Relatives and officials of the victims will gather Sunday at the sites of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings – the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. Other communities across the country mark the day with candlelight vigils, interfaith services and other commemorations. Some Americans participate in volunteer programs on a day that is federally recognized as Patriots’ Day and the National Day of Service and Remembrance. The celebrations follow an eventful milestone anniversary last year. It came weeks after the chaotic and humiliating end to the war in Afghanistan launched by the US in response to the attacks. But if that 9/11 may be less of a turning point, it remains a point for reflection on the attack that killed nearly 3,000 people, sparked a US “war on terror” worldwide and reshaped national security policy. It also engendered — for a time — a sense of national pride and unity for many, while subjecting Muslim Americans to years of suspicion and bigotry and sparking debate about the balance between security and civil liberties. In ways both subtle and overt, the aftermath of 9/11 ripples through American politics and public life to this day. Members of the New York City Fire Department raise an American flag at the 9/11 Memorial in New York on September 11, 2022, on the 21st anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images And the attacks have cast a long shadow over the personal lives of thousands of people who survived, responded or lost loved ones, friends and colleagues. More than 70 of Sekou Siby’s colleagues perished at Windows on the World, the restaurant atop the mall’s north tower. Sibi was scheduled to work that morning until another cook asked him to change shifts. Siby never got a job in a restaurant again. it would bring back too many memories. The Ivorian immigrant struggled with how to make sense of such horror in a country he had come to in search of a better life. He found it difficult to form the kind of close, family friendships he had shared with his colleagues at Windows on the World. It was very painful, he had learned, to bond with people when “you have no control over what is going to happen to them next.” “Every 9/11 is a reminder of what I lost and can never get back,” says Sibi, who is now president and CEO of ROC United. The restaurant workers’ advocacy group grew out of a relief center for Windows on the World workers who lost their jobs when the twin towers fell. On Sunday, President Biden laid a wreath at the Pentagon and paid tribute to those killed in the attacks, saying the time that has passed “is both a life and no time.” “Terror struck us that bright blue morning. The air filled with smoke and then came the sirens and the stories, stories of what we lost, stories of incredible heroism from that terrible day. American history itself changed that day,” he said. . “But what we will not change, what we cannot change, will never change, is the character of this nation that the terrorists thought they could hurt.” The President expressed his gratitude to the civilians and members of the military who quickly responded to the attack on the Pentagon and to the Americans who joined the armed forces in the wake of 9/11, saying, “we owe it to you.” “Through all that has changed in the past 21 years, the enduring resolve of the American people to defend ourselves against those who harm us and to bring justice to those responsible for attacks against our people has never wavered,” he said. Mr. Biden also spoke about the importance of American democracy, saying that the American people have an obligation to defend and protect it. The president has sounded the alarm over what he believes are attacks on democracy by some within the Republican Party who refuse to recognize the results of the 2020 presidential election. “American democracy depends on the habits of the heart, on ‘we the people,’” he said. “It is not enough to stand up for democracy once a year or every once in a while. It is something we must do every day. So this is a day not only to remember, but a day of renewal and determination for every American and our commitment in this country, in the principles it embodies, in our democracy.” First Lady Jill Biden was also scheduled to speak in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where one of the hijacked planes went down after passengers and crew tried to storm the cockpit as the hijackers headed for Washington. Al Qaeda conspirators had seized control of the planes to use them as missiles filled with passengers. Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff attended the ceremony at the National 9/11 Memorial in New York, but traditionally politicians don’t speak. Instead, it focuses on the victims’ relatives reading aloud the names of the dead. Readers often add personal observations that form an amalgam of American feelings about 9/11 — sadness, anger, cruelty, appreciation for first responders and the military, appeals to patriotism, hopes for peace, the occasional political outcry and a poignant record of graduations. marriages, births and daily lives lost to the victims. Some relatives also lament that a nation that came together — to some extent — after the attacks has since fallen apart. So much so that federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, which were reshaped to focus on international terrorism after 9/11, now see the threat of domestic violent extremism as equally urgent.
