Where Were You When the World Changed?
There are few dates in a generation that serve to locate an era or an epoch— dates which divide days and years into the old and the new, the before and the after.
I was having dinner at a function room at the Rockwell Club in Makati celebrating the birthday of a law school classmate when news that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center was sent to me through my cell phone. It was September 11, 2001.
Upon hearing the news, I at first thought that it was the World Trade Center in Roxas Boulevard, in Manila, that was the site of the unfortunate accident. It was only when one of my classmates directed me to the television in the adjacent room that I realized from CNN that it was the World Trade Center in New York City that that had just been struck by what seemed to be a wayward airplane. The North Tower was then already belching thick black smoke, and commentaries at that time were all still confirming the nature of the crash.
Initial reports suggested that it was merely an unfortunate accident, but recalling the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, a terrorist attack was not beyond the realm of possibility. All the speculation was confirmed moments later, when a second plane slammed into the World Trade Center’s South Tower. I watched in disbelief as an explosion mushroomed from the top of that second building. I remember the news anchors’ stunned silence as the screen showed a bright red, a blurry shadow of an aircraft crashing into the structure only moments earlier. There was no doubt now that we were witnessing a terrorist attack. It was 9:03 pm, Manila Time.
.jpg)
.jpg)
* * *
* * *
Hannah Arendt was a German philosopher who lived through the horrors of the Second World War. Arendt, herself a Jew, asks how man, a species unique in its reason and intellect, could instead embrace irrationality, unreality, and evil. She situates these reflections against an analysis of totalitarianism, that unique and terrible political ideology that emerged in Europe during that era, and wondered whether in the face of all this atrocity and death, “[i]s rational reflection even possible?”
Arendt, of course, answered this in the affirmative. Unlike other post-war philosophers that took a nihilistic view of reason and man, proclaiming even, that “man is a useless passion,” Arendt remained committed to the centrality of reason in human conduct. Arendt rejected the twin views that this festering totalitarianism was beyond rational explanation, and that reason was itself a fantasy. In her quest to understand this radically novel political form, Arendt remained steadfastly committed to reason and its demands. Her observations are quite telling: evil does not appear to be borne from innate human weakness or wickedness, but from a tendency to abandon rationality. Man simply forgets to think, to apply what she calls to be common sense. Thus—
* * *
While on the surface, the terror attacks of 9/11 partake of a religious, fanatical preoccupation, many of its characteristics hew closely to Arendt’s conception of man’s tendency towards totalitarianism. It may be true that the techniques have changed from the death camps of Nazi Germany— commercial jets crashing into skyscrapers, bombs planted in trucks, and death-powder enclosed in envelopes— yet the objective remains the same: the domination of the other. Indeed, like the classic unreality of totalitarianism, the fantastic has intruded into the real: hundred-story towers crumbling into dust together with hundreds of innocent people, airlines turning into sinister projectiles through the sky, bombs falling upon near deserted mountains to flush out maniacal religious fanatics out to destroy the capitalist world.
As one author, reflecting upon the events of 9/11 points out, the “world” of the World Trade Center with thousands of people from different nationalities under America’s aegis has been “shattered” by scores of people from “another world” shut off from the world of commerce and prosperity by thousands of grievances rooted in ethnic, ideological, or religious complaints about perceived American arrogance. Here, the peace of Arendt’s shared world has disintegrated, and in its place, a veritable “clash of civilizations” has emerged, complete with its fantasy and unreality.
Yet ironically, some say that the United States itself, the bastion of liberty, freedom and enlightened government, appears to have itself subtly subscribed to the totalitarianism of earlier days. With the breakdown of the shared world, the United States had initially closed all attempts at communication and dialogue and opted to take its stand by force, dragging the innocent Afghan people to ruin in the search of a single man. The descent into the totalitarian, therefore, is not anymore difficult to imagine. What was rooted in the old realities up to 9/11 now has found fresh visage in new geopolitical realities. Indeed, the divisions have been drawn once again, and the world is forced to take sides. The “us” and the “them” emerge in a frighteningly world-wide scale.
This is the reason Arendt’s call to forgiveness and promise take on an added significance. The redemption and escape from the spiral of totalitarianism lies in the ability to rebuild again the common world that has been fragmented by the apparent and seeming incompatibilities of American capitalism and the Islamic faith. Building a future not on forgiveness but on past wrongs does not create a foundation of pluralism that is at the heart of tolerance and religious tranquility.
