11th september 2oo1 or 9/11.This one day changed the world forever.
what do i mean,well the destruction of the world trade center in manhattan struck a blow not only at the institutions of American and global capitalism but at the self-confidence that under girded them, the self-confidence of a social and political system that, without needing to think about it too much, believed it had found the answer to life’s challenges and could conquer them all.
it shattered the americans sense of invulnerability,the U.S despite fighting a dozen major wars in its history, had not seen a direct attack on a major city in living memory. No foreign force had attacked Washington since the British burned the fledgling American capital in 1812.Stunning
on 9/11, geography — America’s distance from the rest of the world, separated from everyone else by two oceans — offered no protection. If only by bringing home to Americans the end of their insulation from the passions that have bedevilled the rest of the globe, September 11 changed the world forever.
This was a crime of the 21st century,the horrifying events of that one day are emblematic of our new century in another crucial way. The defining features of today’s world are the relentless forces of globalisation, the ease of communications and travel, the shrinking of boundaries, the flow of people of all nationalities and colours across the world, the swift pulsing of financial transactions with the press of a button. The planes, the cell phone, the computer, are the tools of our time. These very forces, which in a more benign moment might have been seen as helping drive the world towards progress and prosperity, were the forces used on 9/11 by the terrorists in their macabre dance of death and destruction.
after 9/11, we have seen the opposite of the earlier attitude of the Bush administration: war in Afghanistan and the toppling of the Taliban government in Kabul; the invasion of Iraq and the fall of Baghdad, followed by occupation, Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, and now the ‘‘surge’’; the ‘‘global war on terror,’’ with the attendant curtailing of civil liberties, Guantanamo and rendition; and the addition of Madrid, London and Bali to the list of places targeted by Islamic terrorists loosely affiliated with al-Qaida.
The 21st century has been born in fire and baptised in blood.
