9/11 Life Under Attack - ITV last night. Sensitive content

[MydogWillow]

I'm unsure where to post this as it's to off-load really.

I sometimes watch programmes on 9/11 but found last night's ITV one so incredibly harrowing. It's stuck with me moreso than the others possibly because it was mostly personal footage.

It was a superbly put together programme but has affected me so much last night and today. I just wanted to see if anyone else has been particularly affected by this one?

The footage which has particularly stayed with me are the things I haven't seen before: the thuds on the canopy, the eery piped music in the plaza/complex still playing in the aftermath, the lady speaking to the emergency service telephone operator and the students reactions.

The whole thing is still incomprehensible. I guess the personal footage brings home the impact that day had on ordinary people's lives and how they have coped since.

The world has felt very grim post-millennium. 9/11, tube bombings, the Boxing Day tsunami, constant war in the Middle East, the global crash in 2007, Brexit, a global pandemic… all in the space of 20 years.

It’s horrific.

*Sorry forgot to mention grenfell & Manchester arena. How bad is it that I forgot such awful events because they blend in with all the other awful events?

@Realyorkshiretea

The world has felt very grim post-millennium. 9/11, tube bombings, the Boxing Day tsunami, constant war in the Middle East, the global crash in 2007, Brexit, a global pandemic… all in the space of 20 years.

It’s horrific.

So IRA bombings, first Iraq war (following the invasion of Kuwait), the Bosnian and genocide in Europe, Eta bombings, The Oaklahoma City bombing or the Dunblane Massacre were all just a cake walk or did you just forget them?

Or we can go back further and talk about the Bopal Disaster or the Zubrugee Disaster or the Munich Olympics etc.

As I say, this is my point about these things not being real and being things that 'happened to other people far away'.

What makes 9/11 disaster different is it was the first 'real time' disaster just as 24 hour news which instantly broadcast to the world live events unfolded.

We've since had many others which we see even more up close and personal - almost giving us a voyeursistic ability to 'be part of the story' and 'action'.

This makes us feel closer to events.

The idea that we've had some post millennial uptick in horrific events is one i find slightly reprehensible because it diminishes the impact of events before that which have had long lasting repercussions and relevance long after they occurred.

And going back to my point about how I felt personally on 9/11 about how Americans seemed to think they'd discovered terrorism on that day and how it boiled my piss, i kind of get the same feeling when I see comments like that.

@RedToothBrush

So IRA bombings, first Iraq war (following the invasion of Kuwait), the Bosnian and genocide in Europe, Eta bombings, The Oaklahoma City bombing or the Dunblane Massacre were all just a cake walk or did you just forget them?

That is such a deeply unfair comment to me, I’m not even going to dignify it with a response.

I found your comment offensive.

As i say its about media. Not disasters.

Apparently the last fire at WTC did not stop burning until December.

Correct. I'm a New Yorker and was at work, about a mile north of the WTC when the attack happened. I don't have access to the ITV documentary, but another fact that is little known is the smell of burnt flesh that lingered for weeks as the fires burned down. Also, there were the thousands of "Missing" posters that went up all over the city as people looked for their loved ones, hoping they had escaped alive.

The event inspired quite a number of classical music compositions, my favorite being John Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls.

It's a very powerful, moving piece that incorporates NYC street sounds and voices chanting "missing", in reference to the posters. It's just 25 minutes long and well worth a listen.

I was really moved when we visited the 9/11 memorial and museum. The museum was brilliantly designed and very moving without being maudlin. I highly recommend it if you're ever in NYC.

Yes I think that was unfair @RedToothBrush. She was not saying all these things since 9/11 were worse than anything before, just commenting on how grim things have been since this date.

And if we're talking about things that annoy us, I find it annoying when Brits think that Americans felt like they discovered terrorism on 9/11. The US had plenty of experience with terrorism before that -- against our troops in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, the right-wing terrorism at home with Oklahoma City, and Al Qaeda attacks against our embassies and ships before 9/11.

What the US had not experienced was a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11, with thousands of people dead and a city half-destroyed. So yes, people were upset and freaked out by the idea that terrorists could do that much damage, and to be fair it was not only Americans who were shocked by that.

There is a fantastic book about the attacks on the twin towers called ‘102 minutes’ or something like that because from the time the first plane struck till the second tower collapsed was just 102 minutes. All of that death and destruction was over in less than two hours. Lots of eye witness accounts which are harrowing and pretty gruesome. I’d no idea until I read it that people actually survived at the impact zone in the South Tower, a few made it out and lived to tell the tale.

@RedToothBrush so every time someone says ‘What a shit year, because of covid’, do you say ‘That’s very offensive because virtually every year has been a shit year, here is a list of all the atrocities that have ever happened ever, going back to Mesopotamia’?

This always happens with 9/11. Someone always starts with the whattaboutery, and the "America isn't innocent ya know"

My DP does this and it drives me nuts. You can't even talk about the event without someone getting political and derailing, or worse.

@NeonJellyBaby

There is a fantastic book about the attacks on the twin towers called ‘102 minutes’ or something like that because from the time the first plane struck till the second tower collapsed was just 102 minutes. All of that death and destruction was over in less than two hours. Lots of eye witness accounts which are harrowing and pretty gruesome. I’d no idea until I read it that people actually survived at the impact zone in the South Tower, a few made it out and lived to tell the tale.

