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To describe the scene at ground zero requires more gruesome adjectives than available from Roget's Thesaurus. I don't need to describe it. You've seen the horror replayed over and over again on television and have read it in every newspaper and on every news web site. You want to turn away, to forget it, but you can't. Yet to see it through the safety of your television screen doesn't begin to give describe the atrocious attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. You cannot comprehend the big picture until you see it with your own eyes.
As I have done.
Tuesday night my husband, son and I went to the roof of our 33-story building in midtown Manhattan. We faced the formerly beautiful vista of lower Manhattan and stood in silent horror as the billows of gray smoke wafted high into the sky. "Whenever we crossed the Queensborough Bridge into Manhattan, the first thing you saw were those two towers," my husband said to me. We always admired that view from the bridge. And now our famous New York City skyline was permanently transformed.
We went to bed Monday night without any serious thoughts. We went to bed Tuesday night knowing our lives as Muslims in New York - in America - had irrevocably changed.
At such times of disastrous proportions, you see the world as it really is - stripped of its complacency, frivolousness and glitz. As a writer for IslamOnline's Arts and Entertainment section, I report on the lighter side of New York. But Tuesday I learned how trivial our daily amusements can be. A quick scan of my Time Warner cable television stations showed that nearly every channel suspended its broadcast to focus on the disasters. Even QVC and the Food Network displayed a simple message expressing grief. MTV was slow to the uptake - Jay Z, Madonna and other videos flashed mercilessly through the horrific morning until the station finally got its act together and deferred to CBS programming in mid-afternoon.
At other stations, including Lifetime, USA, Comedy Central, TLC and BET, it was business as usual. What were they thinking? How could you broadcast "Golden Girls" (on the Lifetime network) while Tower 1 and 2 of the World Trade Center were collapsing in a sickening pancake heap?
The Latin Grammys and Emmys were cancelled, Broadway theaters shut down, movie studios closed shop and nearly the entire entertainment industry closed their doors in wake of the assaults. Major League Baseball postponed games; the first time MLB did so since D-Day in 1944.
There are so many other things to focus on rather than the entertainment world's reaction to the disasters. Yet I was struck by how most everyone, from senators to reporters to people on the street drew on Hollywood clichés to describe the carnage. Most people instantly thought of one thing: It was like a scene out of Independence Day. The fear now is that Muslims nationwide, especially in New York and Washington DC, may face scenes and emotions like those from the The Siege.
Muslims around the country, like all Americans, feel pain and grief for the victims of the disasters and pray for their families. And they hope this nation's people recognize that.
New York Mayor Rudolph Guliani, in one of his many Tuesday press conferences, promised extra protection for Muslim New Yorkers and warned against assigning group blame. Former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrook told CNN that "When you talk about Islamic fundamentalists," you don't include all Muslims. And even President George W. Bush, in a phone call with Guliani and New York Gov. George Pataki, said Americans must be "mindful of Arab Muslims" and not hold them responsible for the acts.
Such words are comforting, but don't eradicate the fear of Muslims. But then again, nothing can totally erase our fear, worry and questions. Mosques and Islamic schools nationwide have received numerous threatening phone calls. There have been scattered verbal attacks against Muslims in New York and New Jersey. And the proliferation of heinous messages against Muslims on various Internet message boards is a chilling matter.
But the Internet, along with television and cell phones, also has proved very valuable in this crisis. Most of America was glued to their televisions as the events unfolded, and popular news sites, like CNN.com, were bogged down from receiving so many hits. And stories of survivors trapped beneath the rubble of the two towers using their cell phones to call for help are now permanently etched on this nation's conscience.
The images themselves for those here in New York are forever planted in our minds: One plane hitting Tower One. Nearly 20 minutes later another slicing into Tower Two. The rush of people running for their lives as the towers collapsed and black smoke and debris drowned the streets. A discarded baby stroller in the vicinity of the World Trade Center covered with gray ash. Tuesday's date, 09/11/2001, etched by someone's finger into the inches-deep soot on an abandoned car. Beefed-up security at area mosques where Muslims prayed for the survivors and victims of the disaster.
Guliani called for New Yorkers to go about their daily lives, to go to work, to spend time with their children, to go shopping, to see a movie. Yet the city that never sleeps is still eerily silent. And many Muslims are lying low, but for how long should we do so? Muslims here and nationwide are wondering how their lives will be in wake of this calamity. It's a dreadful game of wait and see we wish we didn't have to play.
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