Like most people, I have strong memories of 9/11. I remember where I was, as I imagine everyone does. For me, the event was eerily similar to the Challenger disaster: I watched both unfold on live TV in a classroom. In the latter case, I was a student. Five years ago, I was an instuctor. The primal fear and helplessness that defined both experiences has since cause me realize just how nominal "authority" can be when faced with large-scale tragedy.
I think many people experienced something similar at the time--an eye-opening, a deep internal loss, a soul shift. But where are we today? Are we all still on the same page? I certianly hope not, because if the political and media narratives of proper "Patriot Day" observances are representative of the national psyche, we have institutionalized fear with a death fetish. We have taken the worst parts of our other death-based holidays--Halloween, Memorial Day, and Ash Wednesday--and created a chimera of autonomic capitalism, sanctioned weirdness, and diffuse "empathiness" that has nothing to do with Patriotism.
I am not writing this to criticize the "politicization" of 9/11. 9/11 was a political event, and to expect anything different from leaders like George Bush (to be fair, any president would likely do the same) is impractical and silly. Sure, politicians caution against "exploiting" 9/11, but that's just a canard and everyone knows it. GWB has and will continue to perform hollow perfunctory displays of grief, photos will be taken, polls will bounce slightly, and for a few days this will not be called the campaigning it is. So be it. What really concerns me is where Patriot Day leaves the rest of us.
Over the last 4-5 years, the commemerations have involved wreath laying, moments of silence, bagpipe dirges, national prayer events, TV 'remembrances', survivor stories, video montages, etc. Recently, (now that we're "ready" by network calculations) we have been treated to 24-hour news retropectives, documentaries, Hollywood films, and even 'docudramas' involved 'composite' characters for us to emphathize with, since, apparently there weren't enough real ones available. There are companies offering posters, models, t-shirts, and collectible images of the Towers. There is even a limited edition "Collector's Coin" made from metal recovered from the wreckage.
None of these things, taken in isolation, is really that troubling--people need to come to grips with tragedy and do so in a variety of ways. But let's be honest: for those of us who are not New Yorkers catharthis has already been and gone, or is never coming. Anyone with a shred of empathy has already mentally lived through the deaths of thousands. You've imagined yourself on the planes, wondering what you would do on flight 93. You've pictured your last minutes in the towers, wondering whether you would choose to burn or jump, whether you would call anyone, wondered if you would be resigned or terrified beyond thought. A film of the events will not add to that empathetic connection. Listening to 911 recordings will not inspire catharsis, if nothing else has. A docudrama will not make the experience more "real" or explain anything you didn't already know.
Why then? If not psychic healing, for what reason is this material generated? Politics, yes. Commercialism, yes. But more troubling is the extent to which Patriot Day is, like so much of American culture, a fundamentally morbid act of fetishism.
Our nation primarily celebrates death on three occasions: Memorial Day, Halloween, and the Easter Week. Other holidays involve remembrance, certainly (Veteran's Day, for one), but are not fundamentally linked to death like these are. Even holidays that implicitly deal with violence euphemize it--MLK Jr. Day is celebrated on the day of his birth, rather than assassination, as is President's Day for Lincoln.
Halloween is at best a wild collage of paganism, peculiar Christianity, and the free market economy that only deals with death in its most abstract and harmless form. For a truly frightening experience, check out a Lutheran Ash Wednesday service, which attempts to recreate the sorrow of the universe at Christ's death.
The only uniformly resonable holiday in this regard is Memorial Day, which I would guess exists in some form throughout the world. It is an observance which has a moderate public dimension, and is as expansive in private as one might need.
I believe "Patriot Day" is a hybrid of all of these. It is a public celebration of death and tragedy, clothed in pageantry and costume, draped in religiosity and underlined by the unspoken (or spoken, depending) threat that "there but for the grace of God..."
Who are the "patriots"? Are we to put that label on ourselves? If we don't properly observe the day are we "unpatriotic"? Are the "patriots" the victims of 9/11? If so, why reverenace them on a day made meaningful by terrorists? Rather than becoming a eulogy to the departed, 9/11 has become a testiment to the effectiveness of terror tactics. Every year at the same time, Al Qaeda gets free publicity, presumably new recruits, and, without lifting a finger, reminds us all how frightened we are of "them". Imagine the reaction if someone proposed we celebrate "Student Safety Day" on April 20th, featuring wreath laying at Columbine, made-for-TV movies of the massacre starring that kid from Home Improvement, and commemorative coins made from the lockers. Or "Citizen Day", wherein we reverenced the memories of assassinatd Presidents.
Who can approach the phrase Patriot Day with a straight face? At present, it is recent enough to rankle, but what about fifty years from now? Our history is nothing if not full of laughable doublespeak that has become gospel. The Phillipines was under the "guardianship" of the US in the first half of the century; we "annexed" Texas; we "relocated" Japanese-Americans in WWII. It is my hope that we, as Americans, can reclaim "Patriot Day" from the death-cult political event it currently is. If we really want to fulfill the dual possbilities of the term and honor the fallen while improving the rest of us, perhaps we could:
1) Use 9/11 as a day to support and promote voter registration. Rather than buying collector's plates from the Franklin mint, we could actually engage in "patriotism" by participating in democracy. Part of the fallout of 9/11 is the increased level of helplessness people feel about world events. Clearly, voting is one way to practically address that helplessness.
2) Ask the government, rather than relying on docudramas "based on the 9/11 comission report" to fund the public release of the document to anyone who wants a copy.
3) Devote the time and resources to community improvement. Patriotism is a shared love of country, which begins at the local level. Part of the fear generated by 9/11 has to do with the unfamiliar "other". The more community cohesion we can create, the less ominous the "other" will become.
Clearly these are optimistic and vague suggestions. But I am curious to what other people feel might be an appropriate --and productive rather than reactionary--response.