Ten Years Later...

Technorati tags: September 11, 9/11, Hate, Tragedy, R.E.M.

Time flies, doesn’t it? It’s been ten years since September 11, 2001, better known as 9/11.

Walski wrote at length about his thoughts five years ago; thoughts that he has no intention of repeating five years later today. If you like, you can re-read them here, and those from one year ago here.

Instead, let us reflect on the world we live in, as a result of what happened that fateful day, and what has transpired since. There is one song that embodies some of the feelings Walski has relating to 9/11, which he’d like to share with you.

There are specific reasons why Walski chose this particular song. But none of them have to do with losing his creed, just like the song really has nothing to do with religion... 
(9/11 thoughts a decade later, and more, in the full post)

As is typical when September 11 rolls along, you’ll hear all kinds of analyses, thoughts, rememberances, blame-storming, etc. Ad nauseum. And so Walski will refrain from doing that. Or, at the very least, try not to.

Fortunately, the events of that day hasn’t caused Walski to totally lose faith in mankind, nor has he lost the belief that people are basically good – regardless of creed, ethnicity or nationality.

The epiphany that hit Walski that day, more than anything else, is the realization of how powerful an emotion hate can be. Because he believes that at the root of what happened that day is nothing other than hate.

Any faith is essentially good. But when hate manifests itself, no creed is spared from the potential of being distorted to do bad things. Evil things.

R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion is not about faith, but it is about something unrealized or unachieved. Specifically, the song is about unrequited love. It’s a pining and yearning for something that you know might not be within reach.

Walski has a similar pining and yearning. However, it’s not love that he yearns for, but the elimination of hate.

He senses that the atmosphere of hate is on the increase here in Malaysia. And it seems to stem partly from the helplessness of not being able to change things for the better. There’s hate in how we conduct our politics, from all sides of the political divide. Making it worse is the impression Walski gets that in order to be successful in politics, one must have the ability to instill hate in one’s supporters of the ubiquitous other, whatever that other might happen to be.

In some cases, that "other" is whoever is on the other side of the political divide, and in other cases, it’s those who profess a different faith.

The last thing Walski wants to see is all that hate, which in turn fuels more hate, come to an unstoppable pinnacle, causing the haters to go on an uncontrollable hate rampage. And that, in essence, is how Walski sees the events of 9/11, half the world away, a whole decade later – uncontrolled hate manifested.

If there's one single lesson we Malaysians can learn from 9/11, it is that hate, assisted by the incredible power of bad ideas, can manifest itself into something destructive.

The destructive forces unleashed one decade ago today not only changed the New York City skyline, it changed the way we view the world we live in. Hate triumphed on that day, in more ways than we can imagine.

It silently perpetuates itself to this day, cleverly disguised, rearing its ugly head ever so subtly in forms not easily distinguishable.

If we can successfully eliminate hate from our lives, the world once again will change. This time, though, it’ll be for the better. It will really be the end of the world as we know it...

But this time around, you’ll really feel fine...