WASHINGTON – Many words and phrases have entered the American vocabulary in the past year, among them “jihad”, “Ground Zero” and “dirty bomb”. But none of them has been as deeply seared into the popular psyche as two numbers: “9/11”.
The U.S. method of writing that date, month first, quickly became shorthand for the horrific terrorist attacks, in part because 911 is the telephone number Americans dial in emergencies.Since the terrorist strikes, not a day has passed without reminders of the emergency of 9/11 – on TV, at work, even at the dinner table. With the date approaching again and reopening a still smarting national wound, Americans are asking, will life ever be the same?There have been obvious changes: soldiers patrolling airports, children saying they want to become firefighters. And there have been deeper, more far-reaching changes in the life of a superpower that, after winning World War II and the Cold War, suddenly found itself attacked on its home turf by a new, much more elusive enemy.After the carefree 1990s, when O.J. Simpson and Monica Lewinsky captivated the popular imagination, the inferno of September 11 dropped the horror of international terrorism in America’s lap.Among the first reactions to 9/11 was an outpouring of compassion and a desire to help the victims. Roadside shrines popped up in New York City, and Americans rushed to donate blood and money.Patriotism surged as a bewildered nation rallied around its flag and festooned its homes, cars, shop fronts, skyscrapers – and the backdrops on the television news – in red, white and blue.President George W. Bush solidified his leadership, and contentious political debate fell low for months.Interest spiked in foreign affairs as an often inward-looking nation asked, “Why do they hate us?” Books on Osama bin Laden and the Mideast conflict flew off the shelves, TV channels showed specials on Islam and people searched maps for Kabul and Jalalabad.A more permanent change has been the lingering fear of what might come next, fuelled by the anthrax mail attacks and illustrated by tightened security at the Winter Olympics and on July 4, Independence Day in the United States.In New York, prescriptions for the antidepressant Prozac soared and chic restaurants changed their menus to home-style, traditional “comfort foods”. There were runs on gas masks, antibiotics and backyard bunkers. Air travel plummeted, and motor home sales have boomed.Americans also received a mixed message from their government: to be ever vigilant, yet to go on living – and shopping – lest they compound the damage of 9/11 with more economic woes. That defiant quest for normalcy was lampooned in a New Yorker cartoon showing a man at a bar saying: “I figure if I don’t have that third Martini, then the terrorists win.”Anger and fear have fuelled a martial spirit, reflected in solid support for the Afghanistan campaign but also the box office success of war movies such as “Pearl Harbor” and “We Were Soldiers”. The Somalia war movie “Black Hawk Down” celebrated in grim and bloody detail the bravery and skill of U.S. special forces troops who at the time were engaged in real battles out of reach of any cameras.With troops now in scores of countries and the Pentagon readying for a possible invasion of Iraq, the United States is in the midst of an open-ended war.Speaking days after the attacks, Bush said, “This nation is peaceful but fierce when stirred to anger,” touching on what political scientist Walter Russel Mead calls the “Jacksonian tradition”, after the 19th century U.S. president Andrew Jackson.“Jacksonians see war as a switch that’s either ‘on’ or ‘off’,” Mead wrote in his 1999 analysis of a populist U.S. approach to warfare. “They do not like the idea of violence on a dimmer switch.”Country singer Toby Keith landed what could be called a Jacksonian hit with “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue”, in which he warned the enemy: “You’ll be sorry that you messed with/The U.S. of A./’Cause we’ll put a boot in your a–/It’s the American way.”Bush has adopted a far more civilized tone in his efforts to steel the homefront in the war against the “evil-doers”. Painting a contrast to the anything-goes boom years under his predecessor Bill Clinton, he has advocated a return to civic pride, honour and faith.It is a vision of service and sacrifice, of an America as wholesome as a Norman Rockwell painting, where even the goal of “homeland security” evokes far more innocent times.
