January 28, 2004
MEMORY UNBIDDEN:
BETTY ANN ONG, AMERICAN HERO (Edward Driscoll, 1/28/04)
I ran out to pick up the mail at my office a little while ago, and one the way back, while flipping stations on the car radio, came across the Sean Hannity Show. Hannity played the audio tape of Betty Ann Ong, the stewardess on American Airlines Flight #11, who called in to request help--any help--after terrorists maced the passengers in first class, stabbed the crew in the galley, and barricaded themselves in the cockpit of the plane, which they eventually crashed into the World Trade Center. [...]Listening to that tape left me feeling like I punched in the gut. But Jonah's right: This stuff needs to be played over and over again. We shouldn't forget the horror--and the evil men that caused it.
It's the damndest thing, we're far enough removed from the events of that day that we can refer to 9-11 without tapping every time into the memories that are stored away somewhere in our viscera. But then you hear something or see something or read something--as happened to Brother Driscoll--and it does indeed hit you like a physical assault. What may be most interesting about the whole phenomena is that it seems to demonstrate that we may be almost too decent a people. Rare, maybe even unique, is the culture that would consciously choose to put away the most inflammatory images, sounds, and stories of that day, even as it pursues the perpetrators and wars with their comrades in terror.
Imagine the effect, even the cheap effect, to which such remembrance could be put. Recent criticism of the President--particularly in the wake of the Paul O'Neill book--has dwelt on the notion that 9-11 merely provided a convenient excuse for him to act out some kind of psychodrama whereby he got to settle his father's score with Saddam and introduce fascist rule under cover of the Patriot Act. How about an address to the nation where he just plays the tape of the two planes crashing into the WTC and then says: "History may one day show that Saddam Hussein was less of a threat than we thought he was, but what we did we did because this must never happen again." Whether something like that would work or might instead backfire doesn't even matter, because the fact is it is somehow not in the American grain to use the tragedy in that way. It's almost as if we share some kind of collective intuition about just how terrible--though not necessarily unjustified--are the things we might do if we were to exploit the darker demons of our nature.
But does that make sense? Can an entire people know (and fear) themselves at such a level? Or is there some other explanation for the way in which the central event in our recent history has been carefully stored away, only to be encountered in almost accidental fashion?
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 28, 2004 08:12 PMOrrin,
Part of it--I think--is how the media has tried to downplay 9/11. As much as coverage of WWII was censored and whitewashed by the government before it hit newsreels, I'm sure there were a fair amount of moviegoers seeing footage of Pearl Harbor at various times throughout the war. The same can't be said this time around with television.
Speaking of which, the events recorded by Ong's taped phonecall could be turned into a powerful made for TV--or even theatrical--movie by Hollywood. But they're probably too pacifist or PC to even try.
Ed
Posted by: Ed Driscoll at January 28, 2004 09:11 PMEd:
Yes, but we also went to rip the guts out of the Jap bastards and rounded up the Nisei. We're quite a different place now, in both good and bad ways--sometimes the two are hard to tell apart. Whatever else may come off this war, it's truly remarkable how solicitous we've bee of Arab and Muslim opinion, how determined to avoid civilian casualties, how eager to rebuild shattered societies, etc...
Posted by: oj at January 28, 2004 09:19 PMAmerica is certainly a different place than 60 years ago. The most beloved war correspondent of WWII, Ernie Pyle, wouldn't even be considered a journalist by today's media, or a tragically large fraction of the population...
Posted by: brian at January 28, 2004 10:01 PMIt interesting in that if this were several hundred years ago, we would absolutely slaughter anyone in sight. There would be no such thing as Gitmo or any discussion about what to do with Saddam.
Posted by: pchuck at January 29, 2004 10:05 AMSeveral hundred years ago? What about "Remember the Maine!"
If this had happened prior to the 1950s, all the Wahabbis would now be hiding in Madagascar.
Posted by: jim hamlen at January 29, 2004 10:49 AMI remember feeling vaguely uneasy a few days after 9/11 when all the networks announced they wouldn't show footage of the attacks anymore because of the trauma it was causing children, victims' families, etc. It seemed civilized at the time, but now I think I know what made me feel uneasy.
Posted by: Peter B at January 29, 2004 12:34 PMjim, my point exactly.
Posted by: pchuck at January 29, 2004 01:51 PMA war has never been won by the way we are fighting this one. It shows an absolute lack of knowledge of human behavior on behalf of our leaders. If a Dem or Republican ran to the right of Bush and advocated crushing the entire middle east there is not one doubt in my mind he would win.
OJ said something not to long ago how this country never really follows thru on wars never achieving total victory. This one being the biggest example of them all. By the time we get "done" with this one, it will make WW2 look like the 6 day war.
In my heart of hearts, I know only a massive WMD attack here will bring about the necessary measures to finish what THEY started.
I think that is an interesting observation (the original post, not the call for armageddon from BJW). Americans are decent people, because they will not tolerate the manipulation of tragedy for propaganda, and if that phonecall were to appear in a campaign commercial there would be a terrific backlash.
It is also worth noting though that whatever the limitations on exposing people to the terrible realities of the events 9/11, people still know a lot more about the human impact of those attacks than they do about any of the civillian victims in either Iraq or Afghanistan.