Kmflett's Blog

Not All Our Yesterdays: Remembering 9.11, 25 years on

It is the 25th anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, 11th September 2001.

Some will have lost friends and relatives in the attack, for the most part ordinary people quite unconnected to the US policies which provided the pretext for the attack.

Many others will be able to remember with more than usual clarity where they were on that day. I was at the TUC in Brighton. This was well before the days of instant access to the web via a smart phone.

It became clear in the hall that something had happened. That year’s TUC Chair Bill Morris made an announcement that a plane had hit the twin towers. At that stage the extent of devastation was unknown.

The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was due to address the gathering immediately after lunch. He appeared briefly said a speech would be inappropriate and hurried off to London. Business was suspended.

Delegates were stunned. Indeed so dazed was I that I recall shaking hands with the then General Secretary of my Union, not a normal event by any means in those now fairly far off days.

The attack on the twin towers was being shown on TV screens in the Brighton Centre. There was no other source of instant news then. I retreated to the Evening Star pub by Brighton station (still going strong I’m pleased to say, I was in there a few months back) and phoned my parents and partner. The enormity of what had happened was, I still recall, very difficult to process

Blair of course had a very distinct reaction to those events. Afghanistan was in the frame for the start of what became the ‘war on terror’.

Historically speaking it is too soon to draw a balance sheet of the impact and significant of Bush & Blair’s wars though the many thousands who have died on all sides and their relations may feel that judgement has already to some extent been made.

Socialists are sometimes accused of being found wanting by events. This was not one of those occasions.

Within 10 days on 21st September 2001 the original forces that became the Stop the War Coalition had called a meeting to protest about an impending attack on Afghanistan at Friends House in central London. The meeting was packed to overflowing in the garden outside.

That led on 13th October 2001 to what was in effect the first Stop the War demonstration, although not yet under that name, and that carried through to the biggest demonstration in British history, against war with Iraq on 15th February 2003.

There are other points too.

Marxists look for material explanations for events so there is a continuing need to counter the views of those who believe the events of 9.11 were the result of a conspiracy by someone or another.

More importantly the activities of Bin Laden were a counsel of despair, the thought that ordinary people would not act so terrorism was needed.

25 years on the dreadful events of 11th September 2001 are not yet for the history books but they deserve to be remembered. Both those that died and were injured on the day and the many more that suffered the same fate because of wars launched on the back of that day. Then there is the constant need to organise to try and make sure it doesn’t happen again.