A War of Symbols

“For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Things don’t fail all at once. Bodies, relationships, societies break down incrementally. Unfortunately, the warning signs are seen most clearly in retrospect. But in every case, communication and understanding can undo a lot of damage, while misunderstanding and vitriol will only accelerate it.

Much of the anger and alarm over the proposed Islamic Community Center is based on the perception that it would be seen as a triumphal “victory mosque” by our sworn enemies. At the same time, those who support the mosque warn of the inflammatory symbolism of moving its location. Most of those on both sides mean well, but in war that’s not nearly enough.

Hostility to the aims of hard-core villains acting maliciously in the name of Islam is not hostility to all Muslims. Regardless of how charitable the developers’ aims and intentions may be, millions of extremists around the world would indeed celebrate the center as a victory mosque.

Does that matter? It surely does, because symbolism is the international language and — on today’s wired battlefield — the ultimate weapon. Symbols fly below our radar and infiltrate our being. People trust what they see far more than what they hear and then act upon it.

That is why Al Qaeda targeted the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and the Capitol. That is why Bin Laden gloated “The values of this Western civilization under the leadership of America have been destroyed. Those awesome symbolic towers that speak of liberty, human rights, and humanity have been destroyed. They have gone up in smoke.”

And that is why we are duty bound to uphold the symbols that define us. Images of the crumbling Towers are seared into the world’s subconscious. Our enemies cheered because they saw them as proxies for our nation. Our friends mourned not only the savage death of innocent people, but also the death of our way of life. As one of the thousands of comments left on the Twin Towers Alliance petition pleaded:

“When someone dies it is impossible to bring them back to life, but we are given a unique opportunity to do just that in this case; bring the Twin Towers back to life instead of being haunted by their absence.”

The Twin Towers were not disposable icons. Nothing could match the healing power of reversing 9/11’s horrifying imagery, particularly for the millions of children who were so deeply distressed by the disaster. The sight of four random buildings appearing where two heroic structures vanished isn’t soothing, it is disturbing, because it doesn’t connect.

That became especially troubling in 2005, when the signature tower on the property perversely morphed into a giant obelisk, the funereal shape that stands out in cemeteries around the world. Is no one supposed to notice that we are erecting a giant tombstone?

For officials to be sensitive now to the symbolic cost of opposing the mosque, while remaining impervious to the symbolic value of rebuilding the Twin Towers, is strangely and destructively illogical. But after nine years we seem to be coming full circle. A column on the controversy in the Huffington Post at the end of August put the matter in stark perspective:

“But the real scandal is that nearly a decade after 9/11, Ground Zero remains a gaping hole of rubble… If our billionaire (8th wealthiest person in the country) mayor had used his extraordinary resources and connections to rebuild the Twin Towers, we would now be looking at a very different Manhattan and having a very different dialogue about the construction of a mosque.”

That opinion is as mainstream as it gets. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the difference between new Twin Towers and the current plan is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. But politicians who have been deaf, dumb, and blind to the dreary symbolism of failing to rebuild the Towers are keenly aware of the recruiting value of failing to build this mosque.

If we are concerned with the messages we send to those who hate us, we should rethink our half-hearted recovery at Ground Zero, because healing can’t be faked. It appears that we don’t have what it takes to recover our balance and stature, but that’s not true.

We do have what it takes, but what has made it so complicated is that the World Trade Center was sabotaged twice. First by those who hate us and then by those who serve us — beginning with President Bush, who shouted through a bullhorn that he heard us, but then left our national recovery in the hands of the most dysfunctional state government in the Union.

Does anyone think Harry Truman, or John Kennedy, or Ronald Reagan would have been so careless with our collective hopes and national honor? We could have built two World Trade Centers for the money officials have wasted. Does that mean they should get away with it?

This is a particularly poor time to be sending out the wrong cues about who we are. We can’t fully recover as long as officials use the public’s resources to build a World Trade Center that mocks the will of the people and media conglomerates make a bogus project seem credible.

