The day after 9/11

While the U.S. recalls the moonscape cratered on Manhattan, we are nursing a cup of tea and biting on a mooncake. It is mid-autumn festival in Dong Bei, referred to as the two days between summer and winter, as the day is still warm enough but no longer involves a sweat, and the nights now require a light jacket to ward off the cool Siberian winds.

We remember the “Day After” series, two of which are big hits; the 1983 movie set after a nuclear blast in a Midwest USA city, and the other in 2004, of a climatologist’s frenzied effort to get to his son stuck in NYC before he and his group freezes in an altered climate scenario. The ending of this last one was worth more than a giggle. It was a scene of frantic crossings of those from north-of-the-border into Mexico for its warmer clime, at a time when we were expending millions on the construction of border fences!

We already staked our eschatological hope in our reflection yesterday that America is not heading to the dogs, alarming contrary evidence not withstanding. Washington Post’s Dana Milbank’s “The irrelevancy of the Obama presidency” and NYT’s Paul Krugman’s “Setting their hair on fire” attest to the weakness of the office of the President even as Obama’s strong words in Congress fell on deaf ears.  His 911 “we shall not live in fear” is noteworthy more as an opening salvo to a campaign year than anything else!

MIT’s Noam Chomsky’s statement in 2008 that the United States is a failed state causes colleagues to bewail the situation and attempt to fix what is perceived to be broken.  The Obama presidency symbolizes a nation’s continued dependence on a central figure (the President) and an archaic representative democracy (Congress) to make decisions, using an irrelevant formula of monetary, fiscal, and labor policies in an imaginary free-market equilibrium of aggregate supply and demand, a leftover from Keynesian economics that has no relevance whatsoever in the evolution of the financial market that presently rules the world.  A more fundamental evolution on the nature of the nation-state, global sustainability, local participation, and universal significance is quietly occurring.

Our reflection yesterday on Ground Zero: Transforming the Tragic Terrain of Terrorism hit a few listservs before we went to print, and we were amazed at the depth of reflection that ensued. We were forwarded Chris Hodges recount of his experience a decade ago including a gut-wrenching claim that “we are what we loathe.” The telling is riveting, compelling, indicting, and recognizably truthful, best digested with a shot of Scotch, perchance, to avoid existential angst, or possible unsettling dreams.

Some colleagues have commented that we hold a rosier view of America than what is warranted by current experiences of many, particularly in the visible animosities exhibited by combating political camps, but equally compelling is the sense that a phoenix has risen from the ashes of 911.

In yesterday’s commemoration, as we recalled the vivid pictures of buildings collapsing (see Alan Taylor’s Atlantic article “9/11: The Day of the Attacks” www.theatlantic.com) and heard again ground zero shrouded in otic/odic mayhem of wails and sirens, sensing the rupture of violence invading our internal airs while the smell of death lingered on our bodies even from a distance as we sensed a profound violation of the tranquility of our souls, we, nevertheless, did not lose heart.  In spite of our clarity that our officials might have squandered the natural goodwill of the world after the attacks by opening two war fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, we refuse to fall into the convenient lap of cynicism and despair.  Eschatological hope of a person-of-faith abides “in peace that passes all understanding.” It is a choice that many has made.

There is an old story of how a city in its iniquities was saved from divine wrath because of one person of faith, and in a sense, we identify with that person though we do not find ourselves a soloist in a resounding cosmic hallelujah chorus of resurgent humanity. In the resolve “over my dead body, by gum,” we dare not allow the agents of destruction triumph over the reality of budding spring flowers; we do not find ourselves alone in the summer of our maturity as a nation.

Methinks “America the day after” may have flubbed its steps on the fearful shadows of its nightmare, but the grand wake up call by-the-Hudson sharpened our sense, broadened our compassion, and remanded the boundaries of our being into the edges of the improbable and the seemingly impossible.

Of our immediate familiarity, we concur with the image-shifting work of the Ecozoic folks to an appreciation of the grandeur of the product of evolution as an integral part of our being rather than obsessing with its continuing exploitation, the “Yes!” work on refocusing economics and politics to Main Street, to name a couple.

We bothered to “declare” a week ago in our Eco-Democracy series to contextualize our attempts at small circles of relationship and networks of trust engaged in reflection and participation around the world.  It is, indeed, the day after.  From where we stand, with mooncakes, we move on!  What’s offing in your sector of the planet?

Vergara is a regular contributor to the Saipan Tribune’s Opinion Section.