Part One: Preamble
For me, 9/11 began three years earlier, in the summer of
1998. I was living then in Jersey City, and could see the
former World Trade Center clearly, and daily, from my rooftop.
During dawn sesshin in the Morning Star Zendo,
we often ascended to the roof for walking meditation, and
beheld many a sunrise beside, or between, the twin towers.
In summer 1998, my mother flew
down from Canada for a visit. I went to meet her flight
at Newark airport. As she was relatively elderly, I wanted
to greet her at the gate. So I approached the Air Canada
ticket counter, explained my purpose, showed them my driver's
license, and was issued a gate pass without further ado.
Gate pass in hand -- truly the keys to the kingdom -- I
easily passed through what passed for US airport security
in those careless days. No-one paid the slightest attention.
I said to myself "There's no security here at all.
Anybody can get a gate pass and go where they please."
Having flown into and around Europe and Israel during the
years of PLO hijackings, I had been subjected to intensive
airport security measures there. Newark airport was more
like a bus station. I tried phoning Bill Clinton, to warn
him, but his line was always busy.
Part Two: Premonitions
Fast-forward to the spring of 2001. My
marriage was falling apart, with lawyers about to play out
the end-game. But one of the compensations was my new girlfriend
-- call her Jade. While all things are impermanent, some
are just great while they last. Jade was like that. And
she was present for three of my four premonitions of 9/11.
The first premonition was so subtle that
it could have been recognized only in retrospect. Jade and
I had gone out for dinner, and a play. Wandering around
in the Village, we eschewed our regular eateries and, for
reasons neither of us could fathom, decided on an Afghani
restaurant. Afterwards, in the lobby of the off-off-Broadway
theatre where a friend's play was being performed, Jade
and I were suddenly confronted by another Afghani scene:
this time a memorial to the twin statues of Buddha at Bamiyan,
which had been blown to pieces by the intolerant Taliban.
Afghanistan and the Taliban entered the forefronts of our
consciousness that evening, a harbinger of things to come.
The twin statues destroyed by the Taliban that March; the
twin towers soon to be destroyed by Al Qaeda, the Taliban's
ally: Who among us could have made that connection in May
2001?
left: a Bamiyan Buddha, from the
6th century / right: Taliban blow up Bamiyan Buddhas, March
2001
The second premonition was anything but
subtle: It was in our faces. Jade and I had traveled on
Labor Day weekend, 2001, to a foreign country closely allied
with the USA. One of my best friends in that country, Byron,
along with his wife, Megan, worked for their national security
service. We were having coffee with them on Labor Day morning,
September 3, before returning to New York. Byron and Megan
tried to tell us something important, but didn't know quite
how to frame it. They were caught between their own measures
of confidentiality and their desire to warn us; between
their certainty that something terrible was about to take
place in New York, and their uncertainty about the exact
shape it would assume. So their warning went something like
this: "Be careful when you get back to New York. We
suspect that something big is going to happen, and soon,
like an attack on a public place. We don't know exactly
when or where it will happen, but there's been increased
traffic in international security channels, and we all believe
that something is up. Stay away from crowded places, or
sizeable events. That's all we can tell you." That
was pretty good intelligence, but maddeningly vague.
The third premonition came about precisely because Jade
and I decided to ignore the second one. Not that we didn't
believe Byron and Megan -- but it's easier to avoid rocks
and craters on the moon than crowded places and sizeable
events in New York. Jade and I had tickets to the US Open,
on Friday September 7, for the morning session in Ashe stadium.
It was the men's doubles final, and the women's semi-finals.
Darned if we were going to miss that! So we went. Although
our seats were fairly high up in the stands, we had a good
view not only of the tennis matches, but also of a peculiar
scene unfolding several rows below us. While watching one
of the Williams sisters blow the Swiss Miss (Martina Hingis)
off the court, Jade and I could not help noticing -- and
even being distracted by -- the antics of a contingent of
Arabian men, in full Saudi-style regalia, and their sons.
