The day that de-Americanized America

I remember very clearly an ad on CNN, just days after 9/11. The ad said something like this; “do not forget it is not PLA, it is not Al-Qaida , it is not Hezbollah or Hamas that we are fighting ; what we are fighting is hatred” , then the announcer of the ad stopped a little bit and then added “and it is winning…”

At the time of 9/11, I was just another 19-year old just about to start my life in college; but that particular ad had remained fixated in my memory and as I start to write this just two hours before the 10-th anniversary on 9/11 would commence, the message of that ad still remains fresh in my mind.

Leaders of America had the support of the whole world behind them after 9/11, so much shocked and horrified the World was at those attacks that even the Islamic republic of Iran , the avowed enemy of America ; had offered them cooperation and a permanent end to hostilities in exchange of equal treatment.

What was the reaction of President Bush? Instead of accepting the gratitude of the World, he acted with a mindset to remake the World. He declared Iran as part of an “axis of evil” and followed up with sanctions and covert operations for “regime change”. America would remake the World into her own democratic image, he thundered to the World in his now famous 2002 “axis of evil” address. Maybe it was the outburst of that quintessential American attitude called “American exceptionalism” which always considers itself as part of a divine mission to outdo all wrongs in the World as well as converting the whole World into America’s image.

But what about the American people? What about the average American? Why did he not come to the same understanding the rest of the World had about some of the policies that his leaders were taking on his name? 9/11 not only changed America but it also changed the average American. The average American went into a retreat into a make believe world where he restricts his education about the world to the posts in social networking sites and demagogic websites. In the end, the average American did not bother much when Iraq was invaded on false pretexts, when those obscenities from Abu Gharib shocked the World, when those who caused the global economic recession in 2008 went home with their compensations intact. In the end, in the land of consumerism and individualism, the average American converted himself from a citizen into a consumer and individual. And the reason why it happened? It was the same old reason as shown in that ad after 9/11, it was the sense of hatred; it was the sense of fear; it was the sense of “being wronged” ; it was this sense which did not allow America to become normal and has not allowed her to become normal ever since. The primitive sense of taking revenge and the more primitive sense of existential fear had overpowered the average American so much that he remains stuck to his viewpoint about a cruel World coming to destroy his beloved America.

America was always considered a land of abundant opportunities for the worthy to take; it was the land where you can think about taking your chances in life that you want to take. America believed about opening herself to the World. Now what has happened ever since that fateful day? America did not allow its ports to be operated by Dubai Port City because it feared that terrorists might snick in; America closed its doors to the people of Gaza when they elected Hamas in a democratic election in 2006; President Bush is alleged to have even threatened to bomb the Al-Jazeera offices because he was not happy with the news.

In short, 9/11 was a day that made America stop being America. It was the day that de-Americanized America.