andrew2you

posting.

ok, so this is an odd addition. For extra credit we could respond to a question posted in one of the online class forums which asked about our involvement in an important world event. It inspired a lot of great postings about some of the recent school shootings and, as is to be expected, a number of postings about 9/11. This experience of mine never really comes up, so I thought I would post here too. It isn't very well thought out and rambles a lot, but I hope you all get the gist.

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For me, like many others here, 9/11 takes the cake. But, because my experience of 9/11 was really different than most other Americans, so are my lessons from that time.

I was working at the US Consulate General in Sydney, Australia that day. The beginning of 9/11 started at about 2 or 3am Sydney time. By the beginning of the work day the whole of the event was detailed in a huge September, 12^th morning paper. Having slept through it, many people experienced the complete 9/11 saga all at once in those pages or on the morning news.

Now, talk of terrorist acts targeting US installations abroad was nothing new before this day. And being that the US consulate was on the 56^th and 57^th floor of one of Sydney’s tallest skyscrapers, it was no surprise that the employees of the consulate were contacted very early that morning and told not to report to work. My fear, my family’s fear and I think most of America’s fear at the time was palpable. It was hanging in the air everywhere. It was the same for Americans overseas.

We didn’t resume our operations at the consulate until that Friday. My job at the consulate was to advise foreign students on how to apply to US colleges and universities. (The first two questions from foreign students are usually, “What exactly is this SAT exam?”, and “Do most Americans go to Harvard?”) My first appointment for that day was with a Malaysian family who were rescheduled from September 11^th. A young girl and her mother came up with flowers and expressed their deepest sympathies. By wearing their hajibs, it was obvious that they were Muslim as well. This is not unusual, many different people from all aver the world want to come and study in the US and I’d had countless advising sessions with incredibly diverse groups of people.

But that Friday was different. Some of the major news at that time was the alarming instances of Americans attacking “Islamic looking people” within America. Both in big cities and more rural states too (and many times the people who were attacked were actually Hindu Indians that seemed just like another “towel head terrorist” to some mindless violent yahoos.). The president actually addressed the nation about this issue at some point too.

During that Friday appointment while searching college catalogues for this family I was left thinking, “Why do these people even want to go to America now? Aren’t they afraid? Isn’t this mother afraid of what people will think or do when her 19 year old daughter strolls around Waco, Texas in her hajib while attending Baylor University? And, beyond the religions implications, how could anyone even think about living in and being safe in NYC or any other major US city right now?”

Really, I was amazed that they were even there with me in that moment. Our advising is offered for free, so we fully expected no one to come in for their appointments that day. Why would you show up, only a few days after 9/11, to what was certainly seen there in Sydney as a high profile US target? (We were the only target there and we were very high up in only one tower… they’d only need one plane. It seems a bit laughable now, but at the time, everyone who came back to work that Friday had to take a deep breath and cast off second thoughts before heading up those elevators.)

In the weeks that followed, the entrance to the building in Sydney which houses our consulate was practically barricaded with the candles, cards, US flags, and flowers people had left as condolences. They had to close one side of the building’s main entrance to allow for more space. (This is an unbelievable amount of flowers were talking about. I’m sure you all saw pictures of similar scenes on TV of this happening all around the world in the weeks after 9/11) Also, the press made a point to ask people who knew of Americans living there to find them and offer help and connection to those of us who were so far away from our families in the US.

In short, the weeks following 9/11 turned into the most heartwarming and world-affirming experience I’ve ever had.

Never had I imagined that I would be hugged by a mother from Malaysia who didn’t speak my language or share my beliefs but would communicate her sincerest connection to me as a fellow human with a country, family and heart in crisis. Keeping in mind, that she was doing this in the same moment as asking me and my fellow countryfolk to help look after her daughter’s safety and education in the USA.

It’s hard to not have that experience shape your view of 9/11. For me, it catapulted me into a greater understanding of our struggle as a whole world to survive and advance ourselves. And seeing how we can do this in a spirit of understanding and connection. The differences between me and other people in the world suddenly shrank and I felt more at home in world than ever before. The entire world loved us that day like they love a child who suddenly falls off of a swing set. They rushed up to us with comfort and understanding, gave us some gentle encouragement to dust ourselves off, and, while noting that we should be more vigilant in the future, they also encouraged us to not let that one experience ruin our outlook on life.

You can decide for yourself how much of our collective reaction to 9/11 has been a drive to create a renewed sense of global family complete with a better connection to the world around us or how much has been some form or another of childish rage at the swing set. (How’s that been going for us?)

I sometimes wonder what kind of country we would be today if we didn’t only see months and months of reruns of two towers crumbling into dust and sketchy images of shady people brandishing AK-47s in mountain caves. If, instead, each person also could have answered a gentle knock on the door that following Friday to find a Malaysian mother (speaking through her young daughter’s interpretation) letting you know that she’s incredibly saddened and has only the utmost love for us as fellow humans going through a tough time. And then, after you’ve each had some time cry or connect a bit together, she asks you to please accept her daughter as a new member of our larger country’s community while she studies and grows with our children for a few years.

How many less larger-than-life US flag rallies would we have attended where people screamed obscenities at the world around them? And how many more phone calls or trips to visit our new extended family overseas would we have made, helping in some small way to help bridge the gap between us just a little bit better?

But, in the end, I had my experience and everyone else had theirs. My 9/11 was painful, but left me a little more hopeful and a little more connected to the world outside of our borders. My wish is that your 9/11 included some hope as well as pain and that this percentage of hope and connection, no matter how small, grows with time, like mine does.

Ps - When I share this experience, some people scoff and say that those of us overseas didn’t really understand 9/11 like those who were on US soil that day. (This, of course, implying that we were somehow less American that day than they were.) In a very specific way, they’re wrong. One of my fellow American grad students at the University of Sydney lost his girlfriend that day. The flight headed for California on 9/11 was departing to Sydney right afterward and his girlfriend had got on it (as a surprise) to come and see him for his birthday in Australia. He didn’t find this out until more than a week later. And, in a larger sense, they’re wrong too. These people perhaps don’t realize that our first reaction that day was to get on any flight home to be with our families and fellow countrymen (getting on a plane was the last thing on most American’s minds I’m sure!). The first thing you want to do is be with your loved ones during a tragedy. In fact, we felt a severe sense of separation and aloneness. But, we couldn’t go home. In the immediate aftermath, America was closed. Plus, we had a job to do wherever we were stationed or studying. So, I suppose what I’m saying is, just remember, simply because we were halfway around the world didn’t mean that the impact was any less than that of the average American.