Sep 112007
9-11-2001
I’ll never forget where I was that morning six years ago today.
I’ll never forget the sickness in my stomach as I watched innocent men and women leaping from those burning buildings.
I’ll never forget the anger I felt, and the resolve to “never submit” that was born from that anger.
I’ll never forget the tears I cried.
It’s been six years. But I remember it like it was yesterday.
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Right on, brother.
United We Stand.
Never forget. Don’t let time play tricks on your memory and the horror of that day. Say a prayer that one day this madness will be over…. and maybe we can actually get back to the business of being creatures of curiosity, discovery, exploration, inventiveness, etc. instead of treading water in the insanity of these times.
May all the people of the world one day find peace together.
May all the people of the world one day find peace together.
It’s never happened before in the history of the world, and I’m not going to hold my breath that it will ever happen.
It’s a nice thought, but the reality is that there are and will always be very bad people bent on doing harm to others and to the world. And hopefully there will always be brave men and women prepared to take up arms and fight on behalf of those who can’t or won’t.
You bet on Peace, I’ll bet on being prepared and able to defend myself and my family.
I didn’t cry that day, or for many days, weeks, and months later. I was too thoroughly pissed off at what these murderers with medieval minds had done, to so many.
I want peace, and to live a good life, and watch my family grow, but I will not ever submit to a cult of death, and will stand ready at all times to fight them, anyway I can.
I’ve come to learn a lot about Ol’Moh and his MohMen, since this sad date, and I am not impressed. It’s little wonder the penalties for questioning the Koran or Moh’s status as a phrophet are so severe, it’s a pathetic tome, that any reasoning person would reject.
I never said I “bet” on peace Robbie, I said “may”, meaning I “hope” there is peace on earth one day.
I don’t necessarily expect it to happen today, tomorrow, twenty years from now, or ever, but that doesn’t mean it’s not something we should strive for, however unlikely (or even impossible) it is.
Hoping and praying for peace does not equate to submission. Hoping for peace does not mean I won’t stand up for my rights and defend myself, my family, or my loved ones. To insinuate that it does is patently ridiculous.
If we’re sharing our 9/11 memories, I’ve got one.
In 2001, I was a sophomore at the Episcopal School of Dallas. While it was a Christian school, they accepted applicants from a variety of faiths and backgrounds. We had Christians, atheists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, even the rare Wiccan or Pagan thrown in there.
One of the very few Muslims was a guy named Ahmed Madni, who was a year ahead of me. On his 18th birthday, he began to grow his beard out, as is a custom with Muslim men who have come of age. This caused quite a row with the administration, since facial hair was strictly banned by the student handbook. In the end, after much fenagling, it became clear that Ahmed would either have to shave, or leave the school. He stuck to his faith and chose to leave. Those are the breaks.
I can’t remember exactly how long it was before 9/11 that he left…it might have been the end of the 2000-2001 school year actually, but whatever the case may be, he wasn’t attending ESD on 9/11/01. I remember a girl coming into class late, saying “A plane just hit the World Trade Center in New York”, and from that moment on the day was like no other.
I remember, upon finding out that the hijackers were Muslim extremists, an intense wave of fear washing over me, wondering what people might do to one another when their hearts and minds were so confused in this horrible, horrible time.
So imagine the way my heart sunk when a girl who had been in Ahmed’s class instant messaged me to tell me he had died the following Saturday night. At first I thought it might have been retribution, some angry, confused people out to seek revenge on a Muslim, but nothing so sinister was happening. Ahmed had been driving on the freeway during a light rainstorm, his car had spun out of control, and he had been killed on impact.
In the weeks that followed, members of Ahmed’s class (class of ’03), in conjunction with certain administration and faculty members arranged a memorial service for him. Those who wished gathered in the gym and remembered him, shared what they wished of their memories of him, read written statements, poems, sang songs, said prayers, what have you.
At the very end of it all, the immediate Madni family filed into the gym. His father walked to the microphone and in a shaky voice that cracked more and more, thanked us all for coming, said that Ahmed would have smiled to see it, and that his greatest regret in life was that he never knew how important his son had been to so many people’s lives.
After that, they went outside the gym to mingle with those who wished to speak to them personally. I wasn’t that close to Ahmed, but he was a really nice, funny, intelligent guy, and I felt I had to say SOMETHING. So I got in line, and when I shook the hand of Ahmed’s father, I said “I just wanted to thank you for letting us know your son.”
I’ve never seen anything like it since: he grabbed me by the wrists, broke down into tears, and shouted “I never knew! I never knew!” and hugged me close to him.
Minutes after that, I found a small, deserted part of the school, and cried my eyes out for the first time in years.
So please forgive me if I’m hesitant to decry Muslims as a bloodthristy bunch hellbent on destroying the world, or if I foolishly hope that one day there will be peace on earth, but it’s been six years, and my positions have not changed.
