On Memorializing Well

[submitted as op-ed for class]


It is not, in my opinion, a tragedy that we have not gotten around to building a monument at the site of the Twin Towers, even if it has been now over five years since the attacks. It is not only the recent discovery of additional human remains at the site that leads me to say so.



Nor is the “bickering,” as Reuters puts it (October 26) over funding, security issues, and design, which has delayed plans, terribly troubling to me. I say this, because I believe it is good not to build permanent memorials too soon.



Building a memorial is a process of reconciliation; it is a ritual of choosing how we will remember what has happened, and how we will move forward faithfully. Bob Schreiter, an expert in the field of post-conflict reconciliation, teaches that we cannot start the process of reconciliation until the violence stops. Right now the violence is far worse than it was five years ago. Our soldiers continue to come home in boxes, and the Middle East continues to bleed. Our war is not yet over. And, our internal battles about the war we are waging outside are not over, either.



Right now, we are still concerned about how we will win. Or, if that moment has passed for some, how we can exit this mess without losing face any more than we have. However, we haven't talked quite as much as how we will live with our neighbors into the future. We cannot eradicate our 'enemies,' and our attempts to do so only increase the number of real threats that we have. In reality, they will still be here, and so will we. Yet, 'winning,' and 'losing,' are not the vocabulary of a hopeful future life together. For this we have to look beyond our present discourse.



We have spoken these past five years of the desire for and importance of freedom. The old theological question asks, 'freedom from what, and for what?' We would like to be free from fear, and free from pain. We say we want to be free to live our lives. Granted, for most of us in this country, the particulars of our daily lives have returned to normal.



Yet what kind of lives do we seek to lead? How shall we move forward in a way that does not neglect our dead, but does not entrench us in hatred? Knowing we cannot return to the times before, how will we learn to allow life to continue?



I believe that a monument built too soon, even if it is to be called the 'Freedom Tower,' will imprison us in our own shortsightedness. We may find ourselves stuck forever in the language of 'The evilness of Them and the purity of Us.' A monument built too soon may simply become a national sore spot, regardless of design; over unresolved divisions, or even holding us hostage to one narrow way of remembering this recent and still unfolding history.



Before we progress with this monument, I suggest we need a little freedom from the emotions of the moment; a freedom to look forward toward the kind of world we want our children to have. I believe this is a life not mired in unending war and cycles of revenge.



How then do we best memorialize such an event? How do we mourn our dead, set our eyes forward, and speak hope into the future? I believe the path that will bring authentic freedom for us will be one that acknowledges our own human capacity for evil, and the Other's human capacity for good. It will be the one that affirms the universal desire for peace and works for systematic justice; a path that offers safety and security to the Other as well as for us. These are the foundation on which reconciliation is built.



To do reconciliation on a national scale, requires a national will. It takes time to develop another way of remembering, one that recognizes the full humanity of the Other, beyond the moments of injury which have been done to us. We are not there yet. We have not entered a spirit for rebuilding and restoring. In our public discourse and in our military actions, we are still fueling the fires of war.