Newsletter #11: 9/11, Hope in Panjshir, Royal Pains, the Middle Ages Come to Texas, the Perils of Nature, a Wonder Tale, and More
Hello all, I hope you’re having a nice weekend. Here are a few things that caught my eye or that I’ve been thinking about this week.
9/11. Yesterday, I wrote about 9/11, Osama bin Laden, and Afghanistan in Areo Magazine to mark the 20th anniversary of the attacks. See here. There was so much I could have added, but I had to stop myself from tacking on new developments and new points. For example, I’d have liked to have mentioned jihadism’s ‘turn to Africa’, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and more on the Saudi links. Alas, it’s in the nature of writing essays, even long-ish ones, to be selective about what to include (and thus exclude, or vice versa). Still, I got a lot in there. Thanks to Ben Sixsmith in particular for providing some stimulating material to disagree with.
Meanwhile, I watched a couple of new documentaries on the attacks, both of them very much worth a watch. The first was the BBC’s 9/11: Inside the President’s War Room, which told the story of the day from the perspective of Bush and many of the political, military, and intelligence officials around him. An interesting watch, featuring new interviews with GWB and co. Whatever else can be said about Bush fils, his improvised speech at Ground Zero on 14th September was an impressive display of leadership.
The second, and best, documentary was ITV’s Life Under Attack, which was almost entirely composed of video footage captured by ordinary people on the day. It is quite haunting. At the beginning is footage of a normal morning, but the viewer knows what’s coming—and that knowledge is wrenching. Then the planes hit and we see the fire and smoke billowing before the collapse. At one point, we see footage of firefighters inside one of the towers—and then comes the monstrous sound of humans crashing into the roofs above them. “Jumpers,” is all the firefighters say.
The worst part, as I said, is the viewer’s foreknowledge. We know that the first plane wasn’t a terrible mistake and so we cringe when someone says “at least it wasn’t terrorists, just an honest accident”. We know that the towers will come crashing down despite an onlooking architect assuring his friends that that won’t, can’t, happen. And imagine being there on the day—the first plane, then the second, and news of other hijackings and the Pentagon on fire, then the towers crumbling, and then, when it seemed like it was all over, 7 World Trade Center falling down, too.
We see footage of a mother and father going to collect their son from school. The kids barely know what is happening and their boy smiles, looking forward to going home and seeing the spectacle from his window. One family is trapped inside, unable to flee with their baby because of the toxic smoke completely covering the streets outside their home.
But at least there is some solace. An as-yet-untainted Rudy Giuliani reassuring and guiding the people; a man holding up a sign offering ‘free hugs’ in the ruined streets; multitudes freely donating blood; over 40,000 people volunteering to help with the recovery in the aftermath. Small human victories to set against the horror of the day and the evil of the enemy who inflicted it. “They took it away,” as one small girl uncomprehendingly says of the World Trade Center. Yes, they did, but now One World Trade Center is there, and they couldn’t take away the humanity of the people of New York and Washington. Whatever happened afterwards, perhaps the memory of those brave people, of all demographics, whether civilian or frontline responder, is what should endure, rather than the stench of evil. But let’s not forget that stench, either: it is necessary to recognise evil when we smell it.
An addendum: there were many responses in the aftermath of the attacks, but one of the best in my view was that of Richard Dawkins.
Hope in Panjshir? It’s been reported that the Afghan resistance has taken back three districts from the Taliban. I was disturbed earlier this week by news that the Taliban had smashed the resistance, so this is heartening, if true. Maybe I shouldn’t romanticise them too much, but these lions of Panjshir are allies of the west and foes of the Taliban, so I wish them luck.
Royal turbulence. The BBC reports that Virginia Giuffre’s team have served legal papers on Prince Andrew for their civil case against him. The Prince, you will recall, was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein and Giuffre alleges he abused her when she was trafficked by Epstein to London and when Andrew was at Epstein’s Manhattan and Virgin Islands homes. Prince Andrew’s team is asserting that the papers were not served properly, and thus he has no reason to respond and can remain holed up in Balmoral. I think this is a disgrace, and he wouldn’t be getting away with it so easily if he wasn’t rich and royal.
And, by the way, does this not discredit the Queen, too? She, after all, has the power to tell him to face justice but has instead hidden him from public view in the hopes that this will all go away. He might be her son, but the head of state and commander-in-chief of the United Kingdom has expended a lot of effort in the past couple of years to protect a—fine, an alleged—sexual predator.
Meanwhile, we are told that she supports the Black Lives Matter movement. Keep in mind that the British monarchy is a fantasy machine whose members are both above the law and PR-savvy. It is the shallowest aspect of our so-called constitution, and that’s saying something. No doubt the news of Her Majesty’s love for BLM has been deliberately released to remove some of the stink from l’affair Sussex and to distract from Andrew’s ongoing woes. The image of the Queen as national granny, as a saint above the tawdrinesses of real life and the murky world of politics, is a carefully constructed one, designed to hide the ugly truths within and constitutional lunacy of the monarchy, and we all suffer for our belief in this demented fairy tale.
