Remembering The Forgotten

I forgot that today is 11 September 2008. But people also refer to this day as 9/11, a date which might be embedded in some of our memories forever. For those who are too young to remember, it is a day when evil seemed to triumph over good. It is a day where we see the worst in humanity, and also the best in mankind.

I will always remember seeing images of how commercial airliners, Boeings 747 were used as projectiles to fulfill missions in extreme ways... How it were driven into the Towers in NYC, leaving gaping holes staring into the shocked faces of fellow New Yorkers and the world alike.... How it all came crashing down like dominoes in a toy store... How desperate people were feeling then, when fear and panic overcame them... People leaping off hundreds of meters from their office windows when they see no hope left for them to escape from the burning inferno... Chaos and noise, they came hand in hand.

That was not the only horror the world saw on that day: 9/11.

News of another plane found crashed in Pennsylvania, which was on its way to its final destination, only to be thwarted by brave souls onboard the fateful flight then, with the vision of saving more lives than letting it take more victims than it should have.

We salute these heroes who overcame it all and rise up above the fear of death to save lives.

We too, have not forgotten Pentagon, where evil managed to claim many lives too in the name of God. We remember that fateful day indeed.

I was still young then, 16 years old, old enough to understand the whole terror yet still young to imagine and emphatise with all the emotions felt then. I couldn't soak in the pain, anger, shock... the magnitude of it all then. But now, I could register how it must have been then, how horrible this tragedy was, as we were just entering into the 21st century.

I was naive then. How could something like this happen now? It looked and appeared like it was something medieval... like a war.

Yes, war.

This is something I have never experienced before in my life and I thank God every day for peace and security that I have. But what about the others? Even today, Georgia vs Russia? Israel vs Palestine? Darfur? There's too many conflicts to be named today, which saw blood being spilled like streams of river, probably enough to fill the Nile.

"You don't understand." That is what the older people tell me.

Indeed. I do not understand. It is simple enough to know that to end fights, we must stop punching each other. Then talk. Yet, it is difficult to do so. This... I do not understand, and probably will never understand why.

Power. Lust. Greed. Fame. Wealth.

The mechanism of the world and how it works. This is how I see it.

It might robably sounds sardonic but do pardon me as this is how I do see reality.

But the other side of me... the child in me still see the goodness in people, the hope and beauty that all of us are still holding hands and helping each other despite our differences in many aspects. The beauty of us helping each other without any ulterior motives and suspicions behind all the goodwill.

How will it be in the future? Are we wiping away the last piece of hope holding this world together? Are we succumbing to violence and evil along with the inevitable truth that we're destroying ourselves and our children by eroding Earth?

Think about it. There are many out there who lay forgotten, thinking they are just another insignificant string waiting to be blown away by the fabric of time.

But take heart! There are always people out there...

Remembering the forgotten.