I noticed that one of the TV stations is replaying, or is going to be replaying, the “Concert for New York City” — i.e. the benefit show that took place on October 20th, 2001, featuring Billy Joel, The Who, Melissa Etheridge, Elton John and too many others to list. I don’t expect to watch it, no more than I watched back then. No offense to anyone who got something out of it — as many did — but it just wasn’t what I needed to hear then and I can’t imagine I need to hear it now. For people who lost loved ones that day, of-course any kind of mourning they chose to engage in was entirely appropriate. But as someone who didn’t lose a loved one, I was uncomfortable with anything that seemed to lean towards wallowing in the grief and loss caused by the attacks. Certainly, the deaths of so many innocent people and the self-sacrifice of the firefighters and police officers was a cause for grief whether you knew any of them personally or not, but it was a not a grief for me that needed to be sharpened or voiced on my behalf by pop singers at Madison Square Garden.

Now, I like Elton John (I’ll confess it) and I even quite like that song of his Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, which I understand he performed at the event. But it exists in an entirely different universe of lightness and sentimentality and unreality, as compared to the universe that was made manifest on September 11th, 2001. Seeing how that kind of thing appealed to so many people underscored for me the fact that our collective way of “dealing with” the attacks was no longer collective. It was by no means the first moment that I began to apprehend that fact, of-course. That may have been more around the time I went down to New York City’s Union Square and the Village a couple of days after the massacre — while the bodies were still burning and the smell was everywhere — and saw all the anti-war messages, directed at ourselves.

In a similar way, the yearly memorials on September 11th, like this year’s, inspire mixed feelings in my soul. It is absolutely right to honor the dead, and to recognize the heroes. Yet, everytime I hear the word “tragedy” coming after “September 11th,” it burns me, and too much of the memorializing seems caught up in that notion of mourning the tragedy as opposed to remembering the attacks. People in the street in New York were being interviewed on morning television today. My wife and I both noticed that among the remarks that were broadcast, there was a lot said about remembering and being sad, but no one said anything about their desire to see the enemy who perpetrated the attacks defeated. I know I’m very far from the only one who feels this way, but regardless, the media coverage of the memorial is very much slanted towards the idea that a lot of people died that day, as distinct from the fact that a lot of people were killed that day.

There is a moment of silence at 8:46, and then another at 9:03, to mark the moments that the airplanes hit the towers, like you might commemorate the timing of great earth tremors that took countless lives. But those weren’t earthquakes; those were missiles deliberately flown into the buildings by Islamic jihadists who considered that they were achieving something glorious and holy. Commemorating these moments is painfully close, it seems to me, to glorifying the mechanics of their operation. I know that’s not the intent. But six years later, I still can’t see it as the right thing to do.

Six years later, it still seems to me that it falls to us — those who didn’t lose loved ones — to remember the attacks in order that we remember the need to defeat the enemy who perpetrated them, and the enemy who is eager to perpetrate more.

The songs from the “Concert for New York City” don’t fit the bill for me, no more than they did back then. Something different is needed. Although this is a Bob Dylan-oriented website, and his songs certainly exist for me on a deep and timeless level, they’re not what I’m looking for today either. Not when compared to this other timeless song: From the National Cathedral, on Friday, September 14, 2001, the United States Navy Band “Sea Chanters” chorus and the congregation there gathered, singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Click here to go directly to YouTube or play below.

I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.

…

Also check out Michelle Malkin today: 9/11 Remembrance and resistance, as well as Jihad Watch, Mark Steyn, Little Green Footballs and Hot Air.

…

Addendum 9/12/2007: Thanks to Sean S. for the e-mail:

I can’t say I disagree with the general thrust of your post concerning the Concert for New York, but there was at least one song that was appropriate. The concert was a benefit for the Police and Firefighters who had lost their lives, and for their surviving brothers and sisters. Keith Richards and Mick Jagger (I don’t recall the other Stones being there) sang ‘Salt of the Earth’ from Beggar’s Banquet. When Keith stepped to the mike and crooned “Let’s drink to the hard working people” it was perfect.

...................
Share this!

Posts which might be related to this one based on a mysterious algorithm:

• Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to visit the Big Apple
• Peace out
• Obvious truths which needed stating today