This is not to say, of course, that the actions of Al Qaeda can be justified as an expression of faith. The actions of Osama Bin Laden cannot be tolerated. But to endanger the lives of thousands of innocent people to achieve the end-goal of American vindictiveness is too steep a price to pay for a fragile peace and security. Indeed, another fundamentalist could take Bin Laden’s place, and the killing continues, in this vicious cycle of fantasy begetting fantasy, ad nauseam ad infinitum.
The key, therefore, is forgiveness and promise: when two peoples embrace again the shared world of common meanings can the darkness of isolation and assimilation be banished and the cycle of vengeance and violence be broken. Indeed, the words of Arendt ring true then as it does so now: Without the possibility of forgiveness, man cannot be released from the clutches of the past, from the mistakes of totalitarianism and terrorism, as man’s capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which he could never recover; man would be a victim of its consequences forever.
I was having dinner at a function room at the Rockwell Club in Makati celebrating the birthday of a law school classmate when news that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center was sent to me through my cell phone. It was September 11, 2001.
Upon hearing the news, I at first thought that it was the World Trade Center in Roxas Boulevard, in Manila, that was the site of the unfortunate accident. It was only when one of my classmates directed me to the television in the adjacent room that I realized from CNN that it was the World Trade Center in New York City that that had just been struck by what seemed to be a wayward airplane. The North Tower was then already belching thick black smoke, and commentaries at that time were all still confirming the nature of the crash.
Initial reports suggested that it was merely an unfortunate accident, but recalling the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, a terrorist attack was not beyond the realm of possibility. All the speculation was confirmed moments later, when a second plane slammed into the World Trade Center’s South Tower. I watched in disbelief as an explosion mushroomed from the top of that second building. I remember the news anchors’ stunned silence as the screen showed a bright red, a blurry shadow of an aircraft crashing into the structure only moments earlier. There was no doubt now that we were witnessing a terrorist attack. It was 9:03 pm, Manila Time.
.jpg)
.jpg)
I got home at around 11PM later that evening to catch the CNN video of the twin towers’ eventual almost simultaneous collapse. Standing in front of the television screen, I recalled that summer in 1995 when I had the chance to visit the World Trade Center up close. Looking towards the sky that crisp April day, I recall having been swept up by the immensity and permanence of the Twin Towers; to my young and naïve mind, they were the grandest man-made structures I had then ever seen. I even climbed to the observation deck at the 110th Floor of the South Tower, more than 1,300 feet above New York City, and I recall with vivid wonder the magnificent views of downtown Manhattan, the East River, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty, even New Jersey, for almost 55 miles. Now, those same magnificent and seemingly permanent structures were burning before my eyes. It was indeed an awesome and terrifying sight: watching such gigantic buildings fall so spectacularly, in a think plume of grey-black smoke, and with a suddenness that was difficult to comprehend.
* * *
The view that September day was quite different for Marlyn Bautista. An officer at the accounts payable department, Marlyn worked at the 94th Floor of the North Tower, in the insurance company of Marsh & McLennan.
Her husband, Rameses Bautista, shares that Marlyn liked to wake up early for work, in order to avoid rush hour traffic. The Bautistas lived in Iselin, New Jersey and Marlyn would take the Metro Park Loop bus every morning on her way to the train station which would take her to Manhattan, and eventually, the Twin Towers. She often stopped at a downtown church to pray. But on September 11, 2001, she went straight to her office, at the 94th Floor.
.jpg)
At 8:46 that morning, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed directly into Marlyn’s office. Marlyn’s sister, who also worked in the building but arrived in the area a little later than Marlyn, found smoke pouring out of the top of the North Tower. She rushed to their usual church hoping to find Marlyn there, as had been her routine, before proceeding to work. But Marlyn wasn’t there. And almost without thinking, Marlyn’s sister rushed to the Trade Center Complex, only to witness the building itself come crashing to the ground.
Marlyn never made it down from the 93rd Floor of the North Tower. She, like countless others, died in the terrible carnage of fuel and flames that would later on, and forever be remembered as 9/11. We remember them today as the first victims of a war that until then, offered no face or nationality. Days later, the attackers would be given a name, and a network of financed terror that would later on strike Bali, Madrid and London was laid bare to all the world. Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden became household names. And the world would never be the same.
Her husband, Rameses Bautista, shares that Marlyn liked to wake up early for work, in order to avoid rush hour traffic. The Bautistas lived in Iselin, New Jersey and Marlyn would take the Metro Park Loop bus every morning on her way to the train station which would take her to Manhattan, and eventually, the Twin Towers. She often stopped at a downtown church to pray. But on September 11, 2001, she went straight to her office, at the 94th Floor.
