by Marie E. Gryphon
September 9, 2002
Ms. Gryphon is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute.
New York was the city most Americans loved to hate. The traffic was loud, the streets cluttered, and the locals gruff, of course, but it was more than that. New York was so huge, wealthy and cosmopolitan that it could afford to appear indifferent to our affections. New York didn’t seem to need us, and we responded in kind with all the studied indifference of a snubbed friend.
Last year the distance at which we held ourselves from New York collapsed in a horrifying cloud of cement dust. Households across the country cried into their television sets as downtown Manhattan came to resemble a bad horror film. New Yorkers lost their famous cool irony for a moment in history, and Americans everywhere saw that they might actually need our help.
Mid-western cities sent shiny new fire trucks hand-lettered FDNY to the traumatized city. Southern children painted pictures and wrote poems for the children of the dead and missing. Nearby states offered every resource at their disposal, including emergency crews, national guardsman, and relief supplies. Firefighters on the west coast packed bags and stood in line at crowded airports to fly to New York and search for their missing comrades.
Overseas, people responded in much the same way. For the world, it was America itself that was suddenly vulnerable. The global military and economic superpower, the source of that overwhelming cultural tide that washes across oceans influencing how the world acts, thinks and dreams, required consolation and perhaps even defense. And the world responded.
Just as Americans sent aid to their most remarkable city, so people elsewhere seized a rare opportunity to comfort the world’s most powerful nation. What do you give a country that has everything? A rare expression of sincere love and admiration in a moment of distress.
Formal diplomatic gestures were expected, but the international reaction was greater than that. Cities on all continents witnessed prayer services for the dead and missing, attended by thousands upon thousands of people who have never met us or seen our shores. In Malaysia, thousands gathered at the American embassy to write condolences in the guest book. A Parisian newspaper proclaimed, “Today, we are all Americans.” Moscovites left hundreds of bouquets at the American embassy in Russia, carrying messages like “We are with you,” and “You’ll remain in our hearts forever.” On September 14th, designated a Day of Prayer and Remembrance, an estimated 800 million people in 43 nations observed three minutes of quiet reflection.
Importantly, the response - like the tragedy - was not wholly personal. The warmth of so many of the world’s people towards America in her darkest hour gives lie to the common view that our nation is overwhelmingly detested beyond her borders. Detested not just for her military strength, cynics say, but for her remarkable prosperity, her individualism, her religious freedom, her optimistic embrace of the future.
Some did openly celebrate our disaster, and doubtless a few more chucked softly behind closed doors. But most people of all cultures and continents responded with affection and grief, not only because a human tragedy took place in America, but also because America herself remains a symbol of human aspiration.
The events of September 11th have taught us something important about the nature of strength, love and vulnerability. The people, the cultures, the institutions we most admire do not usually need our sympathy. Sometimes, they are even resented for being exceptional. But that does not mean they are not loved for all that makes them great. What we often lack is an opportunity to be helpful to them.
We who live in other parts of America may not usually say so, but we admire New York. We are drawn to its energy, its power and its brilliance. We are quietly proud to claim the city as our own. It is a focal point for so many of our hopes and dreams. We are glad that in a moment of tragedy, we could finally return the favor.
America’s place in the world is similar. America will welcome hopeful immigrants from over a hundred countries this year, as she did last year and the year before that. America’s economic liberalism and political system are imitated around the world by local nation builders who want for their people all the prosperity and freedom that America has secured for hers. America remains the world’s hope, and its leading example of opportunity. And America is loved for it. That, too, we should not forget.