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Noah Gordon was in Spain on
9/11/01 when the tragic events occurred at the
World Trade Center in New York. At the request
of the editors of El Mundo, the leading
national newspaper of Spain, he wrote the
following article giving the reaction of one
American.
By Noah Gordon
Minutes after my plane landed at the
Barcelona Airport on Tuesday a huge commercial
aircraft knifed into the wall of the World
Trade Center in New York City, like a medieval
marksman’s arrow seeking and finding the
vulnerable heart of my country.
Soon afterward, while we were
beginning a joyful family reunion in my
son’s home, a friend and neighbor
hurried in to urge us to turn on the
television, and we wept in disbelief to see
the lives of thousands of people coming to a
terrible end before our eyes.
When I was a boy sometimes we
listened to a radio program called “You
Are There,” in which the listener could
imagine himself participating in an historic
achievement or catastrophe. Tuesday we were
there, even though none of us wished to be,
for that is the magic and horror of our age of
instant communication.
Certain images will remain with us
forever.
 The terrible predicament
of the doomed people trapped in the the upper
stories of the Trade Center’s tower,
some of them leaning from the windows,
frantically waving makeshift distress
banners—towels, curtains, pieces of
clothing?—so the world would understand
their desperate need to be saved.
The jumpers who chose a
quick end over the onslaught of the raging
fire. The awful sight of a single falling
body—whose?—drifting down the
long, long facade of the building like a
forlorn leaf fluttering to earth.
The spire of the World
Trade Center tower slowly and majestically
sinking, a great ship going down, as the
building crumbled beneath it, carrying the
trapped people to their deaths. It was eerily
reminiscent of the light-hearted sequences run
on television showing the demolition of urban
buildings. This time no one could run the film
in reverse to make the building whole again,
or the people alive.
And a short time
later—a strangely chilling and
heartbreaking scene—the rejoicing by
Palestinians joining in wild, exuberant
celebration in the streets, waving their flags
as if they had achieved a great victory; a
woman ululating but not in mourning, a sharp,
triumphant trill; the men raising fists in the
air; the children aping their elders, their
eyes full of happiness and pleasure. The
following days there was a more sober scene,
other Palestinian Arabs holding a sign, We
share your pain.
I remember a similar moment in time.
It was immediately after Japanese planes had
bombed the United States naval base at Pearl
Harbor. I was fifteen years old. Suddenly
America was at war and I knew that
civilization had turned a corner, that things
had changed and would never again be the same.
I was frightened about the future, but I had
great faith in my country. I feel that way
now.
AMERICA IN TURMOIL
Astoundingly, the terrible events of
Tuesday appear to have had their genesis in
Boston, just a few miles from my home. The
editors of El Mundo have asked me to
give an American’s reactions to the
tragic Tuesday. Already, although I am far
from home, I have shared reactions with family
and friends in the United States.
An event which has taken so many
lives and caused so many injuries inevitably
engendered lots of situations in which
individuals narrowly missed the grim fate that
befell those who were less fortunate. We are
blessed that our family and intimate friends
have been spared.
Our niece, an engineer for the
defense contractor Raytheon, was slated to fly
from Boston on a subsequently highjacked
flight but did not make the plane, electing to
stay home and care for her children. Four of
her colleagues did take the flight and died in
the wall of the World Trade Center.
In New York City our
brother-in-law’s nephew, who was
employed in the Trade Center, was late for
work on Tuesday. He left the subway, and as he
was walking towards his office he became a
witness to the horror show.
All over the United States, all over
the world, friends and families are rejoicing
for those who narrowly missed
destruction.
And all over my country, all over
the world, the survivors of the victims have
entered the dark world of grief.
In Boston, Logan International
Airport remains closed at this writing. A new
security regulation forbids parking anywhere
within 300 feet of airport terminals. The
airport will not reopen until 2500 cars have
been taken from a terminal parking garage.
Fearing car bombs, the police are moving the
vehicles one by one from the airport to
Suffolk Downs Race Track, according to The
Boston Globe. Anyone seeking to find and
reclaim a vehicle from the racetrack may face
a Herculean task.
The financial center, the government
buildings, and the tallest towers of the city
all were evacuated as possible targets.
Tall buildings are ubiquitous in
modern America. Without thought or hesitation,
one steps into the elevator. The silent doors
close smoothly, the car rises swiftly and
confidently into the sky. But what good does
it do to have the skill to build toward the
stars if we can’t bring people down from
the upper stories when terrorists attack? Will
this change our thoughts about architecture?
