---
title: Many wars start just right after the funerals
date: 2006-09-14T22:43:44Z
modified: 2006-09-14T22:43:44Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/many-wars-start-just-right-after-the-funerals/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 719
categories:
  - Uncategorized
timestamp: 2006-09-14T22:43:44Z
tags:
  - Uncategorized
---

[Global Voices Online ｻ Blog Archive ｻ Five years on from 9/11, the world remembers](http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2006/09/12/five-years-on-from-911-the-world-remembers/ "Global Voices Online ｻ Blog Archive ｻ Five years on from 9/11, the world remembers")

I am half American, half English, which makes me somewhat bi-polar.

I posted nothing on 9/11 because I figured it was a day for quite reflection, and certainly not any kind of criticism of the way the last five years have played out.

I have made a few trenchant delicious posts the last few days though.

Many of you posted your own rememberances, which I read and sympathised with.

After all, there has really only been one day in my entire lfe that I had no doubt at all that I truly am an American. I felt like I had just been branded – no more doubts.

But then Le Monde had caught the global mood perfectly: Nous Sommes Tous Americains.

Did I want to kick some ass as I watched the second tower fall? Oh yes. As much as anyone I wanted that. But I wanted the guilty punished, not just a scapegoat.

It seems to me that we should probably take a moment to think about how others view the world, five years after 9/11. It seems we are all Americans no longer. Global voices has a roundup.

Why pay attention to what “foreigners” think? This is the context for the Long War, the battle for hearts and minds that will surely define the next couple of decades. We can’t escape the World.

We should also not lose sight of the fact the attack was on the World Trade Center, not just America. Many nations lost their own. America has no monopoly on mourning or grievance.

You may not like what is being said outside America’s borders, but it may not hurt to read it. Thus the link above.

[ Indonesian blogger Asri Wijayanti](http://daysofagirl.blogspot.com/2006/09/911-reflections.html) caught my eye though:

> Many people condemn when they mourn
> Many people are in enormous anger when they are in grieve
> Some people plan to revenge when they cry
> Some people can turn into a cruel creature when their hearts are broken
> Many people gain their unpredictable power when they feel powerless
> The survivors always remember how it felt to be the victims,
> murders took place in the name of the deceased,
> and many wars start just right after the funerals..