.jpg)
At 8:46 that morning, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed directly into Marlyn’s office. Marlyn’s sister, who also worked in the building but arrived in the area a little later than Marlyn, found smoke pouring out of the top of the North Tower. She rushed to their usual church hoping to find Marlyn there, as had been her routine, before proceeding to work. But Marlyn wasn’t there. And almost without thinking, Marlyn’s sister rushed to the Trade Center Complex, only to witness the building itself come crashing to the ground.Marlyn never made it down from the 93rd Floor of the North Tower. She, like countless others, died in the terrible carnage of fuel and flames that would later on, and forever be remembered as 9/11. We remember them today as the first victims of a war that until then, offered no face or nationality. Days later, the attackers would be given a name, and a network of financed terror that would later on strike Bali, Madrid and London was laid bare to all the world. Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden became household names. And the world would never be the same.
* * *
Hannah Arendt was a German philosopher who lived through the horrors of the Second World War. Arendt, herself a Jew, asks how man, a species unique in its reason and intellect, could instead embrace irrationality, unreality, and evil. She situates these reflections against an analysis of totalitarianism, that unique and terrible political ideology that emerged in Europe during that era, and wondered whether in the face of all this atrocity and death, “[i]s rational reflection even possible?”
Arendt, of course, answered this in the affirmative. Unlike other post-war philosophers that took a nihilistic view of reason and man, proclaiming even, that “man is a useless passion,” Arendt remained committed to the centrality of reason in human conduct. Arendt rejected the twin views that this festering totalitarianism was beyond rational explanation, and that reason was itself a fantasy. In her quest to understand this radically novel political form, Arendt remained steadfastly committed to reason and its demands. Her observations are quite telling: evil does not appear to be borne from innate human weakness or wickedness, but from a tendency to abandon rationality. Man simply forgets to think, to apply what she calls to be common sense. Thus—
Some years ago, reporting the trial of Eichmann in Jerusalem, I spoke of “the banality of evil” and meant with this no theory or doctrine but something quite factual, the phenomenon of evil deeds, committed on a gigantic scale, which could not be traced to any particularity of wickedness, pathology, or ideological conviction in the doer, whose only personal distinction was a perhaps extraordinary shallowness. However monstrous the deeds were, the doer was neither monstrous nor demonic, and the only specific characteristic one could detect in his past as well as in his behavior during the trial and the preceding police examination was something entirely negative: it was not stupidity, but a curious, quite authentic inability to think. [Hannah Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations: A Lecture,” in Moral Matters and Considerations, A Textbook for Foundations of Moral Value, ed. Nemesio S. Que, S.J., New Manila, 2000.]
One of the central characteristics of this totalitarianism, Arendt notes, is a persistent substitution of fantasy for reality which eventually erodes the social sphere or common world that disallows the fantasized assimilation of the other. According to Arendt, the essential characteristic of totalitarianism is its desire to dominate the human being as a means to effect the greater and perhaps more fantastic of its goals: total world domination through the subjugation of races. Indeed, it is an objective that, when placed within the context of reason and common sense, certainly reeks of irrationality and fantastic impossibility. Yet with the breakdown of the common world, the fantastic takes on the character of the real, and this irrationality, a semblance of reasonability. The totalitarian world is a world turned up-side-down.
Nothing captures this tendency towards fantasy in totalitarianism than the concentration camps of Nazi Germany which Arendt considers as the consummate illustration of the totalitarian condition. Here, all elements of the totalitarian project are achieved, resulting in the total domination of the human person. In the death camps littered across Poland and Germany, all reason seemed to breakdown: the impossible become possible, and reality seemed to stand on its head. Thus, even in the face of incontrovertible testimonial evidence by survivors of these death camps, their accounts, even as they became more and more authentic, become less and less believable. As Arendt herself observes:
Nothing captures this tendency towards fantasy in totalitarianism than the concentration camps of Nazi Germany which Arendt considers as the consummate illustration of the totalitarian condition. Here, all elements of the totalitarian project are achieved, resulting in the total domination of the human person. In the death camps littered across Poland and Germany, all reason seemed to breakdown: the impossible become possible, and reality seemed to stand on its head. Thus, even in the face of incontrovertible testimonial evidence by survivors of these death camps, their accounts, even as they became more and more authentic, become less and less believable. As Arendt herself observes:
None of these reports inspires those passions of outrage and sympathy through which men have always been mobilized for justice. On the contrary, anyone speaking or writing about concentration camps is still regarded as suspect; and if the speaker has resolutely returned to the world of the living, he himself is often assailed by doubts with regard to his own truthfulness, as though he had mistaken a nightmare for reality. [Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, p. 439]
It is for this reason that Arendt describes the death camps as dream-like, unreal, and nightmarish. All the conditions that made the world real were absent in this place of death: there were no consequences connected to actions, no recognition of individuality, no intelligible meaning to events— in a word, nothing made sense because there was no world that could be shared.
Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize-winning author, recounts an eloquent example of this arbitrariness and unintelligibility:
Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize-winning author, recounts an eloquent example of this arbitrariness and unintelligibility:
We continued our march. We were gradually drawing closer to the ditch from which an infernal heat was rising. Still twenty steps to go. If I wanted to bring about my own death, this was the moment. Our line had now only fifteen paces to cover. I bit my lips so that my father would not hear my teeth chattering. Ten steps still. Eight. Seven. We marched slowly on, as though following a hearse at our own funeral. Four steps more. Three steps. There it was now, right in front of us, the pit and its flames. I gathered all that was left of my strength, so that I could break from the ranks and throw myself upon the barbed wire. In the depths of my heart, I bade farewell to my father, to the whole universe; and, in spite of myself, the words formed themselves and issued in a whisper from my lips: Yitgadal veyitkadach shme rada. . . May His name be blessed and magnified. . . My heart was bursting. The moment had come. I was face to face with the Angel of Death. . .
No. Two steps from the pit we were ordered to turn to the left and made to go into the barracks. [Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Bantam Book, 1960), p. 31]
In the face of seeming death, Elie Wiesel did not die. But his mother and sister did, for no apparent reason whatsoever. “Men to the left. Women to the right”— who knew why this person had to be sent to the gas chambers, and the next person spared? Who understood why mother and son had to be separated? Everything appeared to be a matter of chance: the paralyzing effect of uncertainty deprived the individual of all desire to act, to live in community, to become. Reason itself seemed to have been gassed and burned in the death camps of Poland and Germany, together with the innocents of the Jewish people.
These accounts, and many others, Arendt uses to demonstrate not only the unrealities of the Nazi Death Camps but the seeming incomprehensibility of totalitarianism and how it confounds the limits of accepted categories of political thought and norms of moral conduct. In the face of this historical fact, all reason appears to break down: do not try to understand, as expressed by a camp survivor. Yet Arendt’s commitment to reason is undiminished. In the face of this incomprehensibility, she strives to find explanations and categories for this new and threatening totalitarianism; for to accept this facticity as impenetrable even to human reason would be to negate not only the survivors’ sacrifice, but man’s very humanity as well.
Having thus penetrated through this mist of incomprehensibility, Arendt suggests that the only way to regain this sense of reality, this to return to a common world of shared ideas, is through forgiveness. Arendt recognizes that human relationships are fragile, ethereal, and even unpredictable, and that totalitarian assimilation and alienation is an ever-present reality. Thus, it is imperative that individuals and societies be willing to make and to accept reparations. Indeed, as Arendt observes, without the possibility of forgiveness, man cannot be released from the clutches of the past, from the mistakes of totalitarianism, as man’s capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which he could never recover; man would be a victim of its consequences forever.
But because of the innate unpredictability of human relationships, Arendt believes that forgiveness is not enough; restoring the common world requires man to be able to make and keep promises, to affirm the possibility of maintaining a stable future.
Forgiveness and promise, therefore, are two sides of the same coin— for as forgiveness serves to undo the deeds of the past, promises serve to create, in an ocean of uncertainty, islands of security for the future without which community would not be possible in the relationships between men. Arendt believes, in fact, that forgiveness and promise are the highest manifestation of community in the shared space; for indeed, no one can forgive himself and no one can feel bound by a promise made only to himself. Forgiveness and promise, therefore, necessarily involve the other, and are guarantees to the perpetuation of a shared community. Where there is forgiveness and promise, community exists.
These accounts, and many others, Arendt uses to demonstrate not only the unrealities of the Nazi Death Camps but the seeming incomprehensibility of totalitarianism and how it confounds the limits of accepted categories of political thought and norms of moral conduct. In the face of this historical fact, all reason appears to break down: do not try to understand, as expressed by a camp survivor. Yet Arendt’s commitment to reason is undiminished. In the face of this incomprehensibility, she strives to find explanations and categories for this new and threatening totalitarianism; for to accept this facticity as impenetrable even to human reason would be to negate not only the survivors’ sacrifice, but man’s very humanity as well.
