9/11: Ten Years Later

Like many of you who have commented on Lindsay's post, I was still quite young when the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred. As a 13-year-old in grade 8, I was too naive to understand immediately the magnitude of that day or to envision with any accuracy the international consequences of this event. I remember, after watching the news for most of the day in class, students of different ages and social 'cliques' discussed the events openly - brought together by shared feelings of confusion and (masked) anxiety. 

In fact, 9/11 marked the first time I chatted with a guy who would go on to become a life-long best friend. Our first conversation centred around the possible culprits of the terrorist attacks and the media saturation of the event. Our thoughts were laughable at best. Neither of us considered Al Qaeda - a group we were not familiar with until a number of weeks later. And, I remember specifically making a guess that these attacks would be the only subject of the news for at least 3 weeks to come. 

Looking back, I think these reactions speak volumes about the changes (socially, politically, etc.) brought on by the events of 9/11. It is difficult to imagine a present-day North American student in grade 8 who could not identify Al Qaeda (or at least a generic - and racialized - idea of this group) as the enemy-number-one of the U.S. and of Western values more broadly. In this way, it becomes evident that 9/11 lent itself to an ongoing construction within out society of an external enemy against which we can define ourselves. We can attribute this process largely to the changes in news media brought on by 9/11 - which (10 years later) still remains in background of most news stories covered by CNN. So, my modest guess that we would experience 3 weeks of non-stop coverage was fairly off the mark. I did not consider the unprecedented focus on security, national identity, terror-likelihood ratings and enemy identification that would arise in the wake of that day. 

All in all, I appreciate that I can look back to my pre-9/11 mind (despite my naivety) to see the extent to which these terrorist attacks inform my present-day perceptions of the world.