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The other day, the NY Times examined the various feelings about September 11 commemoration events, as next Tuesday is the sixth anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, and the interesting phenomenon of tragedy fatigue. One woman, whose opinion wasn't that uncommon, said, "Doesn’t grieving have a shelf life? We’re very sorry and mournful that people died, but there are living people. Let’s wind it down.” Perhaps that's why some people get frustrated when they hear about families being unhappy with ceremony changes.
But what do those families, the ones who have lost a loved one on that day? Well, they are divided, too. One woman who lost her brother told the Times, "I would no sooner tell survivors of the Holocaust how to mourn or how to commemorate their atrocity, so why do others feel they have any right to dictate how family members should feel or memorialize our loved ones on Sept. 11 or any day, for that matter." But one widow said, "I still get so many letters from people that even I suffer from 9/11 fatigue to some extent. People who don’t want to do anything on 9/11, they shouldn’t be forced to. I never thought I’d say that.”
Are you tired of events remembering September 11? Or do you think there should be other meaningful ways of remembering the day?
Photograph of a World Trade Center mural by wallyg on Flickr
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Are you tired of events remembering September 11? Or do you think there should be other meaningful ways of remembering the day?
they could get the g'd memorial finished and stop all the grousing and red tape. it's never going to be perfect, and it's never going to bring back the people that perished there, but anything ANYTHING is better than that void in the ground. how can anyone involved, directly or indirectly, try to move forward when the footstep of that day is still there?
there is not way in hell you can compare the mourning the holocaust with mourning 9/11.
the holocaust systematically targeted a particular group of people based on their race/ethnicity for many years with the goal of completely wiping them out. 9/11 was just one nearly random event that may have targeted america and the wtc, but did not target those particular individuals for their race/ethnicity.
Frankly, it was time to give the holocaust stuff a rest a few decades ago too.
Sad, horrible stuff happens. We get it.
ah, yes, that mourning should have been given a rest a long time ago too, but thinking about why it hasn't makes me realize that there is a comparable similarity between holocaust and 9/11 mourning:
political capital!!!!! as long as their are those shits out there who will exploit these events for political and/or monetary gain, mourning these events will be shoved in our faces against our will.
I have no issues with family and friends of the victims holding a memorial, but what I do find annoying is the 24 hour media acoverage by all the major networks. It really IS time to move on, people...
I don't have a problem with the people who lost loved ones on 9/11. Theres no way I'd be able to understand what they've been through.
I think the reason why people are "fatigued" is because its been six years and we still have what looks like a gigantic junkyard in the middle of lower Manhattan. There needs to be pressure put on our leaders to decide what to do and get it done quickly.
go back to the hole you came from. all of you. none of you lived here at the time and yet have the nerve to comment on all of this.
i agree that maybe the coverage is a bit overblown and maybe some of the ceremony too, but if you lived here at the time you might feel a bit different.
i think i'd be very 9/11'd out if it was something i only saw on CNN before becoming a lackey at some firm or publishing house.
While some people feel it may be time to move on, there are others who are just beginning to be able to mourn. We all grieve in different ways. I might question an individual's method of coping and if they ever really felt closure if they were to state "Lets just move on".
I have a feeling that the majority of people doesn't really care...
posting from my hole here,
I don't even care anymore. it's sept. already?
damn another year and no OBL.
I'd wish 9/11 landed on a Sunday every year because people will be watching football like they did that one year.
#7 I did live here at the time and ran for my life on 9/11. It was terrifying. That said, I was okay and I can't possibly imagine how awful it must be for all of the families that lost loved ones.
It's time to scale the public mourning back and allow people to privately grieve. Those who lost their lives deserve to be recognized with dignity- this memorial has to be finished already!
#3 you're an idiot. plain and simple.
I think what we should look at is what we did/do for 12/7. You remember that, right? The day Pearl Harbor was bombed? Was it as acknowledged back in the day as 9/11 is recognized now? How acknowledged is 12/7 now?
- Sterling
I see a lot of fair points in this string but fail to understand the attacks, sarcasm, defensiveness and general air of righteousness in a lot of the comments. Mourn if you want. Throw a party if you want. Remember the day as a horrific event that changed our world, or treat it like any other day. Do your thing, but PLEASE don't start justifying why anyone should do anything specific. NONE OF US are in the position to say if the grief of some is too much or not.
