Time of somber remembrance

As we mark the one-year anniversary of the infamous Attack on America it is worthwhile to reflect on its effect on us individually and on the who and the what and the why of it all.

For my wife and I, the happenings of Sept. 11 were an afternoon event. I remember vividly standing in my living room at 4:40 p.m. and receiving a somewhat frantic call from a “colleague downtown” that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been bombed and, as an American, how did I feel? I was incredulous.

Home was in a fairly remote place on the edge of the Eastern Desert of Egypt, “downtown” was Cairo, miles to the west. We were the only Westerners for several kilometers, the only non-Arabs and non-Muslims. In that moment and the ensuing evening our lives were truly shaken and our focus shifted to a new and powerful threat and to our own vulnerability. Our home was the only inhabited building for several hundred yards. It was indefensible. We felt very much alone, because we were.

We made flight reservations that night for the coming Friday through Frankfort to Boston. We watched the images of hurtling airliners, smoke, pandemonium and ruin until we became numb and yet, at the same time, prickling with concern. Sound sleep was not the easiest condition to achieve.

The Egyptians that employed us refused to acknowledge that there was anything to worry about at all. This, in spite of the fact that just four years earlier dozens of westerners had been slain by homegrown fanatics in Luxor, directly to our south. Denial is a strongly embedded social and governmental force in Egypt.

As the facts unfolded and the origins of the hijackers became known, some of my host-country coworkers noted that hijack leader Mohammed Attah grew up just a moderate distance from my office. They apologized profusely for the tragedy but said, in all earnestness, “it was the Israelis who really did it. Bin Laden couldn’t pull that off,” they stated, only the Zionists with all their technological capability were able to stage this catastrophe and blame it on the Arabs. Again, I was incredulous.

Our greatest immediate concern was that the U.S. government would, in a fury, unleash a swarm of cruise missiles into Yemen, the Sudan, Libya and Lebanon to our East, South, West and North and that, overnight, public rage against Americans would reach the boiling point. A mob might appear in front of our solitary home at night. Who knew.

A State Department expert had a recommendation: create a “safe room,” a place in our home in which I could ‘hold them off’ until a Marine Security Unit could arrive, about 25 minutes perhaps. My armory consisted of one antique, single-shot Italian rifle for which I had no ammunition. I was neither amused nor comforted. Common citizens and foreigners cannot possess firearms in Egypt and to simply apply for a gun license is about as easy as getting the Nobel Prize.

The mind goes through some interesting gyrations in times of duress. It was life being lived to some extremes: every unfamiliar face that passed our home could be an Osamaphile with death in their heart, every unknown vehicle extremist-guided rolling bomb stock. To our great relief, the U.S. response was held until 27 days after the attacks and limited itself, militarily, to Afghanistan. We routinely “rolled over” our plane flight reservations from one Friday to the next and tried to get through the year and return to some degree of normalcy. This was not to be.

As the United States gained control in Afghanistan we lost favor, increasingly, with the broad swath of Arab-Muslims. Initial sympathy turned to increasingly bitter statements about our overwhelming aggression and blind support for the Israelis. Note: the plight of the Palestinians was and is the true underlying issue for much of the anti-American grievances held throughout the region. Meanwhile, our embassy sent forth elevated warnings and recommendations that brought a sense of heightened foreboding.

Conditions, both direct and indirect, brought us to the point of having to leave at the end of February. We had found, through the wonder of the internet, a rental home to go to in central Florida. My wife and I noted with a combination of both humor and seriousness that we had become “inadvertent, novice refugees.” We felt great relief and a deep sense of appreciation for this option which we were able to exercise. We came home.

In June, we able to return to our Monroe farm (after seven total years in the Middle East including Kuwait and Persian Gulf War period) and have begun to put together a renewed life here in Maine. We are a light year away from the negative, grinding conditions and limitations which shackle billions of our fellow men and women. We are blessed with the breadth and depth of the liberty and opportunity inherent in American citizenship. And while these very conditions have lead to the human resentment, hatred and envy that drove the hijackers and others who call for Jihad against the West, we must not give al-Qaida and their supporters what they would most want; a splintering of inter-regional relations, endless bloodletting and a stoppage of moderate, constructive dialogue.

I am not a Muslim or intent on becoming one. However, I know that Islam is not an angry or hate-filled religion. It is one of the world’s great belief systems. It is not about bearded men with extreme views and rocket-propelled grenades, the fringe groups of murderous, tunnel-vision zealots who claim to hold the moral high ground. As a way of life it is what is in the heart that is important to the masses of moderate thinking devotees to Islam; compassion, commitment and goodness. The overwhelming majority of Muslims are angry, not as a result of their devotion to the Pillars of Islam but, over our seemingly inept and ill-balanced foreign policy and, perhaps most importantly, the stunning lack of democracy and freedom in their own lives. With the exception of Israel and, to a degree, Turkey, nothing resembling democracy exists from the western end of the Sahara through Pakistan.

As a value system, Islam is not really so different or alien to many American values; devotion to family, charity, hard work, decency in life. Our media, too often and with real disservice, portray Muslims as not believing in life but only in death. Having worked closely with thousands of students and family members in Oman, Kuwait and Egypt, I know that Arab Muslim children are just as filled with hope and promise and wonder and possibility as any group of American kids. The average Islamic mother and father have much the same parent-child aspirations as families here: peace, prosperity, health, love, laughter and longevity. They admire and want to emulate much of what are our culture and our indisputable successes. As a species, regardless of our pattern of worship or location on the globe, for every one difference that might separate us we share 100 commonalities that bind us to this thread of life.

In this time of somber remembrance let us keep this in our minds and hearts and not allow exceptional evil and deceit by so few carry the day and limit our futures. Let us temper our desire toward hatred and vengeance with communication and deepening understanding and recall our founding ideals of equality, freedom and tolerance. And, lastly, let us recognize and rejoice in our immense good fortune of being here in this place and time.

The United States of America and its citizens are uniquely blessed.

Tom Mosseau of Monroe was in Egypt as an educational consultant and director of teacher training.