On September 11, 2001, between 8.46 and
10.03 AM, two
airplanes crashed into the Twin Towers
of the New
York World Trade Center, one into the
Pentagon
and one, headed to Washington, plummeted in Pennsylvania.
That
day, at 8.46, news networks from all over the world started
broadcasting live from New York and making hypotheses about what was
going on.
When
the second plane crashed into the South Tower, it was clear that it
had not been an incident, rather a deliberate
attack: the United States, for the
first time since World War II and for the second time in their
history – after the Japanese aggression in Pearl Harbor in 1941 -,
had been attacked directly on their territory.
It
was such a significant action that it would
change the balance in
international relations and our own lives.
On
that day alone, almost 3.000 people died
in New York, not to
count those who passed away in
the following years due to diseases
probably caused by the toxic substances that they were exposed to on
the place of the attack.
After
19 years, it can be useful to reflect upon some of the consequences
of that day; as the
world figured out in the following days and
years, with
regard to 9/11 there has been a
before
and there
is an after.
Before,
the United States seemed to have
“won” the Cold War and,
as the bipolar order disappeared, it seemed that nothing could
threaten the international order that was building up – except
for some theories, like Samuel
Huntington’s clash of civilizations
theory. Before,
Western citizens were not
afraid of being attacked from the outside and conflicts were
perceived as far, as they were taking places in the “periphery”
of the world.
After, the terrorist threat entered our lives: a threat that was difficult to interpret and, despite all the security measures taken over the years, impossible to prevent totally, as shown by the attacks first carried out by Al Qaeda and, then, in the name of ISIS. Tterrorism wasn’t brand new, but only in 2001 the Western public opinion became fully aware of it.
A
phenomenon that not only caused thousands of victims, but has also
brought to irrational wariness
– and, too often, overt
racism –
towards Muslim people in Western societies, not to mention the
attacks
directed at Muslim citizens.
If,
previously, threats to international security came
from easily identifiable actors – States – it has now become
clear that they can
come
from hybrid, new actors, against which classical strategies – armed
intervention,
to
start with
– are no longer that
effective.
After
9/11, the U.S. undertook two
long
wars – in Afghanistan
and Iraq –
with the declared goal to eradicate the organization that had planned
the attacks and to secure its territory from threats that,
according to the Administration, came
from the Middle East.
The
American invasion of Iraq has also influenced transatlantic
relations, opposing the so-called
“willing” – that took part in the
invasion with the United States – and the rest of NATO, that
was contrary to
the intervention. The political balance
of the Middle East was disrupted and
thousands of Afghan and Iraqi civilians, already hit by decades of
dictatorship,
were victims of the war or directly paid its consequences.
9/11 made it clear that it is not possible to feel uninvolved in what happens in the rest of the planet, nor immune to its consequences: a phenomenon such as Islamic radicalism that, before, seemed to hit above all Muslim countries, has succeeded in influencing everyone’s lives – just think about all the security checks in airports, that we now take for granted - and shaping our perception of the world.
Sources:
Britannica, Timeline of the September 11 attacks, https://www.britannica.com/list/timeline-of-the-september-11-attacks
Huntington, S. P., The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, Simon&Schuster, 2011 (anteprima disponibile al seguente link: https://books.google.it/books?id=1CM3GUNLzOAC&printsec=frontcover&hl=it&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false)
Il Post, La guerra in Iraq, 10 anni fa, 20 marzo 2013, https://www.ilpost.it/2013/03/20/guerra-in-iraq/
Lombardi, Anna, Christchurch, attacco in due moschee in Nuova Zelanda: 49 morti. La strage in diretta Facebook, La Repubblica, 15 marzo 2019, https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2019/03/15/news/nuova_zelanda_attacco_in_un_moschea_decine_di_morti-221589586/
Marconi, Cristina, L'attentato contro i musulmani e l'islamofobia di cui parla Theresa May, Il Foglio, 19 giugno 2017, https://www.ilfoglio.it/esteri/2017/06/19/news/l-attentato-contro-i-musulmani-e-l-islamofobia-di-cui-parla-theresa-may-140533/
MIT Center for International Studies, Iraq: the Human Cost, http://web.mit.edu/humancostiraq/
United Nations, UN News, Afghanistan: Civilian casualties exceed 10,000 for sixth straight year, 22/02/2020, https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1057921
Ritchie, Hannah, Hasell, Joe, Appel, Cameron, Roser, Max (2013) - "Terrorism". Published online at OurWorldInData.org, 'https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism'
Chiara Vona
Si è laureata in Relazioni Internazionali, con una tesi sulle trasmissioni radiofoniche americane verso i Paesi del blocco orientale durante la Guerra fredda e, attualmente, lavora nell'ambito della comunicazione.
In Mondo Internazionale è Segretario di Mondo Internazionale Academy e redattrice per "AccadeOggi" ed "EuropEasy".
She graduated in International Relations with a dissertation about American International broadcasting towards the communist bloc during the Cold War and, currently, she works in communications.
Within Mondo Internazionale, she is Secretary of the Mondo Internazionale Academy and she writes for "It Happens Today" and "EuropEasy".