September 11 in Context
Dave Winer has a post about the Lessons of 9-11.
A common theme -- what kind of God lets this happen. I answer that with another question. What kind of a country is so selfish that it doesn't see that 9-11 was tiniest big tragedy viewed from a global perspective. What about famine in Africa? What about AIDs? They wonder at the spiritual vision of a person who jumps from the World Trade Center to certain death, but don't wonder about the millions of people who do the same thing with tobacco? It's out of balance. We're out of balance. 9-11 was, imho, a small upheaval in getting to some kind of equilibrium in how the US participates in the world, both from the US perspective, and the world's perspective. That we got so much sympathy says how big the human heart is. That there wasn't more celebrating in the streets of world capitals says that they forgive us for our selfish attitude, which is back in force as if 9-11 never happened.
So what was the lesson of 9-11 that the US has failed to learn? I think it's that God doesn't think we're as important as we do. The concept of national security is obsolete. We can't close our borders. We live on this planet with everyone else. Global warming, AIDs, terrorism, all penetrate all borders. New York is a world city. The last gasps of isolationism will be snuffed out by more humiliation, until we get the truth, we aren't above the rest of the world, but we are part of it. [Scripting News]
This post got me thinking. Then I heard a story on NPR last night about the largest loss of human life in NYC before last year: the sinking of the steamboat General Slocum in 1904, resulting in the loss of over 1000 lives. There are two small memorials to the disaster, and most people have probably never heard of this piece of New York history.
Dave mentions AIDS and famine in Africa. Let's look at the two side by side. On September 11th of last year, almost 3000 people died in the terrorist attacks. We lost fathers, mothers, spouses and friends. The US stopped, almost completely, for several days. As of 2000, there were over 25 million people in Africa living with AIDS. 3.8 million people were infected with HIV in 2000 alone. That's 73000 people given a death sentence every week. I'm looking for AIDS deaths for Africa as a whole, but all I can find is country-by-country information, which is grim enough: in Ethiopia in 1997, 250,000 people died from AIDS. That is 4800 mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters dying every week. Just in Ethiopia. Just from AIDS.
Last fall, I thought Anthrax was scary. I guess I should be glad I don't have to worry about African Trypanosomiasis, Cholera, Malaria, or other nasty stuff like that.
I don't want to take anything away from those who suffered losses on September 11th of last year. I feel very deeply for all those affected. Dave and NPR just reminded me about how isolated we Americans generally are from the constant pain and suffering -- often on the scale of September 11th -- that much of the rest of the world suffers from.
9:31:02 AM [ permalink ]
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