The boys were watching tennis, happily stuffing themselves
with popcorn, ice cream, and candy. But the men weren't
paying the slightest attention to the match, and not even
to the scantily-clad female players. Instead, they spent
the entire time on their cell phones, going back and forth
from their seats to the exit, talking incessantly to parties
unknown, and perhaps about matters unthinkable. These men
were so conspicuously busy on their cell phones that Jade
and I both remarked to each other: "What are they doing
here? They didn't come to watch tennis. They seem out of
place." Maybe they were just taking care of business.
We'll never know. But in light of what followed a few days
later, this was deeply meaningful.
The fourth premonition came to me alone,
on the night of Monday, September 10, 2001. I had gone to
the Gramercy Park Hotel, to make arrangements for an event.
My fiftieth birthday was approaching, that October, and
I had decided to throw a party on the Gramercy's legendary
rooftop garden. Once upon a time, Humphrey Bogart had married
Lauren Bacall up there. It seemed as good a spot as any
to celebrate (if that's the right verb) half a century on
this topsy-turvy planet. Of course my arrangements didn't
amount to a hill of beans compared to the next day and its
aftermath. But let me tell you this: When I stepped out
of the Gramercy Park Hotel, around 10:00 p.m. on September
10th, and started walking west, toward the subway, I felt
the strangest sensation. An unseasonably warm wind was gusting
and swirling all around me, kicking up urban debris, and
forming little dust devils at intersections. The streets
themselves were eerily quiet, empty of pedestrians. It was
so pronouncedly bizarre that it derailed my pleasant ruminations
about the party, and immediately put me in mind of Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar. How so? Shakespeare was fond of
enlisting strange occurrences in the natural world as omens
of unsettling events in the political world. So he foreshadows
Caesar's assassination with a lion walking about, and an
owl hooting in a tree, in broad daylight. This is exactly
what crossed my mind in those swirling winds on September
10: They were omens of dire political events. Those were
the precise words that formed in my mind. Soon I reached
the subway, which took me to the World Trade Center. From
there I caught the PATH train back to Jersey City. Little
did I suspect that I passed through the World Trade Center
-- one of my favorite haunts and hubs -- for the very last
time, and that in a few brief hours it would cease to exist.
Part Three: Tuesday, September 11,
2001
As so many recall, that morning dawned bright,
clear, and beautiful -- a warm September sun gracing azure
autumn skies. I did not have to travel through the World
Trade Center that morning, en route to CCNY, because my
classes that term were Mondays and Wednesdays. My wife,
on the other hand, worked in one of the twin towers, in
a bank on the hundredth floor. Although our marriage was
disintegrating, we were still (and always) on speaking terms.
When she said goodbye that morning, I thought she was heading
to her office in the WTC. And so did she. But at the very
last moment she changed her mind -- every woman's prerogative
(some say birthright). Only this time it saved her life.
She needed to drop off some paperwork at a New Jersey branch,
and could have done so any day that week. On impulse, that
morning of 9/11, she took a PATH train toward Newark, and
away from the WTC. Her colleagues on the hundredth floor
soon perished in the conflagration. She became deeply religious
that day, and remains so to this one.
Having no inkling of these matters, I brewed
coffee and sat down to write. I am a morning person, and
most productive before noon. My home office faced south-west,
where in the distance planes lazily circled Newark airport.
I was enjoying the sunny skies, the caffeine buzz, the creative
flow, when suddenly the phone rang. It was my mother, calling
from Canada. The time was 8:50 a.m. "Thank God you're
at home today," she said. "A plane just crashed
into the World Trade Center."
"It must be an accident," I responded,
like so many mistaken others at that tragic moment. I didn't
even turn on the TV. Besides, my mother is notoriously prone
to histrionics. She makes Chicken Little look serene. So
I resumed writing.
But she phoned me again, at 9:05, saying that a second plane
had crashed into the other tower. This was no accident.
So I turned on the TV, and went up to the roof, where I
could see the smoke and flames pouring from both towers.
A sickening feeling came over me. I was beholding something
so awful that it felt surreal. I could not believe my eyes,
yet they were not lying.
Soon after, in the wake of the collapsing towers, news of
the other two hijackings, the closure of bridges and tunnels
to and from Manhattan, and the shutting down of domestic
airspace for the first time in US history, the world took
an unimaginable detour, down a very different road than
most of us had envisioned prior to that day.
