Where were you on this day in 2001? I was supposed to be in the same area that morning for a meeting. This was the day that will forever change my life.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
9/11
About Author
I still have a postcard that announced a lecture that evening by Irina Krush at the Marshall Chess Club…which I’d been planning to attend after work. I’ve kept the grizzled postcard as a souvenir of how all of our lives changed in an instant that day.
People living outside of New York, even close friends, signalled in various subtle ways that to them the attacks weren’t such a big deal — they did not feel personally under attack. I’ve always felt their reactions (and those of some New Yorkers as well) betrayed a trace of anti-Semitism. It seemed to me that such people’s feelings boiled down to, “The terrorists aren’t after me, all they want is our Jews (i.e. for America to stop supporting Israel). Let’s tell the terrorists, ‘Fine, you can have them’ — and then they’ll leave the rest of us alone.”
Susan, you claim that September 11 changed your life forever. Could you please elaborate a bit on how exactly it did so?
The 9/11 attack was the up-to-date biggest single terrorist attack, but that’s it.
We shouldn’t forget the incident, but we also shouldn’t mystify it.
All those (a minority) who lost relatives or friends that day will certainly have a more personal view of the events as all others, that’s clear.
The responsible terrorists died that day as well and what can you really do against determined, clever people that are ready to sacrifice themselves?
I fully appreciate the increased security measures since 9/11 as the terrorists clearly showed the dangers a aircraft can pose (imagine if they crashed into a nuclear power plant, the consequences may have been far worse…)
Stop mystifying a guy like UBL who is not prepared to sacrifice his life for his cause; stop waging a crusade against misguided “jihadists” that in the end will cost more lives than their terror attacks; get into dialogue with other cultures; don’t try to turn the rest of the world in a big US or Europe; understand the cause of others and get more money into helping the poor in the world instead of spending ridiculously more money for “defense” than really necessary. (all the expensive military equipment didn’t save us from 9/11 and will not in the future)
Make friends, not enemies.
I remembered having just dropped my son off at school and was driving on Route 78 going towards the Garden State Parkway in NJ when I heard the news of the first plane going in. When I arrived at the office in Clifton, we had a clear view of lower Manhattan from our conference room and all the other offices on our floor came into ours to watch what was going on.
It wasn’t where I was on 9/11/01 that I remember …
I went to college in the Bronx in the late 1960s, and lingered and worked in New York City just about the time the World Trade Centers were built.
I loved the Empire State and the Chrysler Building and so much of the old skyline, and never warmed to these ugly boxes, so unimaginative, so dwarfing to the human scale, unwelcoming, joyless. But they were the new skyline of the city, they were the new symbols, the postcards, the snowglobes and tourist tchatchke — they were even what King Kong now had to climb with the pretty girl in one hand — and if I wanted to keep a relationship with New York, I had to learn to live with the Towers.
Many times I drove or took the train through New Jersey and on the stretch opposite New York, would look through the window and knew where I was by the Towers.
I watched that terrible ghastly day, over and over and over again, on the television. But no matter how many times you see it on TV — well, it’s a big step away from Actually Believing. We’ve all seen lots of amazing fakes on TV; David Copperfield once made the Statue of Liberty vanish. A voice deep in your brain whispers: It’s only TV, maybe it’s not really real.
And then one day, four months after the attack, I rode a train through New Jersey, and as I had twenty times or more, looked toward the city through the window —
and they weren’t there.
There was nothing there where the Towers had been. Air. Emptiness.
The mathematicians call it The Negative Space — the importance of what isn’t there.
That was the moment it smashed into my brain, what had happened, the reality of what had happened, the authentic terror, the deaths. When I looked out through the train window over the Hudson, and they weren’t there anymore. That was the sickest feeling I ever had.
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Cool blog! I was hunting up stuff about Zugzwang, on and off the chessboard, and stumbled here. You and Judit have always been Distant Myths and Legends, great rumors and gossip to me — but wow! Here you are! Come play some chess in my town where all-women Smith College is! (Brainy women mostly, but some more rich than brainy.)
Bob the hopeless Potzer
Massachusetts
There’s a lot to like about the USA but we have to face the fact that there are people out there who fanatically do not like our way of life.
We need to understand why that is and how to deal with it: just calling them ‘terrorists’ and ‘insurgents’ doesn’t solve the problem – in fact, it probably makes it worse.
Bush’s “bring ’em on” was a low point in international diplomacy.
The last I saw (sometime last year), the rubble was still lying out there. Why is this not being cleaned up. It was very depressing to see the rubble. A little cleanupp might help to heal the wounds. It is not helthy to remain depressed forever.
vleeptron dude expresses it so well. I feel that same hole in the Manhattan skyline everytime I come back by plane or through New Jersey.
I was not in NYC that day. I was out riding my bike with friends that day. It was surreal experience as we got little pieces of what was happening. The only reason we knew anything was because one of the guys always had a little radio with him when he rode.
More of my thoughts and memories related to that day and those buildings are on my blog. I think it’s the first serious piece I’ve posted there.
While 9/11 was definately an atrocity it is interesting to put it into perspective in terms of the innocent civilians killed.
9/11
approx 3,000 civilians
Bombing of Afghanistan
approx 3,700 civilians
Iraq War
approx 100,000 civilians
Atomic Bomb Attacks on Japan
approx 110,000 civilians
Rape of Nanking
approx 200,000
Rwandan Genocide
approx 900,000
Holocaust
approx 6,000,000 civilians
WWII (excluding Holocaust victims)
approx 40,000,000 civilians
I know I have probably missed a lot of terrrible atrocities, but just wanted to look at attacks that were either directly against a civilian population (Hiroshima/Nagasaki, Rwanda, Holocaust) and also the number of civilian deaths as a result of the retaliation since 9/11.
It also important to remember that civilians are innocent regardless of what action might be being undertaken by that nation’s military, governement or terrorist based in that region.
So next time you see a story about 9/11 spare a thought for those millions of inncocent civilians killed in conflicts around the world.
Don’t forget to add the Cambodian Killing fields where 1.7 million died.
I grew up in NYC and use to play in the Commercial Chess League, Metropolitan Chess League and we played in the World Trade Center many times. I am now in California, I woke up for work that morning and turned on the TV and saw the live newcast after the first plane had hit. As I was watching the newscast I saw live the second plane hit and at that moment knew this was no accident but an attack. The next two weeks were horrible. I was able to communicate with all of the surviving family members, friends, chess players I knew. As I feared, the ones I was not able to hear from had persished. Same for the attack in the Pentagon building. Sad day and Sad business. I really wish the world would learn to live in peace, love and harmony but it appears man is not able to accomplish this by themselves.
I was not born when 9-11 occurred 😉