By Patricia Lee Sharpe
New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been unequivocal: American citizens have the right to build houses of worship where they will. At long last President Barack Obama has also spoken out in support of our fundamental right to freedom of religion. Nevertheless, Republicans and some Democrats contend that rights should give way to sensitivities in the aftermath of 9/11. To justify their politically convenient intolerance they appeal to the feelings of those whose unabatable suffering has been turned into a third rail of contemporary American politics. Don’t question it. Don’t even attempt to soothe it away. You’ll die.
More than ever I feel sorry for the survivors of 9/11 and for the families of the lost. For ten years now they have been used as political pawns when they should be given an opportunity to heal.
Grief counselors tell us that those who are bereaved must pass through several well understood stages en route to resuming a healthy normal life. The living 9/11 victims, it seems to me, are being manipulated in a way that denies them the right to recovery.
Remembrance is part of being human. Appropriately and gradually, a memorial to those who died when a bunch of fanatics hijacked commercial airliners and crashed them into the two towers in lower Manhattan is coming to fruition. The people who died, those who thought they were starting an ordinary day’s work as well as those who struggled to minimize the loss of life, will be impressively commemorated, even though their remains will never be recovered. Dust to dust was never more aptly put, and the land once occupied by the World Trade Center may well be considered to be hallowed ground.
Bereaved families received monetary compensation (which, in the very nature of things, can never be enough) and they were brought into the process of deciding how the Trade Center site now known (unfortunately) as Ground Zero could be developed in a way that would not only serve as a memorial to their loved ones and restore critical infrastructure, but also promote a world in which such atrocities would not be repeated. This was a noble vision in itself. It also allowed the bereaved to subsume their personal losses in a dream for a better future. It allowed them to look ahead. This is the way to mental health. This is the way to build a better world.
Unfortunately this process has been arrested for political convenience.
It is always hard to ask those who have suffered to get on with it, though they must, and it’s the job of clerics and psychologists to show them how, when necessary. Even so, some people never allow themselves to recover from the death of a child or a spouse. They feel disloyal. Etc. Etc. But they must. Otherwise they are no good to themselves or anyone else. The best tribute to lost loved ones is–well!—living wholeheartedly: never forgetting, but not crippled by the loss.
Thus, nearly ten years later, the families of the 9/ll victims should be encouraged to accept, sadly but finally, what has happened and to move on. Instead, once again, they are being dragged back into grief, into mourning. They are being asked to pick the scabs of the wounds they suffered that day, never to let them heal, never to let themselves heal. They are being confirmed in the neurotic temptation to live like wraiths, not entirely in the land of the living. Instead of giving themselves gratefully to the healing process, they are encouraged to feel they must endlessly feed their anger and bitterness and pain. They must, bleed, bleed. bleed.
Why must they bleed, you ask. Because, like a Greek chorus, they are needed for this or that political script. They are needed to justify actions that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.
The latest exploitation involves mobilizing the 9/11 families to object to a Muslim cultural center in lower Manhattan. This task requires a generous redefinition of the boundaries of Ground Zero, of course, but so much the better for the professional mourners among the families—and there are some, it seems, who appear to enjoy the implacable power they wield. Power is seductive. Walking away from the sense of entitlement that’s somehow sprung up won't be easy. But that’s what should happen. Good things aren’t built on hate.
Such insights aren’t always self-evident. So, where are the voices of the so-called specialists in grief? Why aren’t they pleading with the politicians to allow the families to go forward instead of hugging the past? Why don't these counselors openly prompt the bereaved to rebuild their lives instead of dictating who can build what and where in the great city of New York? Have these counselors been intimidated? Have they been overcome by political cowardice? What cruel simulacrum of sensitivity prevents them from saying out loud what they must know? There’s a herd mentality operating here. There’s a level of political correctness that is terrifying. But someone must say this to the survivors: forgiveness is better than bitterness, mercy is better than retribution. Those who can’t forgive rot from the inside out. They lose their humanity. They die. And all too often they take innocents down with them.
Meanwhile, a collective dying is happening as politicians continue to exploit the 9/11 tragedy. How can renouncing a bedrock American right to freedom of religion honor those who died on 9/11, which is to say, those who died from the acts of fanatics who don’t believe in religious freedom?
