Originally Posted by CherylNYC
Apologies in advance. I normally read all the way through a thread before I post, but I'm on painkillers due to an accident, and I just don't have enough continuity of thought at this time. I confess to having merely skimmed this thread, but I wanted to post my experiences here, anyway.
I live in a Brooklyn neighbourhood notable for it's Lower Manhattan views. Every time I see my amputated skyline I still don't recognise it, even nearly 10 years later. The attacks of 9/11 changed my city in so many ways I can't begin to name them, and none of those changes were positive. I didn't personally lose anyone in those attacks, but I lost my city as I knew it, and I took it all very personally.
I've been following bin Laden's career in terrorism since early in the Clinton administration. He was responsible for a great many horrible crimes. I knew instantly that he was responsible for the attacks of 9/11 since they bore his signature style. Like many, I rolled my eyes at Bush Jr's cowboy rhetoric following the attack, ("You can run, but you can't hide." Remember?), but I actually expected him to follow through on that promise. Silly me.
I was disgusted and appalled when it became increasingly obvious over the next year that Bush had no intention of capturing Osama bin Laden, and was instead using our loss as a pretext to attack Iraq, a country that had never attacked us. Sure, Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, but he wasn't the bad guy who attacked us. That bad guy was laughing his ass off at us while we spent our resources and precious young lives chasing his sworn enemy, Saddam Hussein. And we looked like a bunch of ignorant bigots who couldn't tell one Arab from another. I saw the failure to capture bin Laden as a clear issue of criminal justice. I became increasingly horrified that my money was about to be used to wage an illegal and immoral war, so I did the only thing I could think of.
Almost a year and a half after 9/11 I put up a sign in front of my house. It was a day-counter that asked one simple question. This past Sunday night my sign read:
9 years, 232 days since 9/11/01
WHERE IS OSAMA BIN LADEN?
I changed the number on my sign every morning since the first day I put it up nearly 8 and 1/2 years ago. When I went on vacation, (or on an unexpected journey to the hospital after my recent accident), my wonderful neighbours changed the number for me. The sign had become sort of iconic in my funky artist's neighbourhood, and my neighbours were very supportive of the message.
My sign was both a vigil and a daily protest. I asked the question because no one else was asking. I counted the days because it was unconscionable to me that this criminal was at large for so long. I deliberately made the simplest sign possible because I had one important question, and I didn't want anything to distract from it. For the last 9 years and 232 days no one in the mainstream press or in the criminal Bush administration seemed to care very much about the answer.
The phone started ringing on Sunday night and it didn't stop for days. My wonderful neighbours helped me take my sign down on Monday morning. I had no idea at the time that it was about to become part of the mainstream media coverage of bin Laden. Some reporters called first, but many just showed up and knocked on my door. ALL DAY. And all day Tuesday, too. Interviews and pictures of my sign ended up in at least 6 newspapers including the NY Times, and some radio and television spots as well. I was sorely tempted to ask all those reporters where they had been for the last 9 years and 232 days, but I decided to stay on-point instead.
The recent accident that sent me to the hospital was quite serious, (18 broken bones including a shattered pelvis that needed 8 hours of surgery to rebuild), and I worked my butt off to get 'paroled' from the rehab facility on Saturday. Yay for me. DAMN, it's good to be home! I'm just so very glad that I was home in time to take my sign down on Monday morning. I think I would have chewed my arm off in frustration had I still been incarcerated in rehab. The really good thing that came out of all this is that my simple sign, with all it's cracks and peeling paint, is going to the permanent collection of the 9/11 Museum which will open in the basement of the new WTC in 2012.
(On a personal note, I have to say that I'm NOT AT ALL HAPPY to have had so many published pictures of me on crutches and wearing my hideous white plastic clamshell body brace and one unnaturally swollen thigh. Ugh.)
There's been a great deal of soul searching about what it means to rejoice over bin Laden's death. Some have been arguing that his demise makes no real difference. I wish more people would remember that this is about criminal justice. I don't celebrate in the streets when any other murderer is captured, and I have no illusions that taking one murderer off the street will end all crime. Criminal justice is about holding each person responsible for their crimes. The person who murdered 3,000 of my neighbours and changed my city forever is no longer at large. There will be other mass murderers, but this was about one man and his crimes. My question was answered. I'm happy to have been able to take down my sign.
|