Personal 9/11 Reflections

I would imagine, it’s virtually impossible for anyone who is old enough to remember 9/11, not to think about it today. Not to mention the fact that it’s all over the media. Just like other catastrophic events in history, most people can remember what they were doing on that day. I remember when I was growing up, I used to hear people talk about what they were doing on the day John F. Kennedy was shot. I was only four years old then, so his assassination didn’t really have an impact on me until I learned about it later in school. I have a thirteen year old son who is living out that same scenario. His whole life however, has been affected more from this event. Our kids never knew you didn’t have to take your shoes off to go through airport security. That’s just how it is for them. It used to be, when we heard about terrorism, it was always a world away. We have always been safe within the borders of the United States.

I think what bothers me the most about 9/11 is, the prejudice that has come out of it. Fortunately we don’t hear as much about it, so maybe people have learned that just because men and women of other cultures dress differently doesn’t make them terrorists. There will always people who are prejudice against others just because they are different. What is sad, is that even if we don’t want to admit it, 9/11 has caused most people to feel some form of suspicion toward people of the Islam faith. I hope by now most people have learned that these terrorist are the extremists. Granted, Al Qaeda is a very large group of extremists, but whenever I hear prejudice comments toward people of the Islam faith as a whole, it makes me think about other groups who have extremists associated with them. For example, “Christian” people who kill abortion doctors. “Christian” people who are willing to burn piles of another faith’s bible (Quran).  One thing that shocked me the most in the past ten years, was, in 2004 when Cat Stevens was not allowed in this country because he was on the Terrorist Watch List, and on the No Fly List. I don’t know of anyone who has had a more peaceful nature, but since his name is now Yusaf Islam, that made him suspicious.

Yahoo has a section now called 9/11 Profiles. That is why I started thinking about this. There is a picture of a lady wearing a Hijab, the traditional Muslim headwear. The caption on her picture says “We are Americans.” This country has always been called “The melting pot” because we accept or allow anyone and everyone to live here –as long as they become legal citizens. The sad thing is everyone is allowed, not everyone is accepted.

If the Christian extremists I mentioned earlier would live the lesson “Love one another” taught by Jesus, if we treat each other with kindness taught in Taoism and most other religions, would we really have the violence we have. Most wars are fought over religion, and that just seems so contradictory to me. On the right side of this blog it says, I believe there is so much we can learn from each other, that is very hard to do when our minds are filled with prejudice and hatred.

As we remember the events that happened ten years ago today. Let’s remember how America was united, and like the lady in the hijab, we’re all Americans and we can all learn from each other.

Thank you for reflecting with me,

Paul