“9/11” by Dave Lewis, Wales

topic: 9/11 medium: TEXT

as submitted for the “9/11” Open Call

11 / 9
Where I come from the month comes after the day so when I see, hear or read 9/11 anywhere it makes me sad that America, the most insular country in the world, has such far reaching influence in a world that would be so much more free, democratic and beautiful without it.

It also reminds me that I don’t agree with the USA bombing innocent men, women and children just to prove how hard they are. Nor do I approve of a bunch of unelected, capitalist wankers trying to tell me how to live my life whilst their foreign policies, as well as oppressing the free world, also make it more dangerous for me and my family to travel around it.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to visit New York. I loved San Francisco – great city, great people as I’m sure most US citizens are but what sort of a country thinks it’s OK for brain dead fascists like George Bush and Co. to inflict such devastation on Afghanistan and murder 20,000 innocent people just to secure an oil pipeline and get away with blaming it on 11/9? After all the US armed the Taliban to fight the Russians ‘cos they also wanted the oil. And why didn’t the US bomb Saudi Arabia when that’s where the terrorists were from? I blame the school system.

Anyway, 500 words is not nearly enough time or room to tell you all how truly evil you can be so I’ll just answer the following questions instead…
Q. How do you remember it?
A. I saw it live on daytime TV, 4pm ish in afternoon and said ‘Ah Osama bin Laden probably’.
Q. Where were you when it happened?
A. Outside my classroom, in Wales, another oppressed country.
Q. Does the day matter, then or now?
A. Na, it was just another day, kids were misbehaving, I needed a new job and Yanks got an excuse to bomb more non-Americans in the name of freedom and democracy – two words that they know nothing about.
Q. Does remembering do any good?
A. No, I hated teaching in that school. I was better off out of there.
Q. What does the day say about America and Americans?
A. Think someone just wrote a book about that one – ‘Why do people hate America’?
Q. How has it shaped the first decade of the new millennium?
A. Just a huge propaganda victory for the forces of evil. Think about it.
Q. How has it shaped you?
A. Made me make sure whenever I travel I tell people very quickly ‘I’m not a Yank, I’m not English, I’m Welsh’ before they try and kidnap or shoot me…
Do they do mirrors in America? Na, they don’t do they!