I was married on September 11th, 2004. Why? Who gives a fuck?!?! It was a beautiful day and my closest friends and family members enjoyed a day that I hope we can all cherish for years to come.
hahahahahahaaaaa, an ersatz Sterling makes his appearance on Gothamist. Reminds me of the good old days when that weak ankled little fascist prick would issue his bellicose fatwahs from the comfort of his new jersey eagle's nest... *sighs*
hey #7,
don't tell me and many, many other fellow longtime new yorkers who are sick and tired of 9/11 to go back to my "hole."
i grew up in this city... with a view of the WTC and have been here for the next 30 something years growing to love this city with all my heart. i was here when the towers were hit, had many friends and family that lived and worked nearby and rode my bike down from washington heights to see if i could provide some kind of assistance (though little could be done) and yet i am SICK AND TIRED of this 9/11 shit.
honestly, to me the only thing to mourn is the further death and destruction 9/11 and the "hunt" for bin laden/al qaeda has caused in iraq and afghanistan!!!!!!
signed,
guest commenter #4
You really shouldn't get too bogged down with tragedies like this and get on with life, because ya never know if you'll be forced to jump from a hi-rise the next morning...
I Still have all of the pictures from that day just over the promonade in brooklyn hieghts hit the towers from that view we had. I think theres nothing wrong with public mourning. I think its better, that way we can all come together agian. if you lost someone or didnt they still are your and our brothers and sisters. Put yourself in there shoes and think about how you would feel sitting on a plane you had no time to prepare. Or being at the top and begginging to feel the building sway to your final moments. The deserve a parade of rememberance to me. Each one of those innocient sould deserve remembrance and honor. Mothers sisters aunts uncles adults and teens died. Babies died in the planes. The least we could do is pull together for the sake of the city like we all did that day. The least.
A 9/11 lawsuit is being filed by former Chief Economist of the US Dept of Labor, Dr Morgan Reynolds. The US District Court in Southern NY recently unsealed the case and Reynolds' attorney, Jerry Leaphart, is now notifying the Defendants.
Some of the Defendants include Boeing, American Airlines, and United Airlines.
See here for unsealed case PDF:
Click here
I remember that day. I was setting up a new site for my brand new job. I was so optimistic and the day was shaping up to be really pretty. One of those fine days before the onset of fall and winter, where summer has almost completely loosened its grip but not completely.
Then everything changed.
And here we are now.
As someone who lost friends that day, I truly believe that everyone should be able to mourn in his or her own way -- that is a given. A few families of victims should NOT, however, be able to dictate how everyone else processes their grief. If we weren't in a war that a huge number of Americans think is directly tied to what happened on 9/11, these overblown memorial events would naturally fade away.
If you were still mourning this publicly for a relative or spouse that died in a car accident people would look at you like you're nuts.
Now of course this is 9/11. If a family member had died here, more than my grief (at six years) I'd feel shame at all the destruction caused to avenge the 9/11 victims. I'd mostly feel anger and shame about that. The last 6 years have been a nightmare for everybody.
It's so past time for a memorial. The site is not a cemetary. The best thing for all of us is progress and a memorial and a living area people can visit instead of a construction site.
With each passing day, I see the victim's families public grief as an impediment to the progress of the city as a whole.
We need a memorial.
9/11 happened because, according to the commission report the terrorists stayed in hotels worldwide, and in america for three planning the attacks. Hotels today has not security in place to prevent such from happening again. Homeland security say they, hotels, are still soft targets for terrorists acts.
At Hotel Security Specialists www.HotelSecurity
Specialists.com, we, along with our 200.000+ members are demanding our elected officials make national guidelines for hotels the law of the land. This is needed to protect hotels guests from an industry that puts profits ahead of safety and security.
This is a new call to action, as six years after 9/11, hotels are unsafe. We welcome your advice on national guidelines for hotels, and your support.
BF Larkin
hotelspecialists@yahoo.com
How about we mourn our lives from before that day rather then remembering what is, in the globally historical sense, a very small number of lives lost? i.e. "I wish that they didn't look at me funny when I get on a plane," or "I wish the government still gave substantial financial aid to poor kids," or even, "remember when we weren't killing Iraqis?!"
#24, that's the smartest thing I've read on a blog in a long time. seriously.
# 22 Said:
Likely, but 9/11 wasn't an accident it was mass murder. I'm not sure anyone really knows how react.(sigh)
#23, BF Larkin, You kidding right? No Shit, Really? They stayed in hotels?
