China Study Tour: September 11 in Xi’an

One of the things I enjoyed about being in China at this time of year, and in India last year is that I was not in the country on 9/11. I have not been in the country four times now in the past nine years, and that’s the way I like it. It was such a transformative day, both in terms of the American psyche and the American spirit, and in terms of what it represents to me, given the events that occurred as a result of those deaths and the destruction of the towers.

Last year, we were in Mumbai on September 11, and we were visiting the Times of India. They had lost employees and friends during the terrorist attacks there, and it was in some way comforting to share a moment of silence with them. I feel that 9/11 has become so politicized in our country that it is impossible for me to watch news coverage of its anniversary. It is also too painful to see the footage that is played incessantly of people dying. I do not wish to see their deaths as some form of news entertainment for the sake of ratings. They are more valuable than that.

I believe that the best we can do for those who died is honor what it means to be American – what the terrorists were trying to obliterate, and what they have succeeded in obliterating for some portions of the population. The complaints about our actions throughout the world during the past 50-60 years in the name of “capitalism” and “democracy” are in a number of cases reprehensible. But we also are a representation of what it means to be intellectually and politically free people, and that is what I want to remember on 9/11.