The only thing the current plan represents is cronyism and contempt. Is that what we want “the people who knocked down those buildings” to hear from us – that we are resigned to being outmaneuvered by our own government? Is that the message we want to send our friends or accept about ourselves?

It is always good to see how we look from a distance. The following excerpt of a comment from Portugal was left on the Twin Towers Alliance site at the beginning of September, but it echoes what we have been hearing from overseas since the petition began:

“If you don’t rebuild the WTC as it was, basically the terrorists will win and finally accomplish what they always wanted: America losing all its glory and become a weak country living in fear!

“That’s what the Freedom Tower stands for: fear and acceptance! America fails with the ordinary Freedom Tower! New York will never be the same… America will never be the same…”

It was followed a few days later by this comment from India:

“As has been said a thousand times, for us non-Americans, twin towers represented America. The void created by their destruction cannot in any way be filled by any other structure.”

We are not on a conveyor belt. Building new Twin Towers beside the 9/11 Memorial would be the most inspiring and practical thing we could do. Why build anonymous towers that look like everywhere else when we can raise the two towers that look like nowhere else?

The image above was recently brought to our attention. It is one of a new series of postcards being sold in the city. The distributor wouldn’t have created more than half a dozen images if they didn’t sell. They wouldn’t sell if they didn’t resonate with the people. The reason they still do, nine years later, is because that’s what people long to see. But officials think, “So what?”

The spin machine has shifted into overdrive, with story after story aimed at making the current plan appear desirable and inevitable, when it is neither. People have a right to the facts. The media is doing the public no service by giving the current plan credibility that is not deserved.

What all the puff pieces seem to miss is that every design enhancement being discussed would be so much more impressive installed in state-of-the-art Twin Towers, which would complement the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum as nothing else could.

There are no doubt individuals in both government and media who think they are serving the public good at Ground Zero, but when inconvenient facts are ignored because they don’t fit the official narrative, something is terribly wrong. And pretending will not make it right.

The outlook would quickly change if it were known that new Twin Towers would cost less and could be finished sooner. The money to build what everyone wants is already in the budget, while officials have just pledged to come up with even more public funding to build what nobody wants. It is probably not legal, let alone ethical, for officials to ignore a more popular and feasible option — especially when their states are drowning in red ink.

Recently, calls to rebuild America have come forth from both political parties. If they are serious, the best place to begin would be at the place where we buried our heart nine years ago. Building new Twin Towers would be phenomenally encouraging and our confidence would overflow, making us once again believe that there’s nothing we can’t tackle together.

As symbols, the Twin Towers were unrivalled. They represented the noble quest for world peace and stability through trade. That message and mission would be even more meaningful now. The culture of world trade holds the key to world peace because when prospective business partners disagree, they are motivated to find common ground where minds can meet. They don’t lecture each other; they relate. They find a way. Twin Towers are the ultimate visual shorthand for equality, solidarity, and enlightened self-interest.

That’s the model we need in these contentious times. It’s a big country. We need big hearts to match. We don’t need to give up our diferences, but just the bashing and bickering. The dispute over the mosque would be the perfect place to start relating. But, regardless of what is or isn’t built at 51 Park Place, the only way the World Trade Center will ever be worth the price and worth the wait is if what we finally build affirms our hopes and reflects our character.

New Twin Towers would be “victory towers.” They would shine through all our dark nights symbolizing the victory of hope over despair, courage over fear, truth over lies, competence over incompetence, harmony over discord, accountability over carelessness, respect over arrogance, and the intrinsic power of the people over the derived power of the government.

If officials succeed in defeating the will of the people, and replace the rich symbolism of the Towers with structures devoid of meaning, it will be a very crowded site. Because the majestic Twin Towers will always be there, looming over the trite, irrelevant substitutes. But if the people succeed instead, the Twin Towers will stand as sentinels and beacons of a country that always comes back better, stronger, prouder, and freer — because that is who we are.

(c) 2010 The Twin Towers Alliance | May Be Reprinted Without Permission

Twin Towers Image — (c) The Postcard Factory