)
September 11, 2001, from Jersey City
rooftop: the twin towers implode (photo Lou Marinoff )
Part Four: Aftermath
So many lives were lost on 9/11. So many
lives were changed. So many conflicts ensued. I was privy
to some of them, at global governance levels, as faculty
of the World Economic Forum. In this role, I attended many
meetings in the aftermath of 9/11. The world's business,
cultural, and political leaders were striving to make sense
of what had happened, struggling to reverse the sudden destabilization
of the airline industry and the global economy, seeking
viable strategies for a peaceful world order in the 21st
century. Many of them were desperate enough, at the time,
to consort with philosophers. In solidarity with New Yorkers
and Americans, the World Economic Forum relocated its annual
meeting in January 2002, from Davos to Manhattan -- an incredible
logistic feat, even for the WEF. The main events unfolded
in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, to its credit. The Big Apple
eagerly embraced this role of hosting "Davos in New
York," where the phoenix of harmonious global civilization
tried to arise from the still-smouldering ashes in Manhattan
south.
As a philosopher and author, my enduring response to 9/11
was a book about global conflict and its resolution, a book
that took five years to research and write. It was finally
published in 2007. It's called The Middle Way,
and it explains (among other things) the primary causes
of 9/11, and possible cures. I also predicted the economic
crash of 2008. Since I am a voice in the American political
wilderness, the US edition of the book is out of print.
Yet the world it describes and explains is still very much
the one we inhabit, and will continue to inhabit for decades
to come.
9/11 shook America to the core of its being. Everyone remembers
where they were that day -- just like Pearl Harbor and JFK's
assassination. I never dreamed we would see such a day as
9/11 in our lifetimes, and it still seems dreadfully surreal.
My ex-wife survived on a whim, thank God. But our marriage
collapsed soon after the twin towers. My girlfriend remained
a while longer, long enough to see me out of Jersey City
and into the tranquil beauty of the lower Hudson Valley,
where I have made my home. These days I philosophize and
write in a forest, far away from crowded places.
The twin statues of Buddha are being re-assembled, piece
by piece, in Bamiyan. The twin towers of the former WTC
are now giant footprints, and monuments. I took my son to
the US Open this August -- the first time I have been back
since 9/11 -- and we had a grand day. My mother still phones
me regularly, to remind me that the sky is falling, constantly.
Here is a picture taken in May 2001, on my rooftop in Jersey
City. It was shot by Heather Nicolson, who was doing stills
for a documentary (Table Hockey: The Movie) that
spanned 9/11. I was playing Bach. The twin towers were prominent.
Now they are gone, but Bach's music endures, as do all our
greatest cultural treasures. Anyone who remotely understands
Bach would be incapable of hijacking an airplane.
May 2001, Jersey City. Still from
Table Hockey: The Movie (photo Heather Nicolson)
Not long after 9/11, I visited my late
father's grave, in Montreal. He is buried in a Jewish military
cemetery. He fought for Canada during World War Two, and
for Israel's defense force (the Haganah) during its War
of Independence (1947-48). In those days it was easier to
tell right from wrong, good guys from bad, defenders from
aggressors. Nowadays everything has been deconstructed,
including morality and sanity, and so quite a few Americans
(among others) blame the USA and Israel for what happened
on 9/11. That is sick, and sad. At least my father knew
he was a combatant, knew what he was fighting for, and knew
why. Whereas most of the victims on 9/11 -- including people
of every religious faith, hailing from more than 90 countries
-- believed they were civilians, had no idea that they were
regarded as combatants, or by whom, and never had a chance
to learn why. Today my heart goes out to them, and to their
families. Let me share with them, and with you, the words
engraved on the main monument in my father's cemetery, from
2 Samuel 1:23.
They were lovely and
pleasant in their lives,
And in their death were not divided.
Swifter than eagles, stronger than lions
To do the will of their master
And the desire of their rock.
May peace be with you all.
Lou Marinoff
September 11, 2011
Comments? Send an email to guestbook@loumarinoff.com
Hope you are
well. Very moving, blog. Thank you for it.
Darcy
Darcy Rezac
CEO Ana Pacific Consulting
World Trade Centre
Suite 404, 999 Canada Place
Vancouver BC, V6C 3E2
Managing Director Emeritus
Vancouver Board of Trade
drezac@mac.com