Yes, "102 Minutes" by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn. It is a well-put-together and affecting read.

Thank you @Handsoffstrikesagain, I think so too

I mean the World Trade Center itself was bombed in 1993, terrorism was not a new concept.

I imagine many Americans would find those comments about discovering terrorism incredibly offensive.

Correct.

This always happens with 9/11. Someone always starts with the whattaboutery, and the "America isn't innocent ya know"

I've been on MN for five years or so, and you're right, it's as predictable as the setting sun. Something about it brings out the worst in some MN'ers.

If you need reminding that it’s about people, rather than playing disaster top trumps, realyorkshiretea mentioned Simon Armitage’s poem ‘ Out of the Blue*

It’s distressing, but so real.

I visited the memorial site and museum a few years ago. It's very moving. I remember the day vividly.

I'm sure they do.

It doesn't mean I should express my opinion or that they shouldn't express theirs though.

We are allowed to have different opinions.

The problem for me is when we don't discuss how different people view the events of 9/11.

9/11 came about precisely because of the US (and others) intervention in other countries and using them for various proxy wars. You can't talk about US international policy and international islamic terrorism without acknowledging the lack of cultural sensitivity and understanding of how actions would be understood and affect people around the world.

I remember in the 90s doing media and there being the comment about how 1 white western life was worth more than 100s if Africans or Asians in terms of how it was reported. Its partly due to distance and relevance but also part of a dehumanising process and a deliberate political strategy of trying to sanitise certain actions. As i say the term 'collateral damage'.

This isn't a new feeling for me. I was at home watching neighbours whilst talking to friends on a forum and on ICQ (i think it was!) as it happened, and that was my feeling even then. It remains unchanged.

I remember Bush's first speech and how it rankalled with me as I found it so tremendously hypocritical and knew that it would almost certainly result in many deaths of civilians elsewhere.

20 years on, i find watching footage of 9/11 utterly heartbreaking still. I do feel for people caught up in it, precisely because I've lived through that moment of utter terror on the streets of where I lived.

I just happened to think then as i do now that, guns and bombs wont solve this. Its understanding how different people have these very different world views born of their own personal life experience and knowledge and trying to find a war forward despite of that.

In the 20 years since, i think we've firmly gone backwards with that, with a fracturing world where difference of opinion are shunned and people self select into groups that only agree with each other.

I can't change how i felt then or now. Telling me I'm wrong/insensitive or whatever doesn't change it either. It just tells me that my life experience isnt important and my views shouldn't be listened to. It compounds the tension and alienation.

Imagine that magnified in other ways across the world.

I had a dream once that I was looking out the window and a plane was flying towards me. No escape. That was terrifying enough. I can't imagine actually living that experience.

People would have actually seen a giant plane coming towards them at high speed.

Makes me shiver.

9/11 came about precisely because of the US (and others) intervention in other countries

That 'others' includes the UK. We could be here all day talking about all the terrible things the UK has done around the world over the past few centuries.

But I would not come on a thread where people are talking about the Troubles and how terrible they were and the personal terror they experienced, and try to redirect the conversation to all the atrocities the UK has committed. And I would not say, oh you Brits think you discovered terrorism, what about all the other people in the world who have had it far worse.

[quote NovemberWitch]If you need reminding that it’s about people, rather than playing disaster top trumps, realyorkshiretea mentioned Simon Armitage’s poem ‘ Out of the Blue*

It’s distressing, but so real.

[/quote] Thanks, I wasn't familiar with the poem, but it's beautiful. The only thing that I found odd was the use of the phrase "pegging out washing", which an American would never say. However, there were a number of Brits in the WTC that day.

@RedToothBrush

I absolutely get what you’re saying, and I’m the first person to raise that up to a million Iraqi citizens were killed during the conflict whenever anyone mentions western soldiers. Whose deaths were also tragic, but fewer, and during a line of duty where they accepted the risk when taking the job.

The people in 9/11 weren’t soldiers, they were civilians - women and men just going about their daily lives, to die in a gruesome and nightmarish tragedy that unfolded for the world to see, with safety jusssst out of reach… their lives were very similar to ours - same language, similar-ish societies, same commute, same morning coffee, same lift ride up to your office floor, same ‘morning team’ as you get through the door. Same toilet break, same clock watching hoping the day would pass quickly so you could get home. It’s only natural to be more spooked by atrocities happening to people that live lives similar to yours, because you can ‘imagine’ how devastating it would be in your life. It’s like when somebody is murdered on your road - it’s no less tragic than if it happened 100 miles away, but it will feel scarier, people will talk about it more. It absolutely 100% doesn’t mean you consider ‘western’ lives to be more valuable than the lives of others - especially ‘white’ lives - a high proportion of WTC workers were African American or Asian.

And given we’re a couple of days from the anniversary which orphaned 3000 children and left many others with strange cancers, horrific PTSD and trauma, I don’t think posting on a commemoration thread in the tone you have done is at all appropriate.

@MissConductUS I think it’s supposed to be from the viewpoint of a British worker in the States - hence the St. George’s flag on his desk and the pressed Oak leaf (traditionally British tree). I believe there were around 50 British workers in the towers who died.