9/11 is not just an anniversary. It is a grim reminder of a world that has remained on edge since that fateful day in 2001, when terror struck American soil in an attack that shook the globe.
But 9/11 is not confined to American history.
Versions of that tragedy have occurred before, and they continue to unfold worldwide with chilling regularity.
Asia, Africa, Europe- take your pick. Violence erupts wherever political ambitions, military power, extremism, and geopolitical rivalries find fertile ground.
9/11 is a global affliction.
In the United States, mass violence has itself become an almost recurring phenomenon.
One might call it a “culture of gun violence,” in which individuals can, at any moment, unleash their own devastating version of a 9/11.
Terrorist organizations are often the masterminds behind such atrocities; there is no denying that.
But the story does not end there.
States and regimes, too, can sponsor, orchestrate, enable, or unleash violence on a scale that leaves societies traumatized for generations.
In response to the American 9/11 attacks, the United States launched a “global war on terror,” identifying particular regimes and militant organizations as the principal perpetrators and threats.
But this raises a difficult question: when civilians are killed in large numbers by military action, should that violence be viewed through a fundamentally different moral lens simply because it is carried out by a state rather than a terrorist organization?
For example, the deaths of more than 165 children in Iran by the US forces in March this year have raised precisely such questions about the human cost of military action and the standards by which violence is judged.
The point is not to equate every act of violence or every historical event with 9/11. The circumstances, perpetrators, motives, and scales can be vastly different.
The deeper point is this: 9/11 is more than a date on the calendar.
It has become a symbol of the devastating consequences of political violence, and of a cycle that continues to spread when violence is answered with more violence.
It is a global contagion, perpetuated not only by those who claim to wage terror, but sometimes by the very hands that claim to be fighting it.
-Promod Puri
promodpuri.com
Promod Puri.com 