New York
There’s an eerie mood in New York right now, as the city prepares to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Al-Qaeda, or what’s left of it, likes anniversaries. The police have been on overdrive ever since a “credible” tip-off about an attempted truck bomb. Officers are everywhere. Armed guards patrol landmarks and cars from bridges and tunnels are being pulled over and checked. All this reinforces the sense of something alien to New Yorkers (and almost all Americans) until ten years ago: the threat of attack.
A common threat has solicited a rather wonderful common response. Shop windows have displays of commemoration; companies take adverts in local newspapers. Exhibits and events have sprung up all over the city. On Friday night, I went to the opening of a photography exhibition, Reporting Live from Ground Zero, which shows pictures of television reporters reporting on that day. It captures them off-air, gathering their thoughts, and took in the enormity of it all. It’s one of many events.
A friend from Edinburgh – a member of the Lothian & Borders Police choir – has flown over to join the NYPD choir. They’ll hook up with the West Yorkshire Police brass band in the British Memorial Garden, dedicated to the 67 Brits who were killed that day. The commemoration starts at 8.30am with a bagpipe procession, then there’s two minutes’ silence at the time of the first and second plane strikes: 8.46am and 9.37am. Bells are due to toll through the city. There’ll be a reading from Obama, music from James Taylor and Paul Simon and events in churches, squares and parks throughout the city – lasting into the night.
One thing is a bit odd: this Sunday celebration has no God people. Mayor Bloomberg’s view is that today’s commemoration will reinforce New York’s status as the world’s melting pot – a city for people of all sizes, shapes, colours and creeds. Islam included. So why ruin today, he argues, by stamping a sectarian Christian religion on it?
Yesterday, I passed a Muslim kneeling on a prayer mat on 43rd St, next to a pretzel vendor – the kind of sight you’d never get on a London street. Some American Muslims are commemorating 9/11 by a programme to give blood. Japanese New Yorkers will float laterns down the river tonight, from a pier next to Holland Tunnel. There are ceremonies in memory of the Indian, South Korean, Japanese and Filipino victims.
Amongst the dead ten years ago were 370 foreign nationals from 90 countries. 9/11 was not just an American tragedy, but a tragedy for the world. I suspect it will be commemorated as such today.
Comments