Homage to 9/11

"Discourse" means "conversation," but it also means an "extended expression of thought on a subject." Our diction and syntax-the words we choose and the way we put them together-are the smallest pieces of any discourse.

1. In our national and private conversations, we have become more reverential.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., writing for the Miami Herald, gathered his wits within 24 hours of 9/11 and drafted his article, "We will go forward from this moment." In it, he writes, "We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless...On this day, the family's bickering is put on hold."

It was. This past year, even while arguing vociferously about issues like civil rights, immigration, intelligence and war that 9/11 spawned, we used words to bind our wounds.

"Grief" is among the first of the words. At a 2:49 pm news conference on September 11th, 2001, a reporter asked Mayor Rudolph Giuliani about the number of people killed. Giuliani answered, "I don't think we want to speculate about that-more than any of us can bear." We knew that we had lost a great deal that day: the lives of people who were part of us as Americans and, in too many cases, loved ones, our innocence, an optimism that was the birthright of every citizen of these United States. Giuliani's words were the epitaph, a feeling of the weight of all we had lost.

We speak of "heroes" a lot now. In a memorial created by visitors to the Somerset County, Pennsylvania crash site of United flight 93, someone painted "We believe in heroes" on a rock. On September 11th, we learned as a nation that any one of us has the marrow to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good. The meaning of "hero" is broadening to cover those who carry out larger-than-life acts in the normal course of their occupations, also.

During "The Concert for New York City" on October 20, 2001, a young person sat in the special front-row seats reserved for emergency services personnel and their families and held up a sign for the cameras: "My dad is your hero." Heroes previously were those who undertook courageous acts spontaneously, especially in war. New York's bravest and finest changed that assumption forever.

At the World Trade Center site, at the Pentagon and in the Pennsylvania countryside, people discuss "memorials" to 9/11 and those who died. Frank Lloyd Wright said that "Architecture is the scientific art of making structure express ideas," and what ideas to express-remembrance, sadness, hope, resolve-and how to express them are subjects hotly debated by local governments, residents and workers in the three areas, and the survivors of the departed. One year on, we still are not sure how to pay tribute to the people of September 11th in stone or steel. That thread of the discourse still unwinds.

Religion has always had its place in the public discourse of the United States. After 9/11, its focus changed to include religions dominant in other lands. The new terms arising in our vocabulary reflect a keener interest in Islam. Everyone now knows that Ramadan is a major Islamic holy day. Many of us added "burka," the body covering women were required to wear under the Taliban, to our vocabulary.

"Taliban" itself is a new word for most of us. The spelling of Qu'ran has changed from the less accurate transliteration "Koran," and better transliterations of other words, such as "Mohammad," are also emerging-all part of a greater attention paid to Islam and the Arabic nations.

Closure

A word probably jettisoned from the talk-show-influenced vocabulary of the United States since September 11th: "closure." On March 21, 2002, yourDictionary.com looked at "closure" with a skeptical eye as a Word of the Day (/cgi-bin/wotd.cgi?word=closure). YDC asserts that "closure" had taken on a "pop psychological meaning referring to a specific physical act required to put a traumatic event behind us."

David Egan is a man who debunks the premise that closure can be achieved at all. Mr. Egan lost both of his daughters in the World Trade Center. Amy Walden, reporter for the New York Times (October 5, 2001), spoke with him and wrote that Mr. Egan "had never liked the term 'closure'...and he likes it less now. If a simple notification [of remains being found] is enough to close a chapter that had been open a lifetime, he said, 'Maybe there wasn't much pith to that chapter to begin with.'"

Other people have expressed the same idea in different 9/11-related contexts. Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, speaking to PBS's Frontline, said of the videos of the planes crashing into the towers, "Namely, there is no closure. This doesn't say to me, move on. It says, stay. Stay and look. Stare into this black hole. Don't go away because this is going to change you."

In a memorial service for the victims on September 21, 2001, H.M. Queen Elizabeth II closed her message by saying, "Grief is the price we pay for love." Shedding "closure" from discussions of 9/11 designates that we now know that some kinds of love have no closure, and the grief over their loss has none, either.

2. Our public discourse has become more internationally informed and legalistic.

At 1:04 pm on September 11th, 2001, President George W. Bush made his first statement about the day's events. He said, "Make no mistake, the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts." Serving up justice is still a concern, and "justice" is an important word in our post-attack lexicon.

