When I consider what I should do with myself, and contribute to my society with the full worth of my God given form, my mind is hurled into an undertow of ideas that must be considered first. Foremost, how is it that I even perceive the world. I suppose one sees through perspectives of their world seen through a collection of memories and outlooks. At first, one sees their culture, even if it may not seem so apparent to one at first. They see through their language, they see through the paintings and the symbols and mythology. They see the world through shades of colors that make sense to others like themselves. Their group. Their society. This is our most basic mode of social thought, and we've been doing it for millenniums.
People have grown complex however, and with it so have the layers with which we see ourselves. How can one think of their lives on one world, when they have the power to touch others?...or destroy their own? Confusingly, difficultly, never with absolution or certainty. This is inevitable, this is evolution. This is the nature of social human evolution one could hypothesize. Most importantly, however, we don't like it. We don't like the difficulty, we don't like the danger and the chaos and the change. We don't like the thought of a world so full of problems that every time one crisis is corrected or avoided, two come back to take their place, generating themselves like the heads of a hydra. We do everything we can to cope with our development, generations before and surely generations after. We try to make ourselves feel better about the whole damn thing, sub-consciously or not.
This leads me to a conundrum. At first it seems simple; to identify myself I must merely embrace those nationalistic, cultural ideals that are moral, ethical, and logical as a social compass, based on a developed history, full of knowledge, wisdom, and experience.... And then it begins, that thing inside my head that is truly the crushing ocean of dread upon my mind. It comes quickly, fiercely, racing the ends of my mind; that cold dark Fear--- Fear that is made up of all I've ever learned in my life, the lost potential, the inherent aimlessness, the violence, greed, and sloth. It all starts with three words, “I am American...”
When I was a child, I never thought of myself as an American as something different from the rest of the world. Not because I was some product of beautiful international exposure, but that I was plainly ignorant as what it meant to be from another culture. People were just different. I remember black people scared me when I was a child, yet my family had never been racist, in fact the exact opposite. I remember cracking jokes when we drove through Chinatown about how 'they're everywhere, they're taking over,' and my father scolded me quickly and gave me a demeanor all night that I didn't understand until years later. This shock to other cultures, to other peoples, despite all of the exposure one would think they got through media, surprises me now as I look back upon the sensation. It wasn't until I took an active effort into seeing the world, a truly active effort in what it meant to be who I was as an American, and who I was as a human being, that I truly felt a connection to my real self. This happened on September 11, 2001.
That morning, as I walked down the road to our small town middle school, I was confronted by one of the girls from my class. The words out of her mouth and our short few moment conversation, and the imagery it aroused, I'll never forget.
“Dude, Max, did you hear what happened? We got bombed in New York!”
“Bombed? Like by another country?”
“Yeah. It was Nigeria or something.”
Now my mind wasn't the most affluent with other nations or countries at the time, (fairly, it still isn't I imagine as I have never been outside of the continental United States,) but I knew that Nigeria was in Africa. My hormone addled mind rushed with thoughts of Nigeria navy boats storming the beaches of Jersey with soldiers rushing forward into the waves of American Marines. It was terrifying, exciting.
We got to class, and everyone was gossiping about what was going on, some people fellow classmates were getting too fantastic with their claims it seemed, saying it was nuclear, and that they heard attacks were happening everywhere. Some said it was hijacked planes into buildings. Yeah right, I thought. We asked the teachers, they wouldn't tell us, they weren't sure what to do. Some were scoffing, some were delirious said they have already seen the news. We gathered in the classrooms early it seemed, every teacher turning on the televisions. It didn't matter what channel, all the basic staples were playing it. A building with pillars of smoke were churning out of what I even knew was the World Trade Center, or as I remember it being called more frequently before 9/11, the Twin Towers. The anchor was excited and shocked, and I can't remember over what. It was either one of two statements I remember clearly that morning, when they stated that explosions had been heard all around the base of the building, or that the second plane had hit. I just remember sitting their, stunned and amused by the tragedy, thinking, this is how Nigeria fights a war?
Hours passed, we didn't even do anything that day. Just went from class to class watching the news. I remember how we all were talking about it, even as kids. Our misunderstanding had turned into simplistic propaganda that no one felt or feels was necessarily that bad. Osama Bin Laden, leader of Afghanistan led his Taliban army to kill Americans...wait, no, that wasn't it...”Um, Mr. Jones?”
“Yes Max.”
“So, why did Afghanistan attack us?”
“They're pissed about Iraq,” said the same girl from across the room who had told me earlier that Nigeria was the culprit.
“Well--”
“--they're all a bunch of dunecoons anyway, he he he,” said one of the boys from the corner whose family had descnded from Palestinian immigrants, I would find out years later, but it's noteworthy he made the comment I believe.
“Now, wait, hold on, I'm not sure why, but it seems their from Afghanistan, but it's not Afghanistan itself I think. I'm not sure, to be honest....uh...”
The uncertainty for what happened never left me, even though as time went on after that day everyone else seemed so certain as to what had happened. Evil terrorists from the Middle East wanted to kill us, so we were going to war. They had become like Nazi's to us, and any question or argument into what was really going on in the world was immediately snuffed out, even as young adults. I remember as I was entering high school, many of the older Seniors who were entering the military along with all the other lil' Patriots around me kept the environment very Red, White, and Blue. Raghead lovers weren't wanted. I mean, sure, you had the groups of ignorant punks who made up this social echelon, and yeah they were the same ones who called kids 'faggot,' pushed kids into lockers and acted like the world licked their stylish sneakers; but what I noticed even then was how so many of the other peers I had, the smart, logical, inspiring young minds were wrapped up in it to. And how couldn't they be?
Our teachers taught it...
Our televisions repeated it...
Our families and communities talked about it...
Evil terrorists from the Middle East had attacked us...for no reason particular reason besides the fact that these extremist militants who live in caves on the other side of the world had vowed a Jihad against us, lead by their mastermind Osama Bin Laden. That's who we had to get. Believable.
So they sent the army. They sent everything to Afghanistan, taking no mercy against Al' Queda, (or Al'Qada or al'Quada—al'Kaida? ...or however everyone was spelling it back then,) and the Taliban, their ugly goat fornicating stone age religious hosts that ate baby flesh. I'm of course exaggerating their about the Taliban... they weren't ugly, I guess that's a little overboard.
It was funny how the Taliban became synonymous with Osama. To us, they seemed like the same thing. Everyone over their that was Muslim and looked like they lived off two dollars a day was a bad guy, and they had to go. I remember them showing Afghans shaving their beards smiling happily. It was a cozy image. It felt good...and then...
“...My fellow citizens, at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger...”
WTF?
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