9/11 lessons fade as conflict remains

A quarter of a century since two hijacked jet airliners crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York, a third into the Pentagon in Washington and a fourth plunged to the ground, the memory of that September 11, 2001 trauma is fading as the proportion of Americans who did not experience it first-hand grows.

That trauma would have come from the loss of almost 3 000 people – a casualty figure similar to that in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941 – but also from the occasionally voiced: Why do people hate us so much?

The reality is that, with President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, America’s unquestioning support of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza and “ethnic cleansing” on the West Bank, new generations of haters are being bred.

Saying that does not make us supporters of terrorism, anti-American or anti-Semitic.

The circumstances that brought about 9/11’s fanatical terrorism still exist.

Many in the Middle East would gladly martyr themselves in what they, and many others, consider to be history’s climactic clash of civilisations.

Unless we start reaching to each other across religious and race divides – and listening to each other – our children and grandchildren will weep many more tears.