Susan Sontag’s historical text on 11 September
Susan Sontag on 9/11
One week after the Twin Towers fell, The New Yorker invited writers such as John Updike, Jonathan Franzen, Denis Johnson, Rebecca Mead, Susan Sontag, Amitav Ghosh, and Donald Antrim to share their thoughts on the day. Presented here is Sontag’s piece, which offered a stark, brave perspective that both shocked and polarized American public opinion.
The DISTANCE between the harsh reality of last Tuesday and the drivel and outright falsehoods spouted by public figures and TV pundits is both staggering and disheartening.
The voices chosen to narrate the event seem to have unified in a campaign of total public sobriety. Where, I ask, is the admission that this was not a “cowardly” attack on “civilisation,” “freedom,” “humanity,” or the “free world,” but rather an assault on the world’s self-declared superpower, a consequence of certain US alliances and actions? How many citizens are cognizant of the ongoing US bombing of Iraq? And if we must use the term “coward,” wouldn’t it be more fitting to apply it to those who kill from the safety of the sky, beyond the reach of retaliation, rather than those willing to die in the act of killing others? As for courage (a morally neutral virtue), whatever can be said about the perpetrators of Tuesday’s massacre, they were certainly not cowards.
“Our country is strong,” they echo again and again. Personally, I find little comfort in this. Who doubts that America is strong?
Our leaders are desperately attempting to reassure us that everything is fine. Our spirits are high, despite the historical significance of the day and the fact that America is now at war. But not everything is fine. And this was not Pearl Harbor. We are faced with a robotic president who insists that America still stands tall. A variety of public figures, both in and out of office, who have previously criticized the current Administration’s foreign policies, now feel no need to express anything other than their unity with President Bush. It’s time for reflection, in Washington and elsewhere, on the failures of our intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies, on the potential directions of US foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, and on what constitutes a smart military defense strategy. However, public opinion is hindered by the unbearable burden of reality.
The pervasive hypocrisy in the rhetoric emanating from American officials and media pundits of late, a rhetoric that shrouds the truth, hardly befits a mature democracy.
Those in public office have made it abundantly clear that they view their roles as inherently manipulative, confined to fostering trust and managing sorrow. The essence of politics and democracy – the practice of dissent, a dissent that bolsters honesty – has been supplanted by psychotherapy.
Let us all grieve collectively, but let us not all play the fool simultaneously. A smattering of historical consciousness might aid us in comprehending the recent events and the potential for their recurrence. “Our country is strong,” they incessantly echo. I, for one, do not find this fact entirely reassuring. Nobody questions America’s strength. But America can be so much more than just strong.
-Susan Sontag, The New Yorker 09/16/2001