Liberation, France

'9-11': Whispered Like an

Immense, Horrifying Secret

"'9-11 has entered the history of men and will forever remain amongst bloody euphemisms like the 'Final Solution.' It is, however, essential, that we dare to think of it - and to recall the horror.

By Claude Lanzmann*

Translated By Elise Nussbaum

September 11, 2007

France - Liberation - Original Article (French)

September 11, 2001 - when referred to as 9-11 - is a form of extreme understatement. I first heard this expression at a Japanese restaurant in Zermatt [Switzerland] on New Year's day, 2002. When I expressed surprise that the restaurant was nearly deserted, our Arab waiter told me the reason: "It's because of 9-11, the Americans don't come anymore."

9/11 - I have heard the phrase repeated ever since, whispered in a thousand different ways like an immense secret of horror and even unadmitted delight when confronted with its horror, a secret that defied articulation, forbade comment, and a thought to be condemned. 9-11 - an awe-inspiring discovery that will enter into the history of men and will forever remain amongst bloody euphemisms like the "Final Solution." It is however essential that we do dare to think of it - and to recall the horror.

A few days after September 11, 2001 - when it was not yet known as 9-11 - I flew over the American coast coming in from the north in a clear blue sky of piercing purity, over the bay of Boston and the airport of that port city -Logan Airport, from which Mohammed Atta himself had taken off one identically glorious morning, a place I myself had breathed the air so many times.

It takes less than 45 minutes to go from Boston to Newark or Kennedy, and I imagined Atta at the controls of the machine that he and the other God-crazed lunatics had seized, speeding along at 600 miles an hour [900km per hour] toward the North Tower, which he now saw coming into view, standing at the tip of Manhattan, a shimmering signature of human adventure and genius.

But rather than just accepting the accounts of 9-11, we must ask ourselves with endless astonishment: What happened at the last instant, at the last second before the aircraft turned into a whirling ball of fire, and yes, what happens in the heads of these murderers who love death so much that they immolate themselves to create the most terrifying carnage?

For hours, I scanned the photographs of Mohammed Atta and Ziad Jarrah. Their closed-off, unwrinkled faces revealing nothing. The orders and instructions [from Atta to the other hijackers] in the moments before the act make everything even more opaque: Purify your soul … tighten your shoes well … wear socks so that your feet will be solidly in your shoes … tighten your clothes!  One can summarize this monotonous, funereal and inept litany of final instructions this way: The 70 virgins who await the burnt genitals of these suicidal assassins in Allah's paradise, speak of nothing but an ashamed desire for and hatred of women, as well as the irremediable desert of "brotherly" civilizations [Muslim societies].

To all those who, after such a crime, such a mass murder, such a catastrophe that undermines all of humanity, are incapable of looking the horror in the face and who seek shelter behind this linguistic frivolity "9-11," we need to respond with some more numbers: 9-11= 3,875 deaths, the majority of whom were poor, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Chinese, Haitians, Asians, Jews and Blacks = infinite sadness documented in the immense billboards on the streets of New York, with photographs and desperate signs that say "MISSING," and which betray losses so great that no one will ever be able to calculate them with any certainty.

9-11: the Americans have dubbed the spot Ground Zero, which is just another way of saying a Disaster.

*Claude Lanzmann is director of the journal 'Les Temps Modernes' and director of the film 'Shoah.'

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