When you click on AU’s homepage, you’ll notice a variety of intriguing headlines. A recent headline features a study by AU students detailing the impact 9/11 had on American lives, aptly named “Growing up in the Shadow of 9/11.”
The project surveyed over 1,000 people from across the United States. The website (www.growingup9-11.com) is exceptionally well done with videos, photos and data charts that reveal our generation’s sentiments.
Last week, when the ground rumbled beneath us, many immediately feared the worst. Was it a bomb blast? A plane used as a missile?
Unless you’ve experienced earthquakes before, your mind — scarred by that dreadful day — may have initially feared a repeat attack. It’s not dramatic; it’s entirely plausible, as we expect earthquakes in D.C. like we expect tuition prices to stagnate — it never happens.
If you peruse the data in the study, you find that an astounding 29 percent of respondents declared 9/11 didn’t change their lives.
Yet it affected all of us directly, indirectly or a mix of the two. I shouldn’t have to explain how it changed all of our lives (anymore than the need to explain AU abbreviates American University). Whether it was the deaths of people we knew, overwhelming airport security, lost civil liberties via our nation’s deceitful response, friends/family who enlisted, bolstered imperialism, etc.
Suffice it to say, whether we like it or not, we’re all impacted by politics. And the political trajectory in this country shifted enormously in the years after 9/11.
While the study fulfills its purpose dutifully, it’s relatively cushy journalism about as revealing as a burqa. I am much more curious how other nations’ respondents would answer, specifically those located in the Middle East. As victims of two terrorizing invasions by the United States Military, I wonder how much 9/11 impacted their lives.
The intentionally provincial study neglects the external fallout afterward. While 9/11 elicited a noteworthy amount of fear within the United States, which the government exploits daily, I can only speculate how our relentless presence and bombing has scarred citizens of the Middle East.
As college students (and inquisitive Americans), we should be asking these questions.
We don’t, because we’re self-absorbed. Coddled by our parents and adored by our friends, our chief concern is always me, myself and I. We tweet about ourselves, Gchat about ourselves and Facebook about ourselves. At the end of the night, we ponder, “how unfair all these stresses are to me.”
You can’t spell America without M-E and I. We’re overly consumed with how things relate to us, rarely the reciprocal. College for most of us is our first time away from home, and it’s time we turn that self-centered mentality on its head.
How are we impacting others? How are our actions affecting them?
My intent is not to criticize the AU study or belittle the feelings of Americans. Both matter and deserve their due. However, after a decade of senseless warfare and a region plagued by American occupation, perhaps it’s time to start asking how residents in the Middle East feel. It seems a little haughty for Americans to remain so self-centered while our nation has all but destroyed others in the decade since.
The study demonstrates a microcosm of American exceptionalism — colloquially invoked to show that the world must revolve around the “benevolent and God blessed” USA. Listen to the GOP candidates and you hear it time and again. President Obama and his cronies footle about it too.
We have a duty to demand better. For better or worse, America’s business is the world’s business. As students of AU, I hope we can start recognizing not how the world is impacting us, but how we’re impacting the world.
Conor Shapiro is a graduate student in the School of International Service. Please send comments and responses to: edpage@theeaglonline.com