Stop the Presses! At long last The Real reason for 9/11 has been revealed! It wasn't the Flight training, It wasn't the security at the Gate, Nor the lack of secure doors on the jets (despite recommendations of the Flight 800 report), It was the HOTELS!
And for $49.11 Only, I too can join that "organization"? Oh Wow! $49.11? Can that Opportunistic Web site try to Leverage the 9/11 attacks any more??
I was really touched by this part of the site:
Ok, I'm just Dying to know: How would a "Hotel Security Specialist" (WTF is that exactly?!) have saved the day?Background Security Checks on Guests?
Listening devices in the Rooms?
Ethnic profiling?
I know! Follow guests around and Spy on them! Remember "If you see something, Say Something"...
Could that web site be a any more offensive? Images of the burning towers on the ID Card?
Let me be diplomatic: Are you Fucking kidding??
2,603 people died and you use it for Marketing?
Unbelievable...
SD doesn't understand comedy shows on the BBC either.
I'm going to mark 9/11 by downing a 12-pack of PBR and watching videos on the net of people falling out of the towers. I love the way some of them flail about while falling and others just kind of float down to the ground like a leaf in autumn.
I'm just sick of the same tired of the NY Public Library using 9/11 as an excuse to search my bags when I enter the library. And the cops as an excuse to search me when I enter the subway. and read all my mail listen to all my conversations and monitor any transaction I might make. Oh yeah using 9/11 as an excuse to murder tens of thousands of children in the middle east. Go back to your culture of masturbation, I know you don't care trolls.
I will mark the day the same way I do every year - by doing two things that are very meaningful. One, I donate platelets in memory of the lives lost that day. Two, I send a contribution to Tuesday's Children, an amazing organization that is dedicated to helping the children who lost one or two parents that day.
I didn't lose a family member that day, but I was there. I saw it, I smelled it, I escaped it. The time has come for the organized public remembrances to end, though the private ones will rightfully continue inside all of us forever more.
#27 said:
But I'm working on it...forget them already. They had their memorial service for five years, that's enough. Grieve in your own home now, it's time to move on.
People are 9/11'd out alright.
It's been six years and what has been accomplished? Every group with a stake in 9/11 can't agree on design, memorial, name order, etc. But politicians sure keep using 9/11 to get elected (here's hoping that that strategy backfires and we actually elect people who solve problems instead of marketing them).
If people want to have a memorial fine, please do, and we should all respect that. But we should all respect that the time for mourning is long over and people need to move on and start building.
#31 said:
Work harder :) and get back to work.
I am defintely tired of the coverage and the overblown memorials that are more like parades then memorials. I have planned my last three vacations to coincide with the "rememberance" so that I don't have to be bombarded coverage that has just become a political tool to make certain people and groups look better.
go back to the hole you came from. all of you. none of you lived here at the time and yet have the nerve to comment on all of this.
i agree that maybe the coverage is a bit overblown and maybe some of the ceremony too, but if you lived here at the time you might feel a bit different.
[7] Posted by: guest | September 4, 2007 8:41 PM
a bit presumptuous, don't you think? jackass.
J_D, Hey! It's my day off!
Bored at work?
I did live hear at the time and would rather not be forced to think about it by overblown media events every year. Let people grieve and try to move on in peace.
I meant here. Still early. Need to wake up.
It is time to MOVE ON and stop being professional martyrs and career victims.
In a word - NO.
That said, it is time for the pols - especially Guilianni and GW to stop exploiting those who suffered.
I can't believe the morons outside nyc who believe Guilianni is some kind of hero.
Mourn however you want. The problem is the victims' families invoking 9/11 to justify really unreasonable demands -- like ignoring safety codes and holding the memorial at Ground Zero, now an active work site.
We should have moved on at least somewhat by now. Especially when we stop to consider that this single act of mass murder has been used for four-plus years to justify a protracted killing spree in Iraq, equivalent in terms of casualties to a 9/11 every day for at least half a year.
I don't think it's a question of mourning, it's a the fact that we are still under attack from radical muslim extremists and we cannot EVER forget or we will lose America as we know it.
I think "moving on" from tragedy must entail some kind of addressing of the physical, environmental after-effects of the loss, and the sources of the loss, and we have done neither. We have no memorial, we are cutting off our civil liberties to spite our faces, we are making war on the wrong people, and we have squandered the world's compassion and good will.
Is it our own fault for enabling insane policies? For enshrining a super-capitalist society that will never see the attack site in any other terms than dollars and cents?