Patria remembers the innocent victims of 9/11, the continued pain of those who lost loved ones at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and over the skies of Pennsylvania, the heroism of the New York police officers, firefighters and other first responders, not to mention the sacrifices over the past decade of thousands of young American, Canadian and British lives in wars that can't be won, shouldn't be fought, and have driven the economy off a cliff to boot.
With no disrespect to anyone mentioned in the previous paragraph, Patria has had enough of a decade of self-flagellation for the 9/11 attacks and the "post 9/11 world" mentality of fear-mongering that has turned the US into a garrison state where freedom is sacrificed on the altar of "security". We don't have to forgive those who planned and executed the 9/11 attacks, we can even be happy that Osama bin Laden has been killed, but for f***'s sake, LET'S MOVE ON!
Yes, let us move on from 9/11. Particularly now that there are university frosh who were only third graders on this day in 2001. Soon there will be a generation of young adults who will have no memory of this day (for kids who weren't yet born or even remotely thought of on 9/11 there is a sickly super-patriotic coloring book!).
Patria supports the efforts of the so-called "9/11 truthers" and calls for free and open debate of what really happened ten years ago today, such as what role the Mossad played in the attacks. If 9/11 was not carried out as a false flag operation by the Mossad, surely Israel's elite spy agency knew what al-Qaeda was up to and were unwilling or unable to inform the US government, though they apparently managed to warn a handful of Jews working at the WTC to stay home on 9/11. Were the WTC towers actually brought down by controlled demolition, i.e. explosives pre-planted in the buildings? Many leading architects and engineers are not convinced that the impact of the planes and the fires fed by jet fuel would have been sufficient to bring a 100-storey skyscraper crashing down like a house of cards. Why are we told to believe that a rag-tag group of 19 Muslim men acting on orders from Osama bin Laden, armed only with box cutters, who barely knew how to fly Cessnas let alone pilot jumbo jets, were able to perpetrate such a crime right under the noses of the FBI, CIA, and the Mossad to boot? Is that any more believable than the lies we've been fed since 1963: how a single lone nutbar working at the Texas School Book Depository, acting only on a personal whim, using only a cheap mail-order rifle, was able to hit a moving target from a nearly impossible angle, firing a bullet that took a circuitous route through President Kennedy's body and then struck Governor Connally? Quite possibly, the official Report of the 9/11 Commission will find its place in the fiction section of Patria's public libraries, along with the Report of the Warren Commission.
On this day, Patria remembers another 9/11, 108 years to the day before the "real" one in 2001. On Sept. 11, 1893 Swami Vivekananda introduced Hinduism to the western world, speaking at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago. The following is an excerpt of Vivekananda's speech:
Sisters and Brothers of America,Parvati performs a song she wrote for 9/11. While Parvati (the honorary citizen of Patria, best known for her North Pole trek in 2010) was at the piano, she was called to see the twin towers fall live. Filled with emotion she went back to the piano and this song "You Gotta Believe" was born. She sang this song at Madison Square Garden and is currently working on a studio release.
It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions, and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.
My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: "As the different streams having their sources in different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee."
The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: "Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me." Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.
The Dalai Lama's 9/11 tenth anniversary message: "After Sept. 11 yearning for peaceful co-existence".
Finally to state the obvious, we didn't have Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Blogger, or other social media on this day in 2001. Ten years ago, it was still the heyday of Geocities web pages. Many internet users still made do with dial-up connections. You were probably still snapping pictures with a 35 mm film camera, listening to music on CDs and viewing VHS videos. Even cell phones were still pretty primitive a decade ago. Most of them didn't have cameras. Does anyone still use a Palm Pilot?
Thank you for sharing Vivekenanda's most beautiful speech. Very interesting to note the Sept 11th speech.
ReplyDeleteThank you Keval for forwarding the link to the 9/11 song! I appreciate the support for the cause.
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