Where Were You on Sept. 11?

In just one week the entire world will commemorate the day that al-Qaida terrorists hijacked planes and ran them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing 3,000 people.

This week thousands of television and newspaper stories will relate the story of that day, citing the reasons behind the attacks and particularly emphasizing how these events have affected our lives. In the two articles that follow this one, I will attempt to explain how Sept. 11 has been a turning point for the politicians, journalists and analysts of my generation.

I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s of the 20th century, and everyone around my age could answer the question “Where were you when Kennedy was shot in ’63?” I can’t remember now, but at the time of the assassination, I was only six, and we didn’t have a TV in our home. The moment that a bullet murdered JFK was a turning point for my parents’ generation, however. Since that time, events like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 have marked the lives of millions of people from all corners of the globe. Yet, nothing comes close to the attacks on the twin towers perpetrated on Sept. 11, 2001. Images of unbelievable destruction and incomprehensible tragedy were broadcast live to all parts of the world.

This time I remember quite well where I was. I was a member of the European Parliament, and I was sitting in on a meeting of the Foreign Relations Committee, headed by the German Christian-Democrat Elmar Brok. As we discussed the state of affairs in a particular part of the world, some anxious and slightly panicked assistants approached the head of the committee to inform him that something very important was happening outside of the meeting room. Brok immediately cut the speaker off to inform us calmly that the meeting would be ending and that some very dramatic events had just occurred in New York. Confused, I ran to my office, where my assistants were fixated upon the footage of the two planes ramming into the World Trade Center towers being played over and over again on the television. Their faces were filled equally with surprise, disbelief, anxiety and fear. Just as the trade center towers collapsed, there were fleeting announcements that other planes were on their way to attack other targets. Who knew? Maybe Europe would also be targeted. Some wanted to escape the European Parliament building, which they thought could be a potential target. Some left the building. Those of us that remained continued to watch the horrifying events unfolding on the other side of the Atlantic.

In the following two pieces in which I discuss the impact of Sept. 11, I would like to focus on a key concept: the Islamicization of global politics. As he planned this operation, Osama bin Laden had a number of goals. Among them, as Samuel Huntington put forth as the primary thesis of his classic work “Clash of Civilizations,” was to provoke a war between Islam and the West. I will return to analyze the mixed results of this effort at a later time. Al-Qaida has been very successful, however, at forcefully injecting Islam into American and European public discourse. Islam had never before been used in Western countries as a way to evaluate and/or explain the state of internal affairs or international relations (whether rightly or wrongly).

I have just finished the book “Islam Deception”* by the influential, liberal reporter of the German newspaper “Die Zeit.” Thumann eloquently and persuasively shows how an obsession with Islam has caused citizens and public officials in the West to go head over heels using it as a means for analyzing their own societies as well those of other countries. As a result, we get wrong answers to all the wrong questions.

*Editor’s Note: Michael Thumann is the author of “The Islam Error: Europe’s Fear of the Muslim World.”