25 years of change in the world - From the Cluttered Desk with Keith Roulston

This column about the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 tragedy should really have been in last week’s newspaper, which came out on Sept. 11, but since I write this column almost a week in advance, I wasn’t really thinking of it.

 

Still, the memories of that horrific day are so vivid that they dominate the news. I seem to remember we were putting the paper together for printing later that day when the first news broke. An airliner flew into one of New York’s iconic Twin Towers at 8:46 a.m. We had neither radio nor TV on to see the event, but our advertising sales person was talking to someone who passed on the news.

 

At first, it was thought this was some sort of accident. Then, at 9:03, a second plane smashed into the second of the Twin Towers and it became clear this was no accident. It turned out four planes were high-jacketed by 19 terrorists associated with Al-Queda. One crashed into the Pentagon in Washington at 9:37. The passengers on the fourth plane somehow heard what was going on and overwhelmed the terrorists and crashed the plane in a field in Pennsylvania, killing everyone, but saving the target of the attack.

 

It was ironic that the obituary of Jim Howson was in The Citizen the week before the 25th anniversary of the huge terrorist attack. I remember running into Jim at the post office on the day of the attack as we each picked up our mail and stopping to discuss the horrific news.

 

The horror of the attack on the Twin Towers kept coming out all day long as the buildings burned, then collapsed. In the end, 2,877 people, including 24 Canadians, died in the buildings. First responder deaths were also high, with 441 dying. Many of those who sought to help were affected by breathing in smoke, often filled with asbestos.

 

Not knowing what was going on, U.S. officials issued a warning that overseas planes shouldn’t land in the U.S. Some 250 flights landed in various airports in Canada, 38 of them, with 6,600 passengers, landed in Gander, Newfoundland.

 

That sparked one of the most remarkable stories. The people on the planes at first were kept on the planes and not allowed information on what had happened. But eventually they were taken off and, at first, kept in official quarters. But the 9,651 people of Gander decided that was no way to treat them. They began to take people out of the institutions and give them rooms in their homes. 

 

Friendships were established, many of them that have spanned the 25 years since. The Newfoundlanders visited their American guests and the Americans have often returned to Newfoundland, including for last week’s ceremony.

 

But the story of those days was to have a much longer effect. In 2017, Come from Away with book, music and lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, opened on Broadway at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre based on the welcoming Canadians and their grateful American visitors. The show went on to become an international success. 

 

At the New York ceremony commemorating the loss of people in the Twin Towers, former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden stood quietly as the names of the dead were read out. None of them spoke. Rumour has it that the fact politicians were not allowed to speak is the reason current President Donald Trump did not attend. He did speak at The Pentagon.

 

Meanwhile, as Canadians marked the occasion, Jean Chrétien, who was Prime Minister during the Sept. 11 attacks and is now 92, became one of the only people in Gander to bring politics into play. “We bow to no one,” Chrétien said to an audience that included Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. ambassador to Canada who had earlier repeated Donald Trump’s suggestion that Canada should be the 51st state of the U.S., despite the fact that Canada is larger than the entire U.S.

 

“And the more we are insulted or threatened and abused,” Chrétien said, “the more we will stand up for ourselves and stand united.”

 

So, the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks was both an occasion to go back in time a quarter-century, but also a time to look at the world of today. The NATO commitment is that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all. So, thousands of Canadians served in Afghanistan (including our son-in-law) to try to hunt down Osama bin Laden, who was thought to be behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

 

But Trump and his allies seem to forget that we stood up for America following Sept. 11. Today, they are withdrawing from NATO and its support for Ukraine against Russia. Trump seems to be great friends with dictators like Vladamir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, while long-time allies like Canada are distrusted. What a confused world we live in!