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A thoughtful op-ed appeared in the New York Post at the end of 2007 that showed the post-Vietnam era memorials up for what they are: Memorials to Nothing. The writer, Duncan Maxwell Anderson, pointed out what the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial, the Flight 93 National Memorial, and the National 9/11 Memorial have in common:
“On the spot where the World Trade Center stood, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.’s anointed designer, Michael Arad, decrees that there be . . . an American eagle? A statue of the three firemen raising the American flag over the rubble? Heck, no. Just two huge, square, ‘reflecting’ pools. Maybe you can gaze at your navel through them.
“In a complex slated to cost $1 billion, this urban swamp is called ‘Reflecting Absence.’ Absence, indeed. What these modern war memorials have in common with each other is nothing: They portray nothingness. They have no people in them, never mind men carrying guns or swords, statues of Winged Victory or even doves of peace. Just death and names — grief without glory.”
In the case of the excessively costly WTC memorial, they can’t even get that much right. Many who lost their loved ones on 9/11 are bitterly opposed to the current plan for the memorial. It is notable that Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond brokerage that lost 658 employees, more than any other company, on 9/11 only recently relented. Obviously, a political solution was crafted, but their refusal to contribute until the middle of April 2008 speaks volumes. According to an AP story, the firm, “along with family members and law-enforcement unions have lobbied to list the names of the dead differently than is planned at the memorial, noting the victims’ ages, the floor they died on and the company they worked for.”
The same report mentioned that “the city’s main fire and police unions are also not listed as giving $5,000 or more.” It doesn’t get any clearer than that. And it noted that “more than 10 companies that lost employees in the attacks pledged money.” More than 10 companies — out of more than 430? That is known as damning with faint praise. In other words: We want better.
We want our officials to work for us, not for their own aggrandizement. It’s quite simple. It’s called the American Way. We can and we must get control of the screwed up mess that is unfolding at the World Trade Center. Otherwise, the pretentious, depressing, extravagantly vapid memorial will commemorate more than the horror of 9/11/2001. It will mark the place where we allowed our country to be hijacked by a smug, elitist ruling class whose pattern is to do whatever they like, keep it under the radar, refuse to address the merits of opposing viewpoints, and count on people to be too preoccupied to object, until it is too late to correct.
If we lose this ground to those who have nothing but contempt for the office of citizen, we will not rest in peace. History will blame us much more than it will blame those who are abusing their positions of power. Because, in letting them get away with it, we are abusing our own.
