September, the 11th

It has been five years. Five years ago I climbed the stairs of my apartment to find my partner at the time all shocked on top of the stairs, saying: "There has been a disaster in America. Look at this". My first reaction was sceptical, very sceptical for I saw this as the consequence of the way in which USA high-level politicians have decided to conduct foreign policies.
However, upon seeing the images I realized that, being in my first year in an international class, the attacks on the Twin Towers would have far, far reaching consequences. I realised that I didn't know where my American friend Shreya was at the time of the attacks. I called some friends and family, telling them to turn on their television and watch the world change. For that is what it was - our world changing, although none of us was able to fully grasp that at the time.
The aftermath of 9-11 was full of tension and emotions at school. The attack on the World Trade Centre was felt on this side of the Atlantic too. The respectable French newspaper made this clear with the 13 September 2001 editoral headline Nous sommes tous Américains [We are all Americans]. In the center of this city the American embassy was transformed into a fortress, an army tank was stationed in front of the building in the middle of the historical city center. In my class I translated Voltaire's Prière à Dieu and we brought the text to the fences surrounding the American embassy where we put it among the flowers and candles on the street.

So, so much happened since then. There has been Afghanistan, Fahrenheit 9/11, Iraq, Sorry Everybody, Guantanamo Bay, lies, secret CIA prisons in Europe, more lies, too many lies. There is the trial of Sadam Hussein, but Osama Bin Laden still roams around... and so many lives were lost on all sides. I wonder what has happened to the concept of Human Rights, or - well - at least the Geneva Conventions. Don't we put these into practice anymore?
So, we're five years on and I think that the most appropriate in this situation is still the earlier-mentioned Prayer to God by Voltaire, who - important to know - was a deist. His prayer to God is an address to humankind. I'm offering it here again, with hope for improvement of the status quo.

Prayer to God,

I don’t address myself to men anymore; I address myself to you, God of all beings, all worlds and all times: if it is allowed for weak creatures lost in vastness, and unperceivable to the wider universe, to dare ask you something, to you who gave us all, to you whose decrees are immutable and eternal, to you who is good enough to look with pity at the errors attached to our nature; that these errors do not make our calamities. You did neither give us a heart to hate each other, nor hands to cut each other’s throat; make that we mutually help each other to support the burden of a painful and momentary life; that small differences between the clothing that covers our weak bodies, between our insufficient languages, our ridiculous customs, our imperfect laws, our foolish opinions, our conditions that are so disproportionate in our eyes, and so equal in front of you; that all these small nuances which distinguish the atoms called men are not signals of hatred and persecution; that they who light candles in full midday to celebrate you support those who are satisfied with the light of your sun; that they who cover their dress with a white cloth to say we should worship you do not hate those who say the same under a black wool coat; that it is equal to adore you in the formal jargon of an old language or in newer idiom; that those whose dress is dyed in red or purple, who dominate over a small piece of a small heap of the mud in this world, and who possess some round fragments of a certain metal, enjoy without pride what they call power and richness, and may all others look at them without desire: because you know that there is in these vanities neither anything worth envy, nor anything worth pride. May all men remember that they are brothers! May they all be appalled by tyranny exerted on the heart, may they similarly execrate armed robbery that forcefully destroys the fruit of work and peaceful industry! If the plagues of war are evitable, don’t let us hate each other, don’t let us tear one another apart in the centre of peace, and let us all use our short existence to bless in thousand languages, from Siam to California, your kindness which gave us this moment.

From: Traité sur la Tolérance, chapter 23
By: Voltaire
Translation: Author of this blog