Remembering 9/11: 'The sense of invincibility is gone'

On 9/11 I was in the San Francisco bay area. I opened up my computer early in the morning, and on the MSN homepage was a video of the towers being attacked. I was in shock. At first I thought it was a simulation, or a hoax. Then I turned on the TV and heard the news. I just sat in front of the TV, stunned, for about half an hour while the same clips were being replayed. Then I couldn’t stand it any more and turned it off. I remember feeling hollowed out.

By then the other hijacked planes had crashed as well. I felt terrible for all the lives lost unnecessarily. I felt terrible to think someone hated America (and us Americans) so much. I felt terrible because I was afraid of the violent aftermath that I guessed would follow. And of course it did–in terms of government retaliation, and also in the hate-crimes that swept across the nation aimed at anyone who seemed/looked Muslim.

In a few days when the dead & missing were tallied, I felt devastated–we knew people who worked in the Towers and who were now dead through no fault of their own. Yet mingled with all the sorrow were the stories that floated up from the depths–stories of courage and selflessness and community, of people helping and sacrificing in an attempt to save each other.

Ten years later, I believe we still face some of the problems and tensions that erupted after 9/11. The sense of invincibility and immunity that America once felt is gone. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have taken their toll on the economy, on morale, and on the many soldiers that have been scarred by them. Even now, airport security remains a problem for people who look like us, and has led to a new ironic expression being coined, “flying while brown.” Even this year there was some nervousness about terrorist attacks happening again on that day.

But I also feel a deep sense of regeneration and acceptance–even as people think back and honour the memories of dear ones who perished in the towers or on the planes, the common people of America (and perhaps some of the political leaders, too) are committed to going forward, to valuing the fragility of life, and to creating better communication across cultures and nations that might stop future attacks like this which fed on people’s prejudices and their ignorance of each other. Many memorials, and many tributes of art, theater and opera (for instance, the Houston Grand Opera is doing a performance on the lives of Houstonians affected by 9/11)–many of them debuting on this 9/11–exemplify these sentiments.

As told to Sandip Roy.

Chitra Divakaruni’s latest novel is One Amazing Thing. Her short stories, Arranged Marriage, won an American Book Award. She teaches Creative Writing at the University of Houston.