Fly Away, Freedom Center
As an architecture fan, I've tracked the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site expectantly, hoping against hope for the phoenixian resolution. But sadly, the progress of this effort to date forms a painfully-accurate symbol of the state of our culture. Every aspect of this multi-faceted plan has degraded into a feeding frenzy of self-agrandizing vitriole fueled by cash, power, egos, and misguided politics. If a novelist wrote this story, the critics would decry its contrivance.
Today's papers ran an article on the International Freedom Center's plea to stay in the Ground Zero plans. The city and state leaders and the redevelopment corporation want it to stay, presumably to help people remember the meaning of the event. Some victim's families oppose it, concerned that the Center could include exhibits that might not always be pro-American. I would simply argue that the Freedom Center has no place at Ground Zero at all.
The people who died that day did not die for freedom. Their death did not advance the cause of freedom. They weren't there on that day trying to push for or preserve freedom; most were just there to make a living. The reason it was such an incredible tragedy is that these people didn't die for anything. And even the fire and police personnel who were truly doing work of heroic intent were not there to rescue freedom, but to save lives, just as they would have if it had been a non-terror catastrophe.
Nor did the attack itself have anything to do with our freedom. None of the 6 reasons Osama bin Laden has given for his jihad on America have anything to do with freedom, unless you mean freedom for Middle East muslims.
And the Bush Administration's reaction to 9/11 certainly didn't advance freedom. They celebrated this event by creating the Patriot Act, throwing people in jail off American soil and denying them Geneva Convention rights, thwarting free speech and a free press, etc. etc.
They didn't attack Afghanistan to free its people, but to capture Osama bin Laden (who admittedly is still free, so there's a connection). Freedom was only their third excuse for invading Iraq, after the first two failed to convince people. And I would argue that neither Afghanistan -- which is presently being run largely by warlords and opium producers -- nor Iraq -- where the citizens can't freely walk the streets for all the mayhem -- have much more real freedom than they had before.
And now, both the victim families who oppose the Freedom Center and the powers that be who support it have managed to agree on one thing: they won't allow it to be free to choose what it exhibits. And the Center is fine with that.
In other words, Ground Zero has as much to do with freedom as Tom Cruise has with lucidity and self-composure. What the site really merits is not a Center of Freedom, but of Gravity.
Today's papers ran an article on the International Freedom Center's plea to stay in the Ground Zero plans. The city and state leaders and the redevelopment corporation want it to stay, presumably to help people remember the meaning of the event. Some victim's families oppose it, concerned that the Center could include exhibits that might not always be pro-American. I would simply argue that the Freedom Center has no place at Ground Zero at all.
The people who died that day did not die for freedom. Their death did not advance the cause of freedom. They weren't there on that day trying to push for or preserve freedom; most were just there to make a living. The reason it was such an incredible tragedy is that these people didn't die for anything. And even the fire and police personnel who were truly doing work of heroic intent were not there to rescue freedom, but to save lives, just as they would have if it had been a non-terror catastrophe.
Nor did the attack itself have anything to do with our freedom. None of the 6 reasons Osama bin Laden has given for his jihad on America have anything to do with freedom, unless you mean freedom for Middle East muslims.
And the Bush Administration's reaction to 9/11 certainly didn't advance freedom. They celebrated this event by creating the Patriot Act, throwing people in jail off American soil and denying them Geneva Convention rights, thwarting free speech and a free press, etc. etc.
They didn't attack Afghanistan to free its people, but to capture Osama bin Laden (who admittedly is still free, so there's a connection). Freedom was only their third excuse for invading Iraq, after the first two failed to convince people. And I would argue that neither Afghanistan -- which is presently being run largely by warlords and opium producers -- nor Iraq -- where the citizens can't freely walk the streets for all the mayhem -- have much more real freedom than they had before.
And now, both the victim families who oppose the Freedom Center and the powers that be who support it have managed to agree on one thing: they won't allow it to be free to choose what it exhibits. And the Center is fine with that.
In other words, Ground Zero has as much to do with freedom as Tom Cruise has with lucidity and self-composure. What the site really merits is not a Center of Freedom, but of Gravity.
posted by bing at 10:39 PM
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