I heart NY

9/11. Stared at TV screen in my Yerevan apartment, it was CNN, it seemed surreal, but it was very real. I’ve always been against terror, and particularly will never justify terror against ordinary people. This time my pain was even more unbearable, since I knew that a very close person to me is working in one of those Twin Towers. For several long and horrifying hours, I did not know that he was slightly late to work, and therefore, was saved… For several hours, there was no proper phone line between Armenia and US. I would later joke that Armenian ‘tradition’ of being late to work was a life-saver…

I feel sad that disgust towards Bush administration policy (and I share that disgust!) made many people, otherwise bright and intelligent, to sort of ‘justify’ this attack. How could they? How could they forget that people who attacked NY on 9/11 were proposing instead a world that is against everything I am (they are!) passionate about – freedom, democracy, human rights…

I had one of those ‘I heart New York’ T-shirts. It was kind of touristy present from someone, which I would never consider wearing otherwise. But I felt immense urge to take that T-shirt out of my wardrobe, put it on and get out of my flat… And that what exactly I did 6 years ago. There was nothing else I could do at that time to express my solidarity with New Yorkers. It was emotional, it felt right.