Open Writing

I can not speak for all Britons, but this is what 9/11 means to me.

My father and I were on a passenger ferry traveling from Dublin to North Wales when the news broke about the terrorist attacks on the twin towers.

There was a television on the wall in the drinks lounge, but I wasn't paying it any attention. As I walked past I heard the announcer say something about a plane crash and saw a tall dark building on the screen.

I didn't realize what the news meant and I don't think anyone else around me did either. Life just carried on as normal.

It was only when we got in the car and switched on the radio that it hit us.

We were driving directly to the home of my father's friends, who lived in rural Shropshire, on the English side of the Welsh border. I don't remember the journey clearly, but I think I might have been trying not to cry as I heard about the people jumping to their deaths.

It was the most horrible thing I had ever heard.

After a few hours we arrived at the house and went straight into the living room to watch the news.

Dad and his friends talked about what would happen next. They thought that the Americans would react immediately. Nuclear weapons were even mentioned. They were all shocked and upset by the tragedy, but were more afraid of Washington than the terrorists.

As they talked I felt distinctly unsafe, as if the world had cracked open. I had an inkling of how a Bosnian friend must have felt when the war began there.

In England that year there had been a serious outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Thousands of cows were slaughtered in affected areas to prevent its spread. She told me that the sound of gun shots bothered her because it brought back bad memories.

The prophecies of doom coming from my father and his friends got a bit much, and I felt like saying, "Stop talking like that! There's a child present." The child was me and I was 24. I was scared.

In the following days when it became apparent that there would be no knee-jerk reaction from the Americans we all breathed a sigh of relief. I felt such respect for the U.S. government.

The British have a tendency towards anti-Americanism, but there was a lot of sympathy for the United States in the period immediately after 9/11. Or at least that's the way I remember it.

The shock that the Americans felt was understandable and I can see that like my Bosnian friend many of them still are still easily shaken.

I saw evidence of that the July before last when there was a serious terrorist attack on the London Underground system. Many American bloggers posted pictures of British flags, and panicky messages of condolence, fear and anger. Quite a few of them said that it brought back memories of 9/11.

Their posts were well meant and touching but seemed inappropriate. So many people had died in Iraq, where was the outpouring of grief and emotion for them? Of course I wasn't in London at the time, maybe I would've reacted differently to the bloggers if I had been.

After the London Underground bombings it was widely acknowledged in some circles that it was a terrible and unforgiveable atrocity, but that we must remember the civilians in Iraq who suffer violence as a daily event. Not to do so, we thought, would encourage anti-British feeling abroad.