I had just returned to the States from a relatively innocuous tour in The Bahamas as a diplomat with the U.S. Department of State. The most personally significant event during my time in Nassau was meeting and marrying my Romanian-born wife. My onward assignment was to Moscow, Russia with a year of intensive Russian-language training beforehand. So in August, 2001, with my new bride in tow, I headed to Washington, DC to begin my training. Most diplomatic training takes place at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in Arlington, Virginia, but we decided to live in the District and took temporary quarters at the infamous Watergate Hotel next to the State Department. This was all part of my plan to immerse my foreign-born spouse in the wonders and history of our Nation’s Capital. For two weeks, life was good.
September 11th was a gorgeous day up and down the eastern seaboard—cool, crisp, and not a cloud in the sky. A day you felt great to be alive. I had just settled down in my Russian class when a rather rattled classmate burst through the door exclaiming, “A plane just hit the World Trade Center!” My first thought was that this was just a repeat of 1945, when a B-25 bomber accidentally flew into the Empire State Building in heavy fog, killing 14 people. However, a growing commotion in the hallway outside our classroom caused us all to rush out the door, despite our Russian teacher’s protests. In the common area, students had gathered around a TV, which was tuned to CNN. The unforgettable image of planes crashing into the World Trade Center seemed totally surreal. As we watched in morbid fascination, a friend who was in Spanish-language training joined me and relayed a bizarre observation. He said that while in class, he had witnessed an airliner fly past his classroom window at tree-top level. No sooner had he told me this then we heard a loud bang. At the time we simply thought someone had slammed a door, having no idea that American Airlines Flight 77 had just crashed into the Pentagon.
By now, it was obvious the United States was under attack. Mass hysteria was also kicking in, fed by the media. The shock of witnessing spectacular attacks on American icons created not only a feeling of helplessness, but fed into a growing panic. Reports of car bombs outside the State Department and the Capitol led us to believe the federal government was being targeted. FSI administrators announced that FSI was being evacuated, as it too was considered a target. We were also informed that all bridges and access points in and out of Washington were being closed. All I could think of was my poor wife back in the middle of a war zone as I hopped in my jeep and drove like hell to get back there. I beat the road closures and found my wife in our hotel room, transfixed to the television in the same state of disbelief that had affected us all. After several hours trapped in our room, witnessing the endless footage of death and destruction, I became stir-crazy and felt the need to be around other people. I called a friend and we agreed to meet for a drink. I will never forget walking down the middle of normally bustling streets, not a soul in sight with the exception of soldiers setting up watch posts on certain street corners. As we crossed an empty Pennsylvania Avenue it hit me—life as I knew it was over.
In the weeks and months that followed, chaos seemed to reign, especially in the Capital. Air travel was halted, barriers and security appeared everywhere, and the city seemed more like a military installation than a tourist destination. Smoke from the Pentagon’s fires seemed to linger forever and the once self-important population now had an air of paranoia about it. However, 10 years later, most have adjusted. Post-9/11 means longer lines at airport security checks, otherwise life has returned to normal. Osama bin Laden is finally dead and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq seem to be drawing down. Jobs and the economy are first and foremost in the minds of most Americans. Yes, as we approach the 10th anniversary of 9/11, our focus is once again on our domestic issues. This anniversary is a remembrance of all those who lost their lives on that fateful day 10 years ago, but it should also serve as a reminder of why the tragedy took place. America the invincible is vulnerable. In looking back, we need to see 9/11 as wake-up call.
In Samuel Huntington’s, “The Clash of Civilizations” and the eponymous theory that was put forth, Huntington argued that people’s cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. Huntington maintained that it was not only wrong, but also egotistical and dangerous to think that Western civilization should be thought of as a universal civilization. Western civilization is just one of the major civilizations, and since older classic civilizations tend to strongly reject the influence of others, Western civilization is not likely to become a universal civilization.
The fundamental role of the classic civilization has always been to maintain and preserve the established forms of social life. This is clearly the goal of Islamic extremists and even many mainstream Muslims—the establishment and preservation of an Islamic state, governed solely by strict Sharia law. However, Western civilization possesses irresistible attractions on several levels and herein lies the dilemma for classic civilizations. The affluent consumer lifestyle brought about by successful Western civilizations becomes a subject to be talked about with envy in non-Western regions. This “threat” posed by the Western powers generates an inevitable nationalist response to the inroads of these industrial intruders. Classic civilizations must either embrace modernization or risk becoming economic and political subjects of the West. The nationalistic response to this clash of civilizations is the rise of fundamentalist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which look to repel the intruders by any means possible.
In looking back pre-9/11, it is easy to recall those halcyon days of naïveté, when America’s enemies were an ocean away. We were like the small town where nobody needed to lock their doors at night. The enemy was always out there; we just thought their methods too crude to reach us at home—at least not in the tragic and spectacular manner in which they did. The U.S. may still be a super-power, but as we saw 10 years ago, we are far from invulnerable. We must ask ourselves what have we done in the last 10 years to alter the paradigm? Have we done anything to mitigate this clash of civilizations, or have we only exacerbated it? Did America get woken up only to hit the snooze button? If so…
