UK Telegraph tries to wake up PM Brown re 9/11, while British posters air their outrage as well:
>Lest we forget
Sept 12, 2007
The top item on the Downing Street website for yesterday, September 11, was a tribute from the Prime Minister to the "inspirational" Anita Roddick who died on Monday.
While we have no wish to detract from the memory of Dame Anita, perhaps Gordon Brown should, yesterday of all days, have been directing his tribute elsewhere - to the memory of the 67 British citizens killed in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York, on that gin-clear morning, six years ago.
Mr Brown's omission was, regrettably, no aberration.
Yesterday's anniversary of the worst single terrorist atrocity ever to be visited on this country in terms of casualty numbers simply passed without comment.
There were no official ceremonies, no services, no minute's silence. It went unremarked, as if it had never happened.
The families and friends of the British victims had to travel to the British Memorial Garden in New York's Hanover Square if they wished to pay their respects.
The fact that the British death toll formed only a small fraction of the 2,973 victims in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania appears to have erased the event from our consciousness.
The contrast with the United States could hardly be starker. In New York there was a ceremony of remembrance at which the names of all the victims were read out by the members of the emergency services who had tried to save them.
In Washington, President Bush led a moment of silence while at the Pentagon, the other target that day, the Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, conducted a memorial service.
Most people remember where they were and what they were doing when the planes hit the Twin Towers.
The attack has transformed the world in which we live, as no other single event in recent memory. If we do not commemorate such atrocities, how soon before we start to forget them?
Have your say: Comments
--Labour,and Brown would like us to forget everything. Then we would not remember the truth. God help us all with this man as our PM.
Posted by Robert Boyd on September 12, 2007 12:01 PM
--Good observation, but there may be a decent explanation.
We already have, almost every day, Islamic hostilities and violence being thrust in our face. We know its there, constantly, so commemorating 9/11 seems unnecessary.
On a personal rather than political level, I doubt if those connected to the 67 would derive any great comfort from it. Would perhaps even dislike it, when they want to get on with their shattered lives and not be reminded of the horror of that day. They also have to endure a constant stream of news about hostile Islam.
As for this:
"The organistation and their efforts to highlight the creeping Islamification of Europe went totally unreported, despite plenty of juicy news for the shock hungry media. Water cannons and dogs were used against the demonstrators"
Very interesting. We've seen the foulest Muslim demonstrations threatening murder, Jihad, Muslim domination of the world, flag burning, and one of the most disturbing I saw was a poster saying "God Bless Hitler". Google it - its documented on the internet.
I hope more people are realising that the cultural and historic heart of Islam is similar to Nazism and their ideas of Aryanism and aggressive expansion. Their supremacist hostility is documented in the Koran and Hadiths, and the life of Mohammed exemplifies it. It is quite accurate to say, as terrorists do, they ARE the True Islam.
So, given the vile protests we've seen from Muslims, protests against extreme Islam seem both legitimate and an excellent idea. Even better, if Muslims themselves did it or joined in, condemning the nutters. But they won't: what they would do is play their game of getting "offended", which is an aspect of denial.
We are held in a stranglehold with the threat of volatile Muslim "offence". Its petulant and unacceptable, but quite dangerous. Not one Muslim was arrested for threatening to murder Rushdie - can you believe that?! And we saw the same behaviour again with the cartoon riots.
Posted by Joe on September 12, 2007 11:30 AM
--For those who would like to know about the organisation that organised the demonstration in Brussels yesterday protesting the Islamisation of europe, despite the media blackout, a protest that was banned by the socialist mayor of Brussels, Freddy Thielemans, for fear of offending his large muslim constituency and many fellow muslim socialist councillors in the capital of the EU - here is their blog/website.
Posted by Me no Dhimmi on September 12, 2007 11:24 AM
--Its not comemoration that is needed but action. We could start by making all muslims abide by our laws and standards of behaviour or given two choices - no benefits and/or find somewhere else to live.
Posted by Tom Ward on September 12, 2007 10:01 AM
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--Well said. The anti-Islam demo in Brussels went totally unreported on BBC TV and Channel 4 so far as I can see.
It is on BBC website, but in much smaller print than " Dollar at record low against Euro " !
Posted by andrew cramb on September 12, 2007 8:38 AM
--In the sense of the 'war on terror' the event, the memory and the significance has of the event as distinct from the individuals lived and still lives on. There was no memorial per se because 9/11 is not a memory, it is a living on-going thing even six years after the fact.
The memory of the people killed that day (as distinct from the event and its fall-out) presumably was memorialised in the US and by the individual families around the world in a dignified way.
Posted by Dara on September 12, 2007 8:38 AM
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--The state was going to have to coordinate any exercise for Britain to acknowledge events in New York in 2001. There is clear political significance in the absence of such a gesture. Distance is opening up between the US and UK. This is a clear mistake and EU figures will be rubbing their hands with glee.
That said, as pointed out in earlier comments, we cannot reflect on every past atrocity, every year, particularly as they recede. I don't know a huge amount about US events of this nature - do they for instance nationally commemorate Pearl Harbour - or just more quietly at the location itself?
9/11 is unusual in that it was a peacetime civil atrocity, perpetrated on the continental US, unprecedented in type or scale. All these things suggest it is worthy of being marked by some ceremony - but at the site itself.
Posted by simon coulter on September 12, 2007 8:34 AM
--Two news articles that went virtually unreported yesterday. The demonstration in Brussels, banned by the Mayor of Brussels because he was frightened of the effect it might have on the Muslim community. Then there was the group of very brave ex-muslims who came together in Amsterdam to protest against Islam and to campaign for the right to leave the faith without being condemned to death. The apostacy laws of Islam are a disgrace in the modern world and highlight really how far this creed has to go to be truly called a religion of peace. One item that was reported, though barely just, was this government's craven submission in the Faith School debate. The UK is now to have more Faith Schools; RC, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish. What next? Special Scientology schools. Apart from the ridiculous fact that not all these faiths can be right, in fact none of them are, this is purely child abuse. Children are children, not RC or muslim or wiccan or anything else. We have no right to indoctrinate our children with our primitive superstitions.
--Sadly, I think Britain forgot almost as soon as the dust settled.
America and Europe live in two different worlds. I shudder to think what it would take on European soil before you guys wake up to the new reality.
Posted by Fernandez on September 12, 2007 6:36 AM |