"Terrorism" has taken on a new meaning. It is now not only an activity that occurs in far away places; it is something that takes place at home. The new security measures at airports and the new Department of Homeland Security bear blatant testimony to this fact.

"War" is getting uncomfortably familiar. "Kabul," "Kandahar," and even "Afghanistan" itself have taken their places on the map of US historical moments alongside "Iwo Jima," "Pork Chop Hill" and "Pearl Harbor" as places where the US was betrayed or where we stood our ground on principle.

We still do not have a name for the this new kind of war, the war against terrorism where the defenders are often local policemen and firemen, and attacks are not against military objectives, but against innocent civilians. Some time ago we called it "The Global Counter-Terrorism Campaign" for lack of a better name. But time and history will play a key role in determining the name of this global conflict.

We know the names of some of our enemies. "Bin Laden" and "Taliban" have fallen to our museum of genocidal maniacs beside Hitler and Stalin. Words that hovered around the edges of the news are now in our general vocabulary, words like "jihad," al-Qaida," "Hamas," "holy war," "warlord." "Al-Qaida" itself has a number of alternative spellings with the Washington Post preferring "al Qaeda," while the New York Times prefers "Al Qaeda," or more simply (and correctly) "Qaeda". (And Osama bin Laden's name is most frequently spelled with the initial "O" rather than the less frequently spelled "Usama.")

Led by our President, the United States has reached for words to at once give voice to our outrage and sorrow and to provide some meaning to the nihilism we witnessed. On September 11th, 2001, President Bush spoke 958 words to the world. In his three pronouncements that day, President Bush used carefully wrought sentences focused on "we, the people:"

"Our" appeared 24 times
"Will" 14 times
"America" and "world" 9 times each
"American" 6 times
"nation," "security," "people" and "victims" 5 times each
"attack" and "attacks" 4 times
"evil" 4 times

The word "evil" has become a subject itself since that day. At 8:30 pm on September 11th, 2001, President Bush addressed the nation and set the tone of our war against terrorism by using "evil" four times in a 593-word speech: "Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror;" "Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature;" "The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts;" and, from Psalm 23, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me."

President Bush continued to use the word in his prepared addresses throughout September 2001: once during the Prayer Service on the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, 9/14 ("But our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil"), and two times in his Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People on 9/20 ("They are sent back to their homes or sent to hide in countries around the world to plot evil and destruction" and "Its [Islam's] teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.") "Evil" has become a catch-all term for "anti-humanism," "absolutism," "fanaticism," "hatred of another's values" and "terrorism against civilians by individuals not in a declared war against a country or in a recognized army."

"citizens" 3 times
"families" 3 times
"folks," 3 times-This word appeared rather infamously when President Bush stated the government would "conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act." He said that right after he was informed of the attacks. He also used "folks" to thank his hosts at the elementary school he was visiting the morning of September 11th and to refer to the emergency services and volunteers at the crash sites.
"God," "good" and "great" 3 times each
"Leaders" and "military" 3 times each
"Freedom" 3 times
"Protect" and "resolve" 3 times each
"Terrorism" appeared twice that day
"Comfort" and "condolences" each appeared once
"Intelligence," "investigation," and "FBI" each appeared once
"Dads" and "Moms," words usually used in private discourse, had power when President Bush used them to speak of the victims of September 11th; each appeared once

3. In private communication, the world got smaller as people used words to connect more.

After the attacks, many people turned to the Internet for both information from the public sector and for private expression. Individuals sat at computer keyboards and "talked." Letters of condolence, thoughts of revenge, expressions of outrage and terrible pity for New York City, Washington, DC and the families and friends of those who died in Pennsylvania poured forth from all over the globe. Some people used normally fluent expressions that cracked under the strain. Some people put their heart's native thoughts into broken English. Words were the world's lifeline to the denizens of the United States.

A search for letters of sympathy that deal with September 11th on the Internet yields 72,700 separate pages; the number of guestbooks, official and unofficial, dedicated to that day and the expressions of unity on professional and private Websites are almost beyond numbering. In many notes, we find the same words used again and again. Some of the most commonly occurring words appeared in pairs:

prayers - evil innocent - atrocity heart - outrage values - terrorists

These pairs do not negate each other. The outpouring of words from around the world after September 11th showed the need of kindness and empathy to reassert itself after the apocalyptic bursting forth of hatred and inhumanity.

Some onlookers to the events of September 11th couldn't forge notes adequate to what they felt. Their sentences on the limits of words:

I cannot express in words how I feel about this. Words cannot express. I lost my words. No words. The rest is silence.

