DISASTERS
Wild flowers and lush grass were abundant, and if I had been
psychic, I could have experienced some of the long gone history of this farm
and its inhabitants. Just as my imagination was taking be back to the good old
days, we arrived at the center of this oasis where a large circular area was
littered with burned candles, cheap glass candleholders, flag holders and other
discarded evidence of a recent memorial service for the 9/11 disaster. I
noticed many identical bouquets of flowers lying around in a relatively small
area that had hosted a memorial service just 11 days earlier. The flowers had
since dried, but they were still wrapped in the paper that a florist had
prepared, each with a business card, so the opportunity for commerce goes on.
It is ironic that, by memorializing a big disaster, people had created a mini
disaster in the middle of this beautiful setting. Construction markings for
putting a paved access road and circle drive were indicators of more
memorializing to come. Enough already.
September 11th, 2001 was a day that has been, and
will be, memorialized in this country for decades to come. The World Trade
Center disaster killed 2,976 people in the short span of a few hours. I watched
in horror along with much of the nation as the event was happening. But since
then I've slowly grown increasingly annoyed and cynical about how much 9/11 has
been, and continues to be, hyped as the greatest disaster ever in the United
States of America. I still remember when it was the Civil War. Or was it the
great earthquake in San Francisco, or the horrible Chicago fire? Americans love
to remember their disasters -- as long as they are not too old.
Why am I annoyed? Because every day there are horrible
accidents that kill far more people, and the public doesn't seem to take
notice. They think those disasters are a normal and routine part of life. If
one person is mangled in a car accident, it is treated as no big deal – unless
the victim happens to be someone you know and love. The family of the person
who dies doesn't make millions because of the death. The families of 9/11 victims
were paid a guaranteed minimum of $250,000 and up to 4.7 million, with the average
death benefit being $1,185,000. Why?
If one of my family members gets killed in a car crash, I
get nothing. If they were killed in 9/11 I'd be rich. As Rush Limbaugh so aptly
pointed out regarding families of solders killed in Iraq, "...the first check
you get is a $6,000, direct death benefit, half of which is taxable. Next, you
get $1,750 for burial costs. If you are the surviving spouse, you get $833 a
month until you remarry. And there's a payment of $211 per month for each child
under 18." Evidently tragic death in
the service of one's country is not worth nearly as much as tragic death at the
office. And perhaps the more people that die with you, the more valuable your
death becomes. Dying alone seems to have little value or importance anymore.
Of course, as unjust as it seems, the real issue here is not
how much money someone makes when his or her loved one is tragically killed.The
real issue is that our nation has rallied around a huge symbolic disaster while
virtually ignoring the fact that many more people are killed every day in mini
disasters around the world that, by and large, are treated as normal
In the twelve-month periods before and after 9/11 there were
3,287 people killed every day in
vehicle accidents around the world. (WHO/World
Bank report). Also during
these same periods 1,370 people were killed every day by conventional weapons. (Amnesty magazine, Issue 22, November-December
2003). Nine/Eleven was a one-day disaster that killed 2,967 people,
while elsewhere around the world on that day 4,657 more people died in tragic
deaths that went unnoticed. These statistics don't include the many people who
were burned to death (4,000 a year on average just in the US according to the
FDA), or the 3 million who died from AIDS in 2002, or were killed in other
types of accidents at home and elsewhere.
In the overall picture, 9/11 was no big deal in terms of
numbers of deaths. It only accounted for 0.06% of the violent deaths that year,
and probably less than half of all tragic deaths that day. But because it happed
all at once in a span of a few hours, and represented an intentional attack on
the United States, it was a big deal. Let's just keep in mind that it's not
just the number of deaths that made it significant, but the act itself and the
reasons behind it. If high numbers of deaths were a big deal, cars and weapons
would have been outlawed years ago. A 9/11 disaster every day wouldn't match
the other deaths in terms of the numbers of people violently killed.
As my dog and I took one more walk around the future 9/11 memorial park, I visualized contractors putting in roads, fences, signs and some type of memorial in this beautiful spot. It will never again look as nice. I wondered how many other 9/11 memorials have been and will be built around the country. I felt saddened for the many more people who have died violently without any memorial, and I felt sorry for these few acres that are being violated in behalf of a disaster that, in the big picture, was not all that big in terms of people's lives. I felt a brief wave of guilt for being so cynical, because memorials are supposed to be sacred and above reproach. But memorials are all about looking back and remembering, so as we walked out of the park, I looked back one last time.
