come out of 9/11, maybe it’s enough.
The thing is, there is no evil. It is innocent of us to pretend that we can divide rverything into two simple groups.
Many of us here in Canada are deluded (or misinformed) about what is going on in the rest of the world. But just because some resort to terror is not enough for me to lose my faith.