Osama Bin Laden is dead. The day that thousands had been expected finally arrived. What seemed to be a normal, mundane Sunday night, suddenly turned into history. Forget Friday’s gossip, or Saturday’s chaos, tonight all that matters is that those who suffered in 9/11 can finally feel some twisted sense of justice. The scorecard appears to have evened out. But, has it really? Eleven years ago, the world of 300 million Americans crumbled when the planes crashed against the World Trade Center. Now, we barely talk about it — we barely remember what has happened, what we witnessed. It is so easy to forget, to live in denial and happily submit to oblivion. We say we are a generation that cares, that we want to save world, end hunger and poverty, but, if we have such short-lived memory (if we can move on as fast as we do), then can we really say we care?
The media bombards us with images and footage of the tragedy du jour. We become desensitized, almost fatigued, and no longer feel pure and utter compassion for those suffering around us. We learn to acknowledge and swiftly bury bad news deep in the back of our minds. It’s like we are set to reset our minds at the end of each day. We hadn’t thought about 9/11 in a while probably because we are amongst the lucky ones who didn’t get hurt. But does the fact that we didn’t suffer give us the right to be as detached from a national tragedy? The answer should be no.
We shouldn’t need epic events to awaken us. We should be able to be engaged and active members of the current global arena. We should care. We have to because such apathy will only drive us to perdition. Â