Having thus penetrated through this mist of incomprehensibility, Arendt suggests that the only way to regain this sense of reality, this to return to a common world of shared ideas, is through forgiveness. Arendt recognizes that human relationships are fragile, ethereal, and even unpredictable, and that totalitarian assimilation and alienation is an ever-present reality. Thus, it is imperative that individuals and societies be willing to make and to accept reparations. Indeed, as Arendt observes, without the possibility of forgiveness, man cannot be released from the clutches of the past, from the mistakes of totalitarianism, as man’s capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which he could never recover; man would be a victim of its consequences forever.
But because of the innate unpredictability of human relationships, Arendt believes that forgiveness is not enough; restoring the common world requires man to be able to make and keep promises, to affirm the possibility of maintaining a stable future.
Forgiveness and promise, therefore, are two sides of the same coin— for as forgiveness serves to undo the deeds of the past, promises serve to create, in an ocean of uncertainty, islands of security for the future without which community would not be possible in the relationships between men. Arendt believes, in fact, that forgiveness and promise are the highest manifestation of community in the shared space; for indeed, no one can forgive himself and no one can feel bound by a promise made only to himself. Forgiveness and promise, therefore, necessarily involve the other, and are guarantees to the perpetuation of a shared community. Where there is forgiveness and promise, community exists.
* * *
While on the surface, the terror attacks of 9/11 partake of a religious, fanatical preoccupation, many of its characteristics hew closely to Arendt’s conception of man’s tendency towards totalitarianism. It may be true that the techniques have changed from the death camps of Nazi Germany— commercial jets crashing into skyscrapers, bombs planted in trucks, and death-powder enclosed in envelopes— yet the objective remains the same: the domination of the other. Indeed, like the classic unreality of totalitarianism, the fantastic has intruded into the real: hundred-story towers crumbling into dust together with hundreds of innocent people, airlines turning into sinister projectiles through the sky, bombs falling upon near deserted mountains to flush out maniacal religious fanatics out to destroy the capitalist world.
As one author, reflecting upon the events of 9/11 points out, the “world” of the World Trade Center with thousands of people from different nationalities under America’s aegis has been “shattered” by scores of people from “another world” shut off from the world of commerce and prosperity by thousands of grievances rooted in ethnic, ideological, or religious complaints about perceived American arrogance. Here, the peace of Arendt’s shared world has disintegrated, and in its place, a veritable “clash of civilizations” has emerged, complete with its fantasy and unreality.
Yet ironically, some say that the United States itself, the bastion of liberty, freedom and enlightened government, appears to have itself subtly subscribed to the totalitarianism of earlier days. With the breakdown of the shared world, the United States had initially closed all attempts at communication and dialogue and opted to take its stand by force, dragging the innocent Afghan people to ruin in the search of a single man. The descent into the totalitarian, therefore, is not anymore difficult to imagine. What was rooted in the old realities up to 9/11 now has found fresh visage in new geopolitical realities. Indeed, the divisions have been drawn once again, and the world is forced to take sides. The “us” and the “them” emerge in a frighteningly world-wide scale.
This is the reason Arendt’s call to forgiveness and promise take on an added significance. The redemption and escape from the spiral of totalitarianism lies in the ability to rebuild again the common world that has been fragmented by the apparent and seeming incompatibilities of American capitalism and the Islamic faith. Building a future not on forgiveness but on past wrongs does not create a foundation of pluralism that is at the heart of tolerance and religious tranquility.
This is not to say, of course, that the actions of Al Qaeda can be justified as an expression of faith. The actions of Osama Bin Laden cannot be tolerated. But to endanger the lives of thousands of innocent people to achieve the end-goal of American vindictiveness is too steep a price to pay for a fragile peace and security. Indeed, another fundamentalist could take Bin Laden’s place, and the killing continues, in this vicious cycle of fantasy begetting fantasy, ad nauseam ad infinitum.
The key, therefore, is forgiveness and promise: when two peoples embrace again the shared world of common meanings can the darkness of isolation and assimilation be banished and the cycle of vengeance and violence be broken. Indeed, the words of Arendt ring true then as it does so now: Without the possibility of forgiveness, man cannot be released from the clutches of the past, from the mistakes of totalitarianism and terrorism, as man’s capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which he could never recover; man would be a victim of its consequences forever.
