[Even—perhaps
especially—recent, painful, and controversial events and topics demand our
AmericanStudying. So this week, I’ve offered a handful of ways to AmericanStudy
September 11th, 2001, and its contexts and aftermaths, leading up to
this special memorial post.]
On our current
9/11 memorial, what it could be, and why the difference matters.
In the interests
of full disclosure, I should begin by noting that I haven’t yet had a chance to
visit New York City’s 9/11 Memorial and
Museum (although I have seen One
World Trade Center jutting into the city’s skyline). So as always, but even
more so in this case, I welcome any corrections or different perspectives,
along with any and all other comments. I do have a number of family members and
friends who have visited the memorial, however, and from their responses and
reviews (as well as those I’ve
read online, with that amazing Adam Gopnik piece as exhibit A) it seems
clear to me that its designers made a clear and conscious choice to focus
largely on two sets of stories: those of the victims of the 9/11 attacks and
all those affected by their deaths; and those of the first responders and
others who did such heroic work in the attacks’ aftermath. As Gopnik
highlights, the terrorists themselves are present in muted and even
intentionally opaque ways (such as their
“last night” letter/manifesto, which at the museum is untranslated from the
original Arabic), reinforcing that overarching focus on the victims and
responders rather than the attacks’ histories and contexts.
To be clear, I
don’t have any issue with a memorial focused on those two communities. Indeed,
that seems to me precisely what a memorial should do: help remember those lost
and commemorate those who worked on their behalf. Yet a museum is (or at least
should be) something quite different from a memorial, and from what I can tell
the 9/11 museum repeats the memorial’s work far more than would be ideal. Am I
suggesting that a museum should include the kinds of complex and controversial histories
I’ve written about this week, those of Afghanistan and the CIA, of wartime
excesses and debates over Gitmo and torture? I most definitely am, as it seems
impossible to me to study the events of 9/11 without considering both their
antecedents and their aftermaths, both the contexts that contributed to them
and the ways in which they have echoed into so much of our 21st
century society and culture. The museum could certainly also include further
information about the victims and their worlds, about the first responders and
their efforts, about both the tragic and inspiring sides to the attacks—they too
are unquestionably part of studying these histories. And studying is precisely
what distinguishes a museum from a memorial, as I would define them.
To put the distinction
simply, as I see it a memorial is a space for reflection and remembrance, while
a museum is one for thought and analysis. As Americans we often seem to think
that performing the latter actions is somehow anathema to the former and to emotions
of all kinds, while I would argue instead that the two responses complement and
enhance each other. We also, far too often, treat analysis as if it’s an insult
to those memories and those on whom they focus, another offshoot of the “love
it or leave it” school of patriotism about which I’ve written this week as
well. Yet as with so much in our collective conversations, it seems to me that
the answer is addition rather than competition—that finding a way to both
remember and study, to do the work of both memorial and museum, should always
be the goal of historic sites and spaces such as this one. As this site and all
our collective spaces move forward, I hope we can find ways to do and model
that additive work, and make these kinds of memorials and museums into vital
parts of our collective conversations.
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? How should we remember 9/11?
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