September 11 is a precarious date indeed. Since 2001, this date has entered into the realm of memory, both within the minds of individuals and in the construction of a collective U.S. narrative. I say this date is precarious because, in my own experience, my memory from that day- hidden within the sanctuary of my individual being- has come to signify something that is increasingly fractured from the narrative shaped in the mainstream media. I thus find myself almost dreading this anniversary, not only because of the pain I feel for those who suffered, but also because I must confront a dominant memory being forged that claims that this pain is uniquely ‘ours’ and exclusively ‘American.’

However, looking back, the memory of September 11th is also the day I felt the most human- by this I mean that I felt infinitely small, and on equal footing with the rest of the world to the raw vulnerability of human life. These feelings are not uniquely mine, nor are they monopolized by North Americans on September 11. Rather, they are genuine feelings of sorrow, humility, and empathy that human beings feel in the face of tragedy. Yet somehow, it seems that these individual memories are often silenced by the official collective memory, which makes claim to exceptional suffering as a justification for exceptionalism in foreign policy. Ariel Dorfman, the renowned Chilean playwright, captures in his essay “The Last September 11” the universality of pain and the lessons we must learn from the world’s many September 11s, including the U.S.-backed military coup in Chile on September 11, 1973. Dorfman’s argument for the fundamental respect for the equal dignity and value of human life, regardless of the borders in which one lives, is the foundation of universal human rights, and I hope that by rediscovering our individual and deeply personal memories of September 11, 2001, we as a nation of people will begin to remember that feeling of vulnerability and recognize our citizenship in the global community.

The Bombing of La Moneda in Chile; September 11, 1973

By lesoltis
This entry was posted on Friday, September 11th, 2009 at 6:58 am and is filed under Commemorations, lesoltis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.