New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been unequivocal: American citizens have the right to build houses of worship where they will. At long last President Barack Obama has also spoken out in support of our fundamental right to freedom of religion. Nevertheless, Republicans and some Democrats contend that rights should give way to sensitivities in the aftermath of 9/11. To justify their politically convenient intolerance they appeal to the feelings of those whose unabatable suffering has been turned into a third rail of contemporary American politics. Don’t question it. Don’t even attempt to soothe it away. You’ll die.
More than ever I feel sorry for the survivors of 9/11 and for the families of the lost. For ten years now they have been used as political pawns when they should be given an opportunity to heal.
Grief counselors tell us that those who are bereaved must pass through several well understood stages en route to resuming a healthy normal life. The living 9/11 victims, it seems to me, are being manipulated in a way that denies them the right to recovery.
Remembrance is part of being human. Appropriately and gradually, a memorial to those who died when a bunch of fanatics hijacked commercial airliners and crashed them into the two towers in lower Manhattan is coming to fruition. The people who died, those who thought they were starting an ordinary day’s work as well as those who struggled to minimize the loss of life, will be impressively commemorated, even though their remains will never be recovered. Dust to dust was never more aptly put, and the land once occupied by the World Trade Center may well be considered to be hallowed ground.
Bereaved families received monetary compensation (which, in the very nature of things, can never be enough) and they were brought into the process of deciding how the Trade Center site now known (unfortunately) as Ground Zero could be developed in a way that would not only serve as a memorial to their loved ones and restore critical infrastructure, but also promote a world in which such atrocities would not be repeated. This was a noble vision in itself. It also allowed the bereaved to subsume their personal losses in a dream for a better future. It allowed them to look ahead. This is the way to mental health. This is the way to build a better world.
Unfortunately this process has been arrested for political convenience.
It is always hard to ask those who have suffered to get on with it, though they must, and it’s the job of clerics and psychologists to show them how, when necessary. Even so, some people never allow themselves to recover from the death of a child or a spouse. They feel disloyal. Etc. Etc. But they must. Otherwise they are no good to themselves or anyone else. The best tribute to lost loved ones is–well!—living wholeheartedly: never forgetting, but not crippled by the loss.
Thus, nearly ten years later, the families of the 9/ll victims should be encouraged to accept, sadly but finally, what has happened and to move on. Instead, once again, they are being dragged back into grief, into mourning. They are being asked to pick the scabs of the wounds they suffered that day, never to let them heal, never to let themselves heal. They are being confirmed in the neurotic temptation to live like wraiths, not entirely in the land of the living. Instead of giving themselves gratefully to the healing process, they are encouraged to feel they must endlessly feed their anger and bitterness and pain. They must, bleed, bleed. bleed.
Why must they bleed, you ask. Because, like a Greek chorus, they are needed for this or that political script. They are needed to justify actions that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.
The latest exploitation involves mobilizing the 9/11 families to object to a Muslim cultural center in lower Manhattan. This task requires a generous redefinition of the boundaries of Ground Zero, of course, but so much the better for the professional mourners among the families—and there are some, it seems, who appear to enjoy the implacable power they wield. Power is seductive. Walking away from the sense of entitlement that’s somehow sprung up won't be easy. But that’s what should happen. Good things aren’t built on hate.
Such insights aren’t always self-evident. So, where are the voices of the so-called specialists in grief? Why aren’t they pleading with the politicians to allow the families to go forward instead of hugging the past? Why don't these counselors openly prompt the bereaved to rebuild their lives instead of dictating who can build what and where in the great city of New York? Have these counselors been intimidated? Have they been overcome by political cowardice? What cruel simulacrum of sensitivity prevents them from saying out loud what they must know? There’s a herd mentality operating here. There’s a level of political correctness that is terrifying. But someone must say this to the survivors: forgiveness is better than bitterness, mercy is better than retribution. Those who can’t forgive rot from the inside out. They lose their humanity. They die. And all too often they take innocents down with them.
Meanwhile, a collective dying is happening as politicians continue to exploit the 9/11 tragedy. How can renouncing a bedrock American right to freedom of religion honor those who died on 9/11, which is to say, those who died from the acts of fanatics who don’t believe in religious freedom?