Fine, the Queen may have a sense of ‘duty’, but she’s a figure of power and a keen clinger to it; she is as tainted as the rest of the institution, no different from any other head of state in these ways (except in British minds), and don’t forget it. To put all this another way: never mind if her son is an (alleged) abuser, the Queen is down with the kids and just LOVES Social Justice™, don’tcha know?
Let’s just hope that meddling and muddled Charles is the last monarch to reign, for surely the British will realise the institution’s absurdity when the plant-whisperer takes the throne? But then there are the young, boring ones: William and his lovely, pliant bride Kate, who are unaccountably popular. Alas, we might be stuck with the Windsors for a while yet if Charles doesn’t bring it all down with him.
A last note on the Sussexes. I think they are as shallow and annoying as the rest of the Windsor clan. But I admit I’ve gotten a kick out of seeing the royals scurrying around in response to their accusations. At least Meghan Markle is being a royal pain in the arse, and I have to applaud her for that.
Abortion in Texas. I don’t think abortion is as simple an issue as many ‘pro-choice’ activists make it out to be, but the news from the Lone Star State is horrifying. What this will mean for American politics more generally I don’t know, but I doubt it bodes well. The victims of the new order will, of course, be women. Despite my qualms about abortion and its champions, I ultimately come down on the broadly ‘pro-choice’ side. The autonomy of women and the complete lack of the ability to suffer in many a foetus swing it for me. And the Texas law doesn’t resemble any kind of compromise on the issue but is almost as extreme an anti-abortion law as it is possible to have. It also makes one’s fellow citizens into snitches, giving all the most dogmatic and nosey fools in Texas an opportunity to intrude on women’s lives and choices.
On abortion more generally, I think that both sides speak past each other a lot. I was at a debate between Edinburgh University’s Humanist Society and its Pro-Life Society a few years ago, and I noticed that the ‘pro-lifers’ all insisted that a conceptus is a human life and therefore abortion is murder while the ‘pro-choicers’ were more likely to bring up cases of incest and rape and to focus on the effects of unwanted pregnancy on women, particularly poor women. As I say, I broadly agree with the ‘pro-choice’ side and the points about women, but only because I don’t believe that a conceptus is a human being with rights.
And that's what it comes down to: it doesn’t matter about rape and incest and all the rest of it if the foetus is a human being with rights. If that is the case, then it is murder to have an abortion, and just like rape and incest and terrible circumstances aren’t an excuse to kill another adult, they can’t then be an excuse for having an abortion (it would also weaken the woman-centric view of abortion: if it is murder, then everyone has a stake in it, not least the father). This is where the issue has to be debated. To repeat: I am on the broadly ‘pro-choice’ side. But too many people on both sides talk past each other rather than examining the fundamental issue at the heart of the matter. As for the ‘pro-life’ side, they can’t get away with citing religious authority: if they want to make their case, they must argue that the conceptus is a human being with rights from reason and evidence and moral philosophy. Your Bible won’t cut it.
Nature ain’t your friend. I read a piece earlier this week about our absurd fetishisation of ‘nature’, but I can’t recall where I read it or who it was by! And I can’t find it again. This is all very annoying. But the point was that we all too often assume that ‘nature knows best’ and that therefore vaccines and GMOs and the like must be bad. There are two things wrong with this view. First, one could easily state that everything, including human inventions, is a part of ‘nature’, for everything is all ultimately made of the same stuff. Second, cancer and malaria are natural (while books and oxygen tanks are not). So the trick is to judge things based on how conducive they are to our health and flourishing, whether they are ‘natural’ or ‘artificial’. In short: ‘nature’ be damned.
A hurrah for Haroun. In my ongoing binge of Salman Rushdie’s work (I’m either reading things for the first time or re-reading them) I’ve just finished his 1990 children’s book Haroun and the Sea of Stories. It’s a lovely little tale and is as enriching as all the best children’s stories are. It was Rushdie’s first novel after going into hiding in 1989, written for his son who had been pestering him for a kid-friendly story. It tells the tale of a young boy, Haroun, who goes to the Ocean of the Streams of Story to restore his father’s ‘Gift of the Gab’ and who ends up being launched into a war with the evil Khattam-Shud, who wishes to destroy the Ocean and abolish speech.
Obviously, there are parallels here with Rushdie’s real-life situation at the time, and the story is ultimately a celebration of the power of storytelling and free speech and familial love and friendship over the forces of dogma and death and philistinism and censorship. It’s symbolically rich, surprisingly subtle, and very funny: a great yarn. I might have to write more about it at some point; I noticed a lot of connections and meanings that I missed when I first read it. But I think it’s a testament to the imagination of Salman Rushdie and his unswerving devotion to the delights of literature that he responded to Khomeini’s ugly little pronouncement with a wonderful tale for his son—and, indeed, all children (and adults!). I’ve often thought that it would be one of the stories I would read to my own kids if ever I had any. Needless to say: I recommend it highly.
That’s all for now, folks. I have a little piece lined up for tonight (remember, only free sign-ups/subscribers get the full experience!), but I’m away next week so I’ll see you in a fortnight.
Love,
DJS
Thumbnail image credit: US National Park Service, from Wikimedia Commons. No claim to original U.S. Government works.