Happy Birthday to Danny and to Rehema!

It is now somewhat of a conscious decision process for many of us, isn’t it?

Do we commemorate the day or not? It is September 11th, fully seven years since that plate-shifting day in the American consciousness, and many of us probably wake up deciding—will I mark this day consciously in some somber way, or will I go about my life in a consciously blissfully complacent manner?

As with many of those iconic historic days seared into the collective consciousness, we remember where we were on such a day. I had driven to Hackley on that supremely beautiful September morn, a bit uneasy about teaching the art of ancient Sumer in AP Art History. That art just didn’t sit well in my head yet. Of course, I never got to try that lesson out that day—we were called to the auditorium so that the headmaster could relate the news of what had transpired in the previous half hour.

As New Yorkers it wasn’t out of our minds for months and months. I remember that at Christmas parties in December, 2001, it was very common to have the festive guests start talking, and comparing notes, about the World Trade Center tragedies. In December, 2002 I wrote about the lingering effects in the New York area about that day at the towers. I had one friend from Charlotte who wrote me after that letter asking me when I would “get over it.” The historian in me relished all of this—when do we ever get over something???

There was another tragedy in New York—nearly a century ago now—when a pleasure boat exploded in flames on the East River. I forget exactly, but around 1300 perished that beautiful afternoon. Editorial writers seized on this tragedy to bemoan the changes in 20th century sensibilities, how technology would doom us, and asked, would we ever recover? Politicians took advantage of the many memorial services to use the grief as a fear-mongering bully pulpit. People knew the pain of this tragedy would be seared into the souls of New Yorkers and Americans forever more.

By the time I moved to New York in the 1990s there still was an annual memorial service of the doomed Gowanus pleasure boat. As a curious New Yorker, and history devotee, I attended the memorial service once, and of course found it interesting how people need to remember, or need to do something to process the emotions of events and tragedies. I noticed sometime after 9/11 that the observations of the Gowanus faded away into the dusty pages of history.

Recently, I saw on the on-line version of The Wall Street Journal an interesting comment: “We have arrived at the seventh year after the events of September 11, 2001. This summer the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey issued a stunning document to explain why ground zero has remained nothing but a hole for some seven years. It is arguable the greatest political and bureaucratic fiasco in the history of the world. Remember the line about how if we don’t rebuild the towers ‘terrorists will win’? The terrorists will be dead of old age before this project is finished.” Thank you for the sobering reminder Daniel Henninger.

In 2002 I sang in a concert of Brahms’ Requiem on September 11th. It was at Columbia University, and working our way through this monumental piece about death and the power of resurrection seemed a fitting way to observe this historic day. Many people go to the recitations of the names of loved ones lost, many stare upwards at the “pillars of light” that New York City provides from “Ground Zero.”

But I also have two friends whose birthdays are on September 11. Danny, an affable and marvelous French teacher at Hackley, hosts a birthday party for himself every year on this day, not in the hopes of distracting everyone from the horror of the historic event, but as a reminder that we can still choose to love dearly in the midst of such pain. Rehema, one of the best blessings I have at KA, turns another year older today. Yesterday someone casually said, “Oh, don’t forget Rehema’s birthday tomorrow” (rest assured, I would not forget this great friend’s day!) and another colleague sighed, “Oh, gosh, her birthday is September 11th? What a horrible day for a birthday.” As if we have a choice! I am choosing to celebrate the good humor, the intelligence, and the kindnesses these two friends have shown me as my way of commemorating the day.

In the stew that is the marking of September 11th, I heard on CNN that both candidates for the U.S. presidency will be making appearances at the scorched site. I use that phrase “making appearances” because it does seem a little much like the grandstanding politicians always do for the photo ops. And as I thought about that, and of course, neither really had a choice but to appear at the Lower Manhattan site, it did give me pause to think about the upcoming election.

I am not going to become a political blog ranter (not much anyway) but it is interesting soaking in all the impressions, opinions, and hopes of the people around me. Not that Americans probably know, but people around the world are watching the U.S. presidential race more closely than usual. The foreign adventurism of President George W. Bush has left the world in no doubt that America’s president is in a sense the president of all of the globe’s citizens. And as I have talked with my friends and colleagues in the Middle East—they are fascinated by Senator Barack Obama. And here is why: the fact that a black man has come this close to being elected the president of the United States has already given pause to those who had always dismissed the USA as a nation of illiterate, gun-toting racists. (Seriously, when traveling abroad, that conclusion is as common as coca-cola.) The roiling story of racial bitterness in the USA is so well-known outside of the USA. My friends and colleagues feel that if Obama were actually to win the White House, it would transform and electrify America’s image worldwide, instantly and for the better.

Much has been written about what an Obama presidency could do for race relations in the United States, but I have come to see what a win by Obama in November could even improve race relations outside of the United States. Obama’s spectacular rise from a single-parent home and a mixed-race background is a story whose horizons extend beyond national borders. As I spoke with a French-North African living in Amman, she said that Obama’s story inspires hope in disaffected youth in other places, and as she believes, the angry, hopeless, immigrant youths in France find something “to smile about” in the Obama candidacy.

I asked a German man who goes to my church in Amman what he thought, if he even thought about, an Obama win. He said that Germans pride themselves on “social tolerance and progressive thinking, and if Obama wins, it would put a crack in the smugness of Europe’s self-image.”

I asked another woman about race and Obama and America and the world. She sighed, and said, “Does it have to be Obama? Why not Colin Powell or Condi Rice? They would make for better reliable military allies, and far better trading partners.” As I have conducted my very un-professional poll, there is keen interest in this election, because there seems to be something very crucial at stake. Obama’s skin color may have made him a hero to many immigrants and ethnic minorities, but my Arab friends are watching how he has become less interested in raising, and pushing issues dear to their hearts on the issue of Palestine. Senator Obama has recently turned down all invitations to speak to Arab-American groups.

All of this stew of emotions brings us back to September 11th—how do “they” see us around the world? What is the state of our union? What is the state of our global image? How has the tragedy of 9/11 transmogrified some events, changed politics, and created new dynamics? What does this mean for the future? How would a President McCain or a President Obama affect the world? Can they avoid being like Governor Jack Stanton in Joe Klein’s astute novel Primary Colors? (I mean we should all re-read this novel and come to that point when the Stanton character explains to an aide why it’s necessary to betray all the principles he once held dear. Stanton had gone into politics to help “the folks…and to change the whole country.” But to help the folks, you first have to appeal to their basest instincts, so you can win the election. Barack Obama and John McCain would have thought of themselves as incapable of such slippery rationalizations, but the idealist and the maverick are now but one more electoral victory away from realizing their greatest ambition. With a place in history beckoning, and a tarnished worldwide image waiting to be rehabilitated, will they succumb to these necessary hypocrisies? Oh come on! I get CNN and the evening news—a day later—come on, all this is good for the country, and for “the folks.”)

Enough!

Happy Birthday to Danny and to Rehema!!!