The horrors that the US experienced on September 11, 2001, as a result of the terrorist attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, are impossible to erase. Nineteen terrorists committed heinous crimes, taking the lives of almost 3,000 innocent people. The events of that day left such an indelible mark on those of us who lived through them that just hearing the words “9/11” brings back a flood of nightmarish, emotionally draining memories.
I was on my way to work that morning. We were stuck in downtown Washington traffic. Waiting for the signal to turn green, I noticed a woman in the car next to me trying to get my attention. As I rolled down my window, she shouted: “Did you hear the news?!”
“No,” I replied, noting that my car radio was broken.
“A plane just crashed into the World Trade Centre,” she yelled. “My father works in that building.” Then the signal turned green, and she moved on. I never saw her again but will never forget the look of abject horror on her face.
By the time I got to my office, everyone was watching TV. That was when the second plane hit. I was stunned and transfixed by the images of the planes slicing through the walls of the World Trade Centre, of people jumping from buildings and eventually, later on, of the two towers collapsing into a pile and disappearing forever.
It was almost too much to bear. The frightened face of that woman who spoke to me on my way to work was soon joined by hundreds of others – those running from the collapsing towers and those pushing their way in the opposite direction seeking news of their loved ones trapped in the inferno. The entire experience was numbing. I was only shaken from this trance-like state of watching and grieving by other events, some of which were more personal.
One of my daughters lived near the Pentagon, which we learnt had also been hit. After a few frantic calls, I was relieved to hear from her. And because my office was just two blocks from the White House, she had been concerned for my safety and was trying to reach me as well.
At midday on the 11th, the local police arrived announcing that our building was being evacuated as a safety precaution. I pleaded with them to let us stay because our office was being flooded with calls from Arab Americans across the country frightened by the first signs of an anti-Arab backlash. The police were amazingly supportive. They evacuated the rest of our building and the rest of our neighbourhood, but allowed us to remain so that we could continue our work. They even assigned two police cars to protect us.
Throughout the day and the days that followed, we mixed responding to frantic calls from our community with watching the continuing horror that was unfolding in New York. I was asked by the US Commission on Civil Rights to present a report on the extent of hate crimes being committed against Arabs and Muslims, and those thought to be Arab or Muslim. We catalogued hundreds from across the country, noting that a number of the death threats and messages of hate were directed at us.
It was profoundly unsettling. Like other Americans, we were pained by the horror that had been inflicted on our country and people. Like other Americans, we needed to mourn. But we were pulled away from our grieving and forced to look over our shoulders. Those who threatened us were effectively telling us: “You are not part of us.” It only served to compound the pain.
A week later, it appeared that the tide was beginning to shift. The work we had done for two decades, to empower our community and tell our story, bore fruit.
I was appearing daily on every TV network. The Ad Council of America offered to produce for us an anti-hate newspaper and television commercial. It appeared in hundreds of papers and was broadcast to tens of millions of viewers. The US Senate passed legislation condemning anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate. And a coalition of major civil rights groups and religious organisations sponsored a rally in support of our community.
All of this was both gratifying and exhausting, and it contributed to the rush of emotions and overall numbness that defined those days.
There is so much more to say and many more stories to tell. But I felt it was important to try to capture at least some of what we experienced 25 years ago, especially when I calculated that almost half of today’s Americans were not born, were too young to remember or had not yet come to our shores as immigrants.
For them, and for those of us who lived through those days, it remains important to remember.
