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Rabat – On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was just a naive 17-year old, sitting in a classroom in a rural US highschool for the usual bland fare of senior-year classes.
The television was on, an unusual affair, but our teacher told us an airplane had accidentally collided with the World Trade Center towers in New York. Midway through the class, loud gasps moved through the class, as images of a second plane ramming into the other tower instantly created the realization that “America was under attack.”
Almost every person who was conscious on that day has her or his own story about the experience: The confusion and the awareness that something monumental had just happened. By the end of the day, the US was on a war-footing, its enemy not quite clear yet. Within weeks, the entire world had been given the choice to either be “with” the US, or be declared an enemy.
While few people discounted the events on that day, none of us could have predicted the vast and structural way in which our lives would forever change. From tiny villages in the Middle East and central Asia, to anyone who would ever fly on a plane since, we had entered a new era.
Close to home
The concept of a “suicide attack” was nothing new, yet for many this was a foreign concept, linked to images of burning busses in Tel Aviv during the intifadas, instead of a threat to most people’s lives.
The idea of plane hijackings was also nothing new. Hijackings had occurred for decades, with the vast majority resulting in planes being diverted, followed by a hostage situation in which the perpetrator attempted to raise awareness to certain political goals.
Even the idea of an attack by an Al Qaeda-linked extremist on the trade center in New York was nothing new. After all, the towers had seen a large truck bomb explode in 1993.
What the events on September 11, 2001, did, however, was change these concepts from being seen as abstract news items, to a personal threat that could emerge at any time and in any place.
Even the smallest towns across the US now feared an imminent attack. This fear spread to much of the West following the similarly horrific London and Madrid attacks. Citizens speculated what the nearest target could be, ranging from the local police station, to the strip mall where they shopped.
The events of “9/11” fueled an ever-present paranoia that heavily influenced personal and state decision-making that lasts until this day.
Security state
In Hollywood disaster-movies, whenever a threat is discovered, fictional political leaders commonly repeat the refrain “we must not create panic among the population.” But following these monumental events, political leaders in the US and Europe responded with a different narrative.
The attacks led to a confusing narrative that citizens should “go out and shop,” lest “the terrorists win.” Meanwhile most countries started to vastly expand their security apparatus, as civil liberties were curtailed in the name of improved safety.
Amid the increasingly globalized and neo-liberal world order that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union, much of this new security-oriented focus would come as part of private companies.
The new threat meant a boom for private security firms like G4S, military contractors like the US Vice-President’s Halliburton and arms manufacturers, as the US-aligned world prepared for an undefined “war on terror” that lacked a clear end-game.
While the immense US military was deployed to fight in Afghanistan, and later Iraq, all around the world every-day life became increasingly “securitized” as citizens were increasingly monitored on the streets, and surveilled on their computers.
Lasting impact
For many people the new security measures introduced into public life meant a minor inconvenience. For those who were unfortunate enough to live in countries now deemed part of a new “axis of evil,” the terror was just beginning.
Hundreds of thousands died in the wars that followed, the future prospects of countries turned into rubble, and generations of young Iraqis and Afghans would become refugees or suffer from the trauma of fearing violence, from both insurgents or a US drone-attack at any time.
The “War on Terror,” became the new rallying call for increased spending on the military and internal state security. The new concepts of “terrorists” as a threat to anyone’s personal security became a new motivation for defense and security spending that faced cuts following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The renewed global war-mentality resulted in lasting impacts on our world. Besides resulting conflicts’ horrific civilian death toll, the new global “war” impacted economics, state budgets, and even climate change as the world’s largest polluter, the US military, again roared into action.
A new generation
The new era that the September 11, 2001, attacks heralded has changed the world forever. Entire generations have seen their futures impacted by the response to the attacks in New York, followed by a worldwide series of extremist attacks – from Casablanca to Jakarta.
Muslims around the world suddenly became linked with the violent extremists that had abused its religious texts, as xenophobes and populists pounced on the new perceived threat. Millions of muslims living in the West, often there as a remnant of the Western colonial empires that spanned much of the Islamic world, suddenly were seen as a foreign threat.
Citizens of Western countries seemingly forgot that many of these now “exotic” people had been actively invited in the post-World War II era as workers from countries such as Morocco and Turkey.
Muslim neighbors who had been part of the post-war economic boom were now presented as an alien threat, using much of the same rethoric as had been employed against Europe’s Jewish population in the years leading up to the second world war.
The end of the “war on terror”?
The dramatic images from Kabul over the past weeks have been presented by much of the Western media as a last striking example of the “war on terror.”
Yet the real effects of the response to the 9/11 attacks can be seen in the European and US response to this crisis. Instead of showing compassion to a new wave of refugees as a direct result of their wars, politicians in the West quickly called for new measures to prevent these unfortunate souls from reaching their shores.
While for many in the West the “war of terror” appears overall after the retreat from Kabul, millions of Muslims around the world continue to live in an atmosphere of distrust and fear that is eagerly exploited by politicians.
On the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks many xenophobes and populists will likely aim to renew fears and distrust.
Yet in our globalized world, the moment should serve as an opportunity to look back not just on the images of collapsing towers and the lives lost that day, but as a moment to reflect on the consequences of our collective response to such events.
While most of us can retell the feelings we had on that day, 20 years ago, a deeper investigation and reckoning with its consequences can help create a realization that we cannot solve problems by stoking fear. That we cannot provide safety via war; and that mutual understanding and support are the only way forward as we collectively face a new global threat in climate change.
