Eleven-Nine

“Today is nine / eleven.”

“I know.”

“What should I make my Facebook status?”

“What?”

“Should I use a bible verse or something? About the people who died?”

He sighed. 

“Are you really asking me that?”

“Yes.”

“Well you’re an ignorant fool who fails to recognise that a brief public statement is neither relevant nor of any value. You bear no humanitarian connection to the terrorist attacks of the 11th of September: it wasn’t you that lost a relation or friend, it wasn’t your city that descended into chaos, and it wasn’t your president that sent you to war.

What entitles you to mourn the lives of people so incredibly disassociated from you? That day saw its own victims and they have been iconized by cell-phone footage and the snowballing momentum of the American patriotic-propaganda machine. But the real victims are the people who suffer oppression and the unending conflict of religion. 

Bush declared war on Iraq and invaded them as an act of vengeance. It was justifiable retaliation in the eyes of the world, and the west felt good to be hurling an inexhaustible military might at a small Arab nation which was deemed responsible. America was painted as the undeserving victim and granted every right to hate Muslims. 

But anger and hatred can only sustain us humans for a short while. Twelve years on and they’ve almost forgotten the innocent casualties as countless more lives are ruined by the war-machine – soldiers, widows, neglected veterans and the overwhelming number of Muslim men, women and children who get blown-up and beheaded on a daily basis in the midst of a fight that isn’t theirs.

But the oil companies aren’t upset, nor are the weapons manufacturers. It’s business as usual and it’s funded by the state: by the taxpayer: by every person who chooses to purchase imported goods. Yet, we ignore this injustice. The politicians sleep easy at night, knowing that their electors can be distracted from these abominations by futile arguments of homosexual marriage, healthcare and gun control. 

It’s a sick and polluted system that is maintained by mainstream media and a governmental overlord which knows our every whisper behind closed doors. The truth is that society is out of control and, while some may know why, nobody knows how to stop it, so it’s far easier to simply ignore the problem and continue waving the red, white and blue flag whilst watching TV on a cheap flat-screen. 

It’s this sordid infection in our world that’s the real enemy. It’s the reason why the middle-east became volatile, the reason why they have the weapons to fight American soldiers, and the reason why a group of god-fearing young men saw it necessary to fly planes into the tallest buildings in the world and kill thousands of innocent people.  

So how dare you ask me what to make your status! Instead of mourning the loss of lives that aren’t yours in an attempt to gain popularity, you should be realising that it is, in fact, the entire world that’s sick. Don’t be sucked into the superficial lament which we are perpetually force-fed by American entertainment media every single day.

You are a citizen of the Republic of South Africa. For you, it shouldn’t even be nine / eleven, but rather ‘eleven-nine’. You’re a member of a country which fought for its freedom, but also one which is now wasting that freedom on glamorizing a single event – an event which affected a nation on the other side of the world. 

Yes, the events of the 11th of September were tragic and utterly unnecessary, but we can’t still be hung up on the deaths of 3000 people when a decade later that many are dying by the hour from malnutrition, civil war, religious conflict, ethnic cleansing, neglect and preventable disease. 

Stop being indoctrinated by the views of a country and a populace that aren’t yours, because those views are flawed and that society is damaged, and it is inflicting harm on us all. We are suckling on the third-world equivalent of the hind tit and, quite frankly, we should be eating the pig. 

Look, I’m not blaming America – I doubt we would have done it any differently if we didn’t know better. I’m simply saying that their problems are theirs and they have much bigger ones to deal with than brooding over the 11th of September. 

Moreover, it’s our collective world problems that are infinitely more relevant and pressing. Our model for existence prioritises the accumulation of promissory notes over cooperation and consideration. 

We live in a convoluted and overly-complex domain of selfishness and greed where we would not hesitate to commit mass murder for the sake of an antiquated ideology or to earn a quick buck. 

As a citizen of the world, you should be appalled and perplexed by that, and not the over-analysed events of a day when you were no more than 5 years old.”