And is it possible to build differently even
if we should wish to do so? The reason for the
success of the skyscraper is that land to
build on has become prohibitively expensive
and nonexistent in America’s crowded
cities. Will more companies move to the
countryside, where they can build low
buildings with a larger imprint?
Will every flight have to carry
armed guards? And will anyone ever enter a
commercial aircraft again without a great
uneasiness? I know I shall not. Is it possible
to protect a plane from terrorists? When I was
eighteen years old I entered the Army of the
United States at the time of the Battle of the
Bulge, when losses were huge and young boys
were needed as cannon fodder, so I was very
aware I might die, and I was afraid. Today,
again there is a feeling of real risk involved
in so simple an act as boarding a plane in
order to visit loved ones or return home. I am
an old man now; I have led a wonderful and
fulfilling life and impending death holds
absolutely no terrors for me, but I am afraid
of leaving those who need me before it is
absolutely necessary. And the thought of harm
coming to people I love makes me fearful and
furious.
WHERE ARE WE GOING?
If there is some vast eternal plan
for the world I would like to point out as
respectfully as possible to God that the
blueprint has gotten terribly screwed
up.
The world is still riven by ancient
religious feuds. When one observes how many of
our armed conflicts involve people of one
religion fighting people of another religion,
it becomes obvious that the Crusades never
ended. For centuries the Church taught that
Jews were evil Christ killers, and it has
proven difficult to achieve real rapprochement
between Christianity and Judaism. Certain
fundamentalist Muslim countries consider the
teaching of Christianity to be a crime. Since
our political leaders do not seem able to make
peace, perhaps it is time for a summit meeting
of the world’s religious leaders. Maybe
if they had to sit and look into one
another’s eyes they might feel enough
guilt to teach us all to work together like
brothers.
Christians and Muslims are killing
one another in Nigeria. Catholics and
Protestants are still at each other’s
throats in Ireland. Basques are blowing people
up in Spain. In what used to be Yugoslavia
neighbors who lived together in peace and
harmony for decades couldn’t wait to
begin slaughtering one another as soon as the
restricting central government had failed.
Factor in Afghanistan and several African
nations, and the world presents a bloody
picture.
In the Middle East, one people says
“Shalom” and another people says
“Salaam,” and neither has peace.
Israelis and Palestinians utter the greetings
like prayers and can’t stop killing one
another.
Yasser Arafat says he is
shocked…shocked…at the
terrorism in the United States. Yet all
through the long and terrible series of
suicide bombings in Israel, never once has
Arafat exhorted his people to stop. No matter
who the terrorists at the World Trade Center
turn out to be, their actions were predicated
upon the suicide bombings that have eaten away
at Israel’s people for so long.
Arafat’s weakness as a leader,
coupled with Israel’s disastrous policy
about settlements, has resulted in a stalemate
of continued strike and counterstrike which
neither side knows how to end. The Israelis
cannot pull back from the settlements because
that would indicate that they have been
influenced by the terrorists. Yet they cannot
defend the isolated settlements indefinitely.
And it is less than certain that Arafat could
guarantee an end to the terrorism even if he
had the will to do so.
Thomas Friedman, a New York
Times columnist, has recently suggested a
solution in which NATO would send troops to
the region to guarantee an end to the violence
on both sides. I think that would be an ideal
solution. Even if it should come late, it
would end a very bad interlude and open the
Middle East to the eventual possibility of
talks.
HOW BAD ARE “THE
GIANT’S” WOUNDS?
The humbling of the world’s
last superpower has dazzled headline writers,
who have described the United States as if it
were a Gulliver republic in a world of
Lilliputian nations. I think the giant is
stunned but scarcely reeling. Much has been
made of the fact that the U.S. never has
fought a modern war on its own soil. That is
true; we have been fortunate, although we know
what it is like to send too many American sons
and daughters to die in other countries. Now a
new kind of war has come to our soil, and our
losses are tragic and numbing. But it is a
mistake to count the giant out. I remember
that after Pearl Harbor the American army was
so unprepared it had to train with wooden
rifles. Yet the great industrial machine,
which quickly developed, was instrumental in
helping to win World War II.
ASK NOT FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS;
IT TOLLS FOR THEE.
We are in this together. Today, New
York. Tomorrow, perhaps elsewhere. I am
encouraged by the sincere messages of regret
and support that have come from so many
nations. If our intelligence services work
together, I believe that soon we’ll know
the identities of the people behind this
assault. We must proceed with care and
deliberation, but the civilized world will
make certain that those who have murdered
thousands of Americans will not go
unpunished.
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