Connection

Gather ‘round children!      

With the passing of the nine-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, I guess it would be an appropriate time to reflect. No?

            In Humanities class, this is what we’ve been doing for the past week or so, and it’s raised some questions. Before I ask away, though, I feel it necessary to tell you what led me to these questions; without this information I’d leave you all wondering what the hell I’m talking about, and in the process fail you as your lord and blogger.

            In class, we were given a packet full of articles written one week after the horrific events of that day, nine years ago. All of them attempted to explain what happened from each of their respective perspectives (is this redundant?), most of which had a tone of grieving disbelief of the mass murder committed. There was one article, though, written by Susan Sontag, which had a tone of disbelief not that of the mass murder but the idiocy and ignorance of Americans.

            Nine years ago, we believed these attacks were completely unwarranted, that these attacks were random deeds of the evil Islam. A week later, Sontag proposes that this is untrue, and that we provoked these attacks with the bombings of Iraq and our abuse of power in the Middle East. How dare she criticize our government? How dare she criticize us? We could not have possibly provoked this, and we most certainly are not stupid. America is the land of opportunity and freedom. This has to be the most unpatriotic individual America has seen since Benedict Arnold.

            I’d like to put a little spin on this, if I may. Yes, Susan Sontag was labeled unpatriotic. Was this true? Absolutely not (well, this is just my opinion; feel free to feel however you feel). What the pilgrims came to America for was freedom of religion; and what the First Amendment was made for was freedom of speech, to be able to criticize the government. We pride ourselves on those freedoms today, still. What Sontag did was not unpatriotic at all; in fact, it was the most patriotic thing someone can do. She called us out on our ignorance, and what did we do? We called her out on her patriotism and we denounced it. What she did was both incredible and brave; she was able to assess the situation within a week of the terrorist attacks and let the world know how she viewed it. She let us know that the terrorists weren’t cowards, that we weren’t so innocent, and from what I’ve been able to conclude is that the word “terrorist” is not the right word. If anything, they should have been hailed as heroes. I mean, we consider the Founding Father’s heroes, when technically they were terrorists as well. It seems to be that we only use words that are convenient to us, and not the words that truly describe what is really happening (one day I will hopefully have a rant about words, but for now I must stay on topic and continue with this blog). Long story short – Susan Sontag was the most patriotic person at the time.

            Nine years later, a pastor named Terry Jones decides it’s a great time to be intolerant. September 11, 2010, Burn a Quran Day. I hope you know about this, because I’m not going to talk about what happened specifically. Basically, he didn’t go through with it, but I was more interested in people’s reactions. Right away, it made me think of Susan Sontag, the way he was basically demonized by Americans and Muslims alike. I got to thinking then, are we jumping to conclusions like we did nine years ago? Is he actually being patriotic? He was using his right to free speech, and freedom of expression. The thing is though, that there’s a point when freedom of speech and expression goes too far. That point is when it violates other people’s rights. I mentioned that the pilgrims came to America to fight religious oppression in England, earlier in the essay and this is where it comes in. What Jones was doing, was attempting to abolish Islam by saying it was “the work of the devil”. He was denying Muslims of their right to practice their religion; this is unconstitutional and unethical if you didn’t pick up on that. If you’d like to talk about this with me, feel free.

             I connected these two people because they were both heavily scrutinized about something that stemmed from the same thing. Unfortunately, Jones was being extremely unpatriotic and intolerant, while Sontag was the opposite.

            I’m tired, and I’ve been tired for some time now. I apologize if the second half of this blog wasn’t up to par, but I got sidetracked for about an hour and lost my train of thought. This is when I became tired and getting the infamous “writers block”. Again, sorry.

            Well, I shall leave you with this: Merry Christmas and to all a good night!

-          Seacrest Out

P.S. – Starting with my next blog, I will start posting quotes of the week. I will choose these quotes from wherever I find something interesting. Hopefully you’ll enjoy them.