Thursday, May 11, 2006

United 93

I can't remember the last time, if ever, I cried, or grew teary eyed, at an Economist article. Hurricane Katrina wiping out New Orleans, the cover of the dead city was much more shock and awe than anything that happened in Baghdad, the London bombings and the Brazilian getting shot, I got most of my coverage from the Guardian and BBC websites, and after September 11 I think I was all cried out by the time the magazines came out at the end of the week. Before September 11, it was too girly to even contemplate crying about news stories - yes, even for Rwanda 1994. But that is what happened, getting teary eyed to the Economist, this week.

I wasn't considering watching the movie United 93, thought it would be too sacchariney (if that is a word), too rah rah American and all that. Lexington, the American opinion piece in the Economist, did an article on it. I suddenly want to go and see the movie - even though I know I will probably bawl my eyes out, akin to Hotel Rwanda. Apparently it is done quite like a fly on the wall documentary - as I suddenly try to shovel The Office, Spinal Tap and all the other mockumentaries out of my head.

From the article -

'Many Americans have done their best to forget September 11th—driven partly by a desire to return to a normal life and partly by a desperate hope that nothing like that will ever happen again. The terrorist threat? A recent CBS News poll on April 28-30th found that only 3% of people think that terrorism is the most important issue facing the country. Airport security? A bore and a farce. The war against terrorism? A hopeless mess.'

And the thoughts from that awful awful day - or night as it was in New Zealand - come flooding back. I was woken at about 12.45am by a frantic sounding call from K, talking about New York and Washington being attacked. Still half asleep I remember back and feel I wasn't convinced, it was either a bad joke or I was still dreaming, she said to turn on the TV, so I did.

And there it was. By the time I woke up, I think both towers at the World Trade Center had collapsed, so there was just the fog of debris covering lower Manhattan on the live shots, but again and again and again they were showing the planes hitting, the towers collapsing.

I gave my parents a quick call, waking them up three hours earlier timezone wise in Brisbane - I am sure I sounded panicked myself, and didn't even say it was me. It wasn't quite that's nice dear let us go back to sleep, but it kind of felt that way - I doubted myself for waking them up for a while, but then was told later on that my brother had come home, woken them up, and they had watched the scenes from what seemed like Armageddon for a little while.

I got back on the phone with K, and proceeded to stay awake the entire remainder of the night. I didn't have cable TV at that stage, it was still about a week away from delivery, but the free to air channels gave over to ongoing coverage, with no ads, for two whole days. The planes crashing into the towers - well, to be more precise, the second plane crashing into the towers, it wasn't until later in the morning that the only video coverage of the first plane hitting made it to screen.

The Pentagon burning, and some other plane shot down in Pennsylvania. I remember that morning, and it was a majority of thought at that crazy time that United 93 had been shot down by the US Air Force. The astonishing, on any other day it would be historic, decision to ground every single civilian plane in US airspace. The coverage from Gander, Newfoundland of those plucky Newfies giving hospitality to all the trans-Atlantic flights - or was that later on that I saw that coverage?

A possible 40,000 dead screamed the first headlines in the print media, later that afternoon, NZ time. Getting off the phone that morning, eventually, having a shower, heading to work, with the images of people jumping from 110 stories in my head. The amazement that some people had only had an hour's worth of coverage after having a 'normal' night's rest - I am sure my thinking was surely something this bad would have sent a psychic jolt through the entire world, waking everyone up. Obviously not.

The news that the President was flitting from Florida to Alabama to Missouri to North Dakota. Coward, I thought, speaking truthfully here. Me giving him half the benefit of the doubt when he did his address to the nation, and the world, the evening of Sept 11. Only a day or two before he had been saying that Mexico was America's best friend, and I had been wondering what had become of the Brits and Canadians - well, they were back in favour on September 12. And NATO giving it's full backing to whatever the Americans wanted to do in striking back at whoever it was that had hit them.

The Economist, as it usually does, puts it best - on September 11, we were in 'a world out of control'.

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