Homeland Insecurity

It is hard to shake the images from that sunny Tuesday morning in September. While it is now 20 years later, for many of us, and perhaps for our entire country and world, it seems both a moment ago and a lifetime away. Before 9-11 we were one kind of people. After it we morphed into something else, something different. September 11 is one of the defining events of the last 100 years, a pivot around which we have come to view time in before and after references. But it is not the first or only such age-defining anniversary for America.

“Do you remember where you were when…?” For my parents’ generation October 29, 1929 (Black Tuesday) was etched into their memories, as was Sunday, December 7, 1941 when America assumed the identity that we still own, in so many ways, eight decades later. I’m sure that the generations before their time felt much the same about…

·      July 4, 1776, when we shook our fist at the king in declaring our independence;

·      September 17, 1787, when the US Constitution became the law of the land;

·      April 1, 186, when our fragile union was torn asunder at Fort Sumter;

·      November 11, 1918:  when the war to end all wars was declared over—for a time.

Two of these remain among the most sacred markers on our national calendar.

My life’s most decisive turning points came on Friday, November 22, 1963 when our young president was murdered in Dealy Plaza, and on the Tuesday we commemorate today:  September 11, 2001. Perhaps generations to come will feel much the same about our viral captivity of 2020 and this year’s Capitol assault on January 6.

Life’s tragedies bring to my mind this stanza from a great old hymn: 

“Time like an ever flowing stream bears all its sons away, they die, forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.”

Not so with those who lost their lives twenty years ago. While swept away on the streams of time and chance, they are not forgotten. Among the 3,000 who died were 246 men, women and children whose airplanes became kami-kaze weapons in the service of political and religious zealotry. Several thousand were trapped in the burning towers, never to see homes and families again. More than 500 firefighters, police and military personnel put duty above self-survival in their heroic sacrifices on behalf of others in both New York and the Pentagon.

September 11, like Pearl Harbor, changed us in the blink of an eye. What we were before these attacks we are no longer. We may conjure up nostalgic recollections of people and times prior to those moments. We just can’t recover the feelings, the outlooks, and the ways we used to think of ourselves before crashing planes, falling towers, and plummeting bodies changed everything. From some very deep place within our collective soul sprang forth a convulsion of retributive rage that unleashed our military might against assailants holed up in caves half-way around the world. And our leaders resolved to forge for us a new and thorough net of protection. Homeland security entered our lexicon, its programs and promises reshaping our lives.

This weekend’s national remembrance of the attacks, the sufferings they caused and the heroism and sacrifice they inspired, have put homeland security back onto the front burners of my thinking.  When first hearing that phrase used I winced a bit, and even today it gives me pause, for reasons I’d like to share with you.

First of all, references to the “Homeland” just rang too close to a former nation’s patriotic use of Fatherland for my own comfort and satisfaction. While both terms tap into love of country and the patriotic duty of citizens, they also stir up in me a fear of group think, political oppression and lock step conformity. So I must confess, while homeland security and the government agency it identified has served us well these past twenty years, the verbal closeness of homelands with fatherlands has just never sat well with me. Another descriptor, one less suggestive of stiff-armed salutes and goose-stepping fascist legions would be more to my liking.

More troubling to me is the irony that drips from the second word—security—when seen against the backdrop of what we have now become. I’ll be the first to admit that being secure is a condition we all desire for ourselves and our families. Security is that wonderful state of being in which we are free to live, as we would like, to be respected by others and shielded from unwarranted and unwelcomed attacks, be they from bullies, armies, criminals, or suicidal zealots. We want our children to feel secure in their homes, in their schools, and in their own skin. In many respects these past two decades have been an era in which security has been our most all-consuming priority and preoccupation. It now shapes our attitudes and directs our behaviors in almost every part of our lives: how we raise and teach children, how we view sex and gender, what we eat and drink, and what we demand of auto and toy makers, or any business for that matter whom we believe is responsible for keeping us safe. We fixate over security at our airports, along our national borders and in those processes by which we elect our leaders.

The irony for me is, after all that we have done, and continue to do to protect ourselves, can any of us say that we are, in fact, secure? Or have we become quite the opposite, obsessing over real and imagined threats that have dredged up old phobias and stirred us to imagine new ones? When we drive to an airport we now brace ourselves for the metal detectors, x-rays, possible pat-downs, inspections of bags, clothing, and shoes that await. Each time we venture out of our house to go to a store, restaurant, museum or ball game, we make sure we are armed with masks and/or face shields and sanitizing lotions. Heaven forbid we forget the rules of engagement about whom we may touch, and where and how our skin might meet another’s, and what six feet or more really looks like? When getting into our cars we go through the checklist of belts and harnesses that have to be worn, and, if children are present, the lockdown mechanisms we must know how to manipulate to keep them safe. And when we send our kids to school—on days rendered safe enough to do so—we trust that they will not touch, breath upon or otherwise contact another child or grownup behind their well-spaced plexiglas shields.

While some of these statements may seem facetious or exaggerated, I’m sad to say they are not far off in depicting “business as usual” in our secure homeland. As any psychologist knows, the degree to which we protect ourselves from dangers, seen or unseen, reveals the depths of our own insecurities. Life in these United States—perhaps all over the world—has radically changed since 9-11. Our homeland may now be more secure from hijacked planes and terrorist cells--but it seems to have come at the expense of encasing ourselves and our children in protective bubbles. Have we not become a people preoccupied with shielding each other from discouraging comments, uncomfortable histories, and even foods that might trigger allergic reactions in a few of us? Have we not become hyper-sensitive to words that might offend someone—words from peers, words from teachers, coaches, celebrities, and politicians?

Twenty years ago our illusion of security was demolished in the shattered glass and collapsing towers of our largest city. America may still be the land of opportunity, as the hordes of huddled masses yearning to be free crossing our southern borders and landing at our airports from Afghanistan attest. But much of the security we once felt has been lost. Children no longer play as they once did on the streets and parks in their neighborhoods unless adult guardians are hovering nearby. People now weigh the risks before visiting our biggest cities, enter large shopping malls or step onto public transportation. Students now think twice before speaking up in a college classroom, and professors learn quickly to gauge what will pass university standards of correctness.

As we take time to remember those who lost so much and gave so much during and after the September 11 attacks, may we also take to heart what all of us have lost in our efforts to make ourselves more secure.  

Tower of Voices—Shanksville, PA