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Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management Crisis and Emergency Management Newsletter Website |
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October
2004
Volume 7
- Number 1 |
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Living abroad on “11/9” Rosa Ailabouni “A plane crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City (NYC).” I remember hearing those words for the first time as I walked into what was going to be my graduate school for the year and thinking to myself that the man who was so passionately uttering those words was describing a new movie he had seen. I had just moved to Paris and was registering for graduate-level classes for the upcoming school year. “Who would want to see a movie like that, I thought to myself, as I continued walking?” And then I heard some others mention NYC and decided to ask them what they were talking about. As they described the crisis to me, school administrators were pulling a television into the main lobby. The words were replaced by images as I watched the first crash on the television…and then the second…then news of the Pentagon…then Pennsylvania… I had thousands of questions to which I wanted answers. Thoughts of my family and friends went through my head. I kept trying to reach them, but the phone just kept on ringing busy. Days went by and all I heard was news coverage of the crisis; I could not even get onto websites of American newspapers–there were either too many people logging on or the server was down. I wanted to talk to family members and friends and offer them words of comfort-- hug them and be there for them. Most of all, I wanted to hear that this really was a movie and that my fellow Americans were not living through this disaster and in mourning for loved ones. As I received e-mails and finally spoke to family members, I realized that what I had seen on TV earlier that week was real. The voices of family members were not comforting--voices filled with hurt, disgust, and fear. I sensed crying for several weeks as the only strong sound I could hear during that time was the voice of news anchors discussing the number of casualties through the phone. Outside of the American Center at school, which was helpful by holding later-than-normal hours so that Americans could check e-mail or use phones between classes, I did not feel as though people were understanding of how hard it was to be so far away from the people I loved while loved ones were suffering. They did not understand how for the rest of my life, I would never know the emotions that Americans in the USA felt during this time. As I continued attending classes everyday, students who did not even know my name would ask me how I felt about the terrorist attack on the U.S. Several Europeans told me that they were sick of hearing about 9/11 on television and wished that something else would be broadcasted. Yet others told me that they believed that Americans were blowing the crisis out of proportion and obviously have never felt the pain and hurt of war on their soil- -this coming from students who had also never lived through war on their native soil. At a time of mourning, when hundreds of people (not just Americans) were being reported missing or dead each day, one would expect others to be more sympathetic. I had to defend my country and my people’s emotions and reactions, to others. At the end of the school year, I came back to a U.S. that was not only still mourning the lives of several thousands of people, but a U.S. that lost its sense of security and trust in others. Will the U.S. ever again be able to “Love and Trust Thy Neighbor”? Only time will tell. |