4. Iconography in place of words has become familiar to us.

The correspondent who wrote "I cannot express in words how I feel about this" is not alone. In the United States, iconography of September 11th is now familiar. We cannot tell every single person we see that we are still affected by that day and its aftermath, so many of us have taken to wearing articles of emblazoned clothing or displaying symbols that attest that our thoughts incorporate the attacks and victims of 9/11.

The departments and agencies in New York City responded to the call of law and order and the need to help those who could no longer help themselves. Employees at the Pentagon died because their work furthered the United States's military interests. The airline crews and passengers and the workers at the World Trade Center plaza died not knowing why. FDNY and NYPD shirts and baseball caps show solidarity with all the men and women who perished while going about their lives that day-the second-bloodiest day in US history, after the Battle of Antietam in the Civil War:

1379 confirmed dead in New York City 1350 declared dead in New York City 78 listed as missing in New York City (The New York City numbers include 343 firemen 37 Port Authority officers and 23 New York City police officers) 233 killed in Washington, DC and Pennsylvania

Other ubiquitous artifacts of grief and patriotic anger are Old Glory in car windows, on clothing and accessories, in windows, on flagpoles and on bumper stickers. The bald eagle makes appearances on many items of clothing and car accessories, as well. The US flag pins that people, especially public servants, have taken to wearing on their lapels are noticeable. Many people wear pins with white ribbons of remembrance around an image of the Twin Towers. Some military personnel have added to their uniforms a single bar with "WTC" on it. Threadbare "I Love NY" t-shirts appeared as symbols of identification across geography and the Statue of Liberty regained her importance as a reminder of who we are.

5. Words from that day entered the private and public vocabularies of at least three generations of United States citizens alive on September 11th, 2001.

The other attack on American soil, Pearl Harbor, has come down through history as "a day of infamy" from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speech. September 11th has not been titled yet. Some commentators have called it "The Darkest Day," and that is fitting enough. But perhaps the date itself is the only signifier we need. The number 11 resembles the Twin Towers. And "eleven" is a prime number-indivisible, it stands alone.

September 11th brought our enemy within range. Our attackers, we have learned, were educated in "terrorist training camps" and communicated with each through "terrorist cells" across the globe. "Failures of intelligence" about the cells and the adherents of jihad against the West are purportedly an underlying cause for 9/11.

Other words have taken on new meaning. Until September 11th, it was common to hear people speak of starting all over again at "ground zero." Originally the term was for the epicenter of a nuclear explosion; incorrectly, it became used for the starting point of our endeavors. Today we are not only keenly aware of the original meaning of that word, but New Yorkers and many people whose business is words already spell it with capital letters, Ground Zero, which is fit and proper for so sacred a location.

The words "Twin Towers," "World Trade Center," "WTC," and "Manhattan" are still uttered daily by Americans across the United States, whether they have ever been to New York City or not.

"Homeland security" is a constant concern for our populace. Before September 11th, 2001, was there ever a need for such a phrase in a free society? We did not know the concept-the need-existed, so we had no words for it.

"Germ warfare" and "biological warfare" made their way into our everyday speech after the outbreak of anthrax through our postal system. As we survey the next steps of the war on terrorism, "weapons of mass destruction" and "chemical warfare" describe some reasons for attacking dangerous regimes. Our public discourse and private thoughts include other warfare terms. The idea of a "dirty bomb" delivered to an urban center frightens many of us. "Shoe bomb" appeared in the lexicon last year-probably never a weapon discussed at a Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting. "American Taliban" attached itself to John Walker Lindh, a traitor to many-and "traitorous" acts were discussed widely at the time of his capture.

For those of us who are true-blue Americans, "United we stand," "These colors don't run" and "Let's roll" are phrases that sum up our anger and defiance at the attacks of 9/11. We took "Let's roll," the last reported words of Todd Beamer on United flight 93, to heart, sometimes with a vengeance. Florida State University football has adopted "Let's roll" as its annual slogan for 2002 amid flaring accusations of profiteering and tastelessness. Perhaps more appropriately, entertainment stars wrote songs and tributes around the phrase. The controversy surrounding some uses of "Let's roll" speaks to its haunting importance to the United States as we go on after 9/11.

We offer this piece to those who lost their lives without intention and those who gave their lives for others on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 in New York City, Washington, DC and Shanksville, PAand to those who love them. In memory of the lost, we quote John Updike's words: "The essential self is innocent, and when it tastes its own innocence knows that it lives for ever."