Memorial Madness

I've been following the Battle for Ground Zero for the past five years, and the mess associated with the design and hopeful construction of a permanent memorial and museum at Ground Zero in Manhattan. Conflict arose over how overtly political groups like the Drawing Center and IFC were included in the original museum/memorial/cultural center design when their ideological bent put it so far out of the mainstream that the LMDC had to reconsider after people realized what was happening and the outrage forced officials to eliminate those groups from the plans.

Zombie has been following the situation with the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, PA, where Paul Murdoch's design utilizes Islamic themes and distinctly underemphasizes the heroic actions by the passengers to stop those Islamic terrorists on board Flight 93 from murdering yet more Americans by crashing the plane into either the White House or the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. (One of my prior postings is here.)

The two highest profile memorials - in New York City and Shanksville are rife with political overtones, although most of the other memorials around the country are apolitical, but some are rife with politicial overtones. Now, we're seeing another 9/11 memorial whose design is rife with political overtones and ivory tower types whose leftist agenda is writ large all over an Arizona memorial.

A memorial about 9/11 should start and end with the central actions of that day; the heroism of the emergency personnel, the last moment of thousands of Americans who were simply going to work or flying to their destinations when they were murdered by 19 Islamic terrorists on 9/11.

A good memorial about 9/11 is not about root causes, false linkages and perceived similar events in history. It is about remembering what happened on the day without trivializing it with the political ideologies of folks who are unhappy with the current course of action.

In the NY metro area, while we're waiting for Ground Zero to be rebuilt, quite a few memorials have been built. There's one in the Meadowlands that has two piers jutting out into the water, both facing towards where the Towers once stood along with a bronze sculpture of what the skyline once looked like.

There's a 25-foot high bronze scuplture of a fireman's trumpet in Brooklyn.

There are bronze plaques at the fire house across the street from where the WTC once stood. This particular memorial not only has scenes of the devasation and heroism by the firefighters, but like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, has the names of the firefighters who made the ultimate sacrifice listed there - and quite a few people visiting the memorial make rubbings, just as they do in D.C.

These are just some of the memorials that honor the memories of the firefighters who gave all so that others could live. Go to practically any firehouse in New York City, and you'll see a memorial to the firefighters who gave all on 9/11 honored in some prominent location. The firehouse on 8th Avenue between 47th and 48th has an entire wall dedicated to their brothers who died that day. They are memorials that do not insert po-mo multi-culti pablum into the solemnity of what we're remembering. They're remembering the heroism and the sacrifices made so that others could live.

So, what exactly were the designers in Arizona thinking when they inserted all these unrelated issues into the memorial. What statement were they making? Why were they so inclined to do such a thing? Was the horror of that day so insufficient that they needed to trivialize it with making references to the Gulf of Tonkin? 9/11 is a day that stands alone. Yet, the memorial is rife with reaction quotes and commentary.

It would be as if the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor not only contained "This is a day that will live in infamy," but then mentions the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Zone, Rape of Nanking, the Doolittle Raid, the firebombing of Tokyo, kamikazis, the Bataan Death March, Admiral Kimmel's drumming out of the Navy, Iwo Jima, Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, internment of Japanese citizens in camps in the Southwest, and the Port Chicago disaster.

Just as Pearl Harbor was a singluar act with far flung consequences, the memorial there reflects on the horror of that day alone. The same should be done with any memorial for 9/11.

Is this how we honor those who were murdered on 9/11?