| Somber US lays ghost of 9/11 to rest on 10th anniversary Posted: 11 Sep 2011 11:10 AM PDT 
NEW YORK: The United States on Sunday substantially assuaged the painful memory of Sept 11, 2001, with a poignant and graceful dedication of an utterly tranquil memorial on the 10th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in history. It was the first such anniversary after Washington hunted down the chief perpetrator of the attack, Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan, just weeks before the consecration. President Obama and his predecessor President Bush - the two men who took the fight to the rag-tag enemy - led the way in dedicating the serene and fluid 9/11 memorial at the site of the World Trade Center where more than 2,700 people perished after terrorists commissioned by bin Laden rammed two passenger aircraft into the twin towers and brought them down. There was hardly a dry eye at the event on a beautiful early autumn day. Formally known as the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the monument consists of two square pools of water in the exact footprint of the two buildings, "reflecting absence." Designed by the Israeli-American architect Michael Arad, the names of the victims are inscribed on granite panels around the pool. Some 250 white oak trees, which will grow and last for 300 years, surround the memorial, which is spread across 16 sacred acres and which will be open to the public from Monday onwards. A museum will open at the site on the 11th anniversary next year. Sunday morning though, belonged to the nearly 3000 families who lost their dear ones on that terrible day. As it is done every year, names of the victims were read out alphabetically in scenes that never fail to touch a chord in the heart and moisten eyes. They included the names of more than 40 Indian victims, from Mukesh Kumar Agarwala to Jupiter Yamben, who worked in the buildings or were traveling in the planes on that fateful day. No one remembered the 19 hijackers' who perpetrated the horrific attack, fueled by hate- filled ideology and grievance- laden minds nurtured mainly in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, two of the most toxic countries on earth. Their mastermind and chief planner of the attack, a Pakistani-Kuwaiti named Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is rotting in Guantanamo Bay prison, awaiting trial before a military commission. Brief speeches were made, but words were redundant 9/11/11. When the VIPs and their entourage left, families of the victims walked quietly around the memorial, searching for the names of their loved ones inscribed on the granite panels. They caressed the names lovingly, and some families stenciled them on paper to carry home. The cellist Yo-Yo Ma brought notes of poignancy to the occasion. At some point, Paul Simon of Simon & Garfunkel rendered a tender acoustic version of "Sounds of Silence." Hushed whispers and quiet sobs punctuated the solemn air. "We will never forget," President Bush and America swore in the days after 9/11, but ten years later, there was a sense of having laid the ghost of the attack to rest. The United States may not get a perfect 10 for the way it handled the aftermath of the attack - mainly on account of its deviant war in Iraq - but on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, in memorials and ceremonies at home marked by grace and resolve, poise and dignity, it largely redeemed itself. |
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