Will you remember 9/11?

There was a recent spate of posts in the blog world describing where the authors were on that fateful day. Today on the event of Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on another fateful day, the New York Times ran a opinion special section, and asked the readers to post their comments on the futuristic question:

Do you remember Pearl Harbor? How confident are you that we will never forget the attacks of 9/11?

Most readers responded, according to their age. The older ones, who had been through both the events were sadful. The younger ones responded in another way. One comment by one hsing lee however, stands out of the rest and thus worthwhile to be quoted in full here:

Will the world remember 9/11?

Oh, the world will remember 9/11/01, to be certain.

A billion East Indians have not forgotten that Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha movement, a movement of non-violent resistance, was born on 9/11/1906.

A billion Muslims have not forgotten that the European colonization of the Middle East - the British Mandate of Palestine, the first move toward the state of Israel eventually being forced on the Palestinian people, began on 9/11/1922… it’s why the Islamists chose this date, 79 years later, to attack the Twin Towers.

The people of Chile will never forget the CIA sponsored coup of 9/11/1973, perpetrated by Augusto Pinochet to overthrew the government of Salvador Allende, who was democratically elected by the Chilean people but disliked by the Republican Party.

The question should not be, “will we remember 9/11?”

The question SHOULD be, “can we learn the lesson of how 9/11/1922 applies to 9/11/2001, and then apply those lessons to George W Bush’s actions in Iraq and Afghanistan before it’s too late?”

An occupying army will always give rise to resistance. That resistance led to Jewish Terrorism against the British, then Terrorism by both Muslims and Jews against each other, and finally to Muslim Terrorism against America on that fateful day in 2001.

Like begets like. Hate begets hate. Chickens ALWAYS come home to roost.

And right now, George W Bush is making thousands more Osama Bin Ladens, and thousands more potential 9/11’s through his actions in Afghranistan and Iraq.

Like WILL beget like, unless we choose NOT to remember 9/11 as a day of violence, conquest, terrorism and displacement, and instead choose to remember it as the day a great man, a young lawyer from India, chose to take on the British Empire, and win, armed only with the heart of a Nation, and the truth.

Many of you will choose to use this day in history as justification for more violence, more hate, and more vengeance. An eye for an eye, you’ll call it. Perhaps you SHOULD heed the wisdom of the Mahatma… an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

Or are you already too blind to see?

Peace

By pointing Americans and the world to what happened on another 9/11, Hsing Lee shows what is the problem with the current world. Thank you Hsing Lee, for speaking the words in my heart.

I am sure that a couple of centuries from now, people would be celebrating 9/11/1906, on which the seemingly ideal-but-impractical theory of Civil Disobedience proposed by Thoreau was implemented by an extraordinarily brave lawyer from India. I salute you Mahatma Gandhi!