We need not remember this day as the day the U.S. was attacked. We need to remember it for the American Heroes that came together to help rescue those in need. We did lose many lives that sad day but we also saved many. If we continuously remind ourselves every year on this day that innocent Americans were killed by the hands of terrorists then those people are getting exactly what they want. We need to move on and prove to them that we are going to live our lives in this free and prosperous nation and there is nothing at all that they can ever do to destroy that. We will always come together and prevail as we always have.
There has to be a hope for eventual peace, regardless of the state of this planet at this moment in time.
An end to religion, the end of a need to kill fellow man and the conscious effort form each and every one of us to help our neighbours and not strive for selfish gain.
Only then do we stand a chance of reaching a eutopia we sometimes dream of.
Jonny
On 9/11/07 in The Netherlands:
Group for ex-Muslims expands across Europe (USA Today)
Jarzemsky, nice story about your classmate.
I have many muslim friends, and many former muslim friends, as they could chose their own faith, after becoming citizens here. I have learned a great deal from them over the years, about Islam and it’s ism. One gentleman, who proudly showed off his youngest son’s certificate from his BAR exam, two years ago, is one such man. No one I’ve met is as firmly anti-Islam as he is, and he was raised in the faith. He and many of his friends, Persian by heritage, want any Muslim banned from immigrating to this country, and have felt that way since long before 9-11. So when someone that has been that intimately involved in Islam tells me that, I pay attention.
Like I said, I know many that are Muslim, and most of them have wonderful characteristics, but are still restrained by Islam. One of the best descriptions of Mohammedanism I have ever read, and am in complete agreement with, comes from a book written by the inestimable Winston Churchill, over one hundred years ago.
I have been studying Islam, the Koran, and it’s application, for many years, but most seriously since 9-11, to better understand the threat it poses, and it is to me, and many others, the greatest threat to our existence, since the spread of Communism, after WWII.
No2Liberals:
I understand the sentiment, but I think it’s fundamentally misguided. Is the real problem Islam itself, or is it theocratic governments, corruption, and the systematic oppression/brainwashing of citizens in the middle east (by their own rulers) that leads to things like 9/11?
I don’t think hateful zealots are by any means confined to the faith of Islam, any more than I think all Christians are intolerant and close-minded (another unfair stereotype I’ve encountered many times).
I’m not a very religious person. I believe in God, and I pray, but I don’t regularly attend church except for with my family on holidays.
I do have a tremendous amount of respect for people of great faith who better themselves by it and find great spiritual faith in it.
But once you kill someone in the name of your faith, you are irredeemable. I apply this to Christians who attack gays, Jewish IDF pilots who level entire blocks of Palestenian neighborhoods and call it “collateral damage”, Muslims who strap dynamite to themselves and run into cafes in Jerusalem, and AUM zealots who gassed the Tokyo subway system.
In this case, Jarzemsky, I firmly believe it is Islam itself.
Everything the mufsidun use to justify their actions, are in the Koran, and while only a small percentage of Muslims take this info literally, they are acting on principles laid out in the Sura and Hadith.
Most Muslims don’t subscribe to those abrogations of the Koran, just as not all Catholics eat fish on Friday, but the root causes for the actions of the mufsidun are indeed found in the Koran.
See Violence In The Koran.
This the home page for TROP. At the top of the banner is a link about Islam. There is a wealth of info, that may be useful to you in understanding my position.
As for the Religion of Peace label, there was a time when Islam was just that, but it was during Ol’Moh’s Medina period when he was weak, and had to play nice-nice, until he was strong enough to attack Mecca and take over. Once he did, Islam was spread by the sword, and continues to do so to this day.
Here is an old favorite of mine by the brilliant Daniel Pipes, explaining the Muslim Claim To Jerusalem.
Here is a short history of Muslim Conguests. This brief history is a clue-bat of the violence inherit in Islam.
Finally, here is an excellent post at the Gates of Vienna blog, on The Other September 11th.
Of course, men have been known to distort or misinterpret many things, religion among them, but in the case of Islam, what we see espoused by a small percentage of Muslims, is indeed found in the contents of the religion itself, and has a long historical record of justifying it.
I did a search for my best friend Ahmed, as I do just about every year near the anniversary of his death. I am responding to a quote written above me because I believe it speaks volumes about the best friend I knew and loved. I met Ahmed as a 6th grader and we became inseparable soon after. I spoke to him the night of the 11th and he spoke of the horrible looks and hateful comments that were spoken to him that day. Of how he was scared and hurt. Of how he hurt for his country and his religion. Ahmed was among the funniest, most loving, genuine people I have ever met in my life. I don’t know the person that wrote the comment above me but I want to thank you for knowing the real Ahmed and expressing his character in such a wonderful way. He is missed and loved by all that knew him.