I will never forget...

Doodling in my 3rd language Arabic class in Room 435 in UNIS, a faculty member, whom I can't precisely remember whom, rushes into the room to exclaim, "A plane has just flown into the World Trade Center!" At first, I recall thinking that the World Trade Center was the Empire State building, and thought to myself, what a pity for such a magnificent architectural structure to suffer such a severe injury?! Nothing regarding the death toll ran through my mind whatsoever. I recall it was Faisal, Alyazia and me in that class and we all thought it must have been some sort of aviation accident, never anticipating that this unforgettable event would haunt us for the rest of our lives. I then remember that we were all evacuated to the roof of the UNIS building. Then, I remember Faisal jokingly warns me, "watch out while you're up on the roof in case they might throw us in the East River." Without a clue of what was going on, we middle school kids messed around, joking of what could possibly have happened. Among the faculty though, there was such chaos of what they were going to do with us. They called all our parents to inform them that we must be evacuated at once as a security precaution! In our little bubble called UNIS, we had no slight idea of the history-defining event taking place on the same island of Manhattan where we'd carried out our lives for the past year in harmony.

Once Ben, our driver, came to pick Omar and I up, we realized the insanity that was engulfing this city. There was a mass exodus from Downtown Manhattan to the Upper East Side. Thousands had taken the streets to evacuate the area known as Battery Park. I recall that we were some of the only people in a car, but I was shocked at how orderly the lines of people walking north were. Also, for the first time in my life, people occupied the Queens Borough Bridge instead of cars! We were so unaware of what on earth was going on! Omar and I were quickly rushed to our apartment upstairs. I remember Mom sitting watching the TV. Helicopters were flying everywhere and there streets and avenues of the bustling city of NYC were overflowing with the confused. Despite all the commotion, I recall people being cooperative, helpful, and respective to one another. NYC was an exceptional place where when times would get hard, people would come together as a family.

I wish I could have been in the streets to experience 9/11 as it happened, but instead I was in my own ivory tower, the Landmark, on 59th St. and 2nd Avenue. There, as my eyes were glued to the TV screen, I tried to piece together the different components of the puzzle to comprehend what on earth was going on. CNN first mentioned that it was a terrorist attack. So I wondered whether it could possibly be some splinter Japanese Kamikaze group that sought to avenge their ancestors or something. At that point in time, I was two young to even understand global affairs, but I will never recall that only a couple of hours after the two towers were hit that Osama Bin Laden's face popped up on the TV screen as the prime suspect. There was something a tad bit fishy about the sequence of events. I still wonder how the convict of history's most influential crime could be identified in such a short time. Now don't get me wrong; I don't sympathize with the guy nor do I intend to formulate any conspiracy theories, but I only speak what I remember in my vivid memory. I recall my father working downstairs in the Egyptian Consulate completely oblivious to what was taking place outside. He informed me that my cousin Shady had called him to inform him that the New York was ablaze! My father reminded my that we were going to visit the towers last weekend as we strolled around Battery Park, but Omar and I, being stubborn as we always were in NYC, refused out of laziness. We took photos of the towers instead. I still have those photos hidden somewhere in one my albums. My father came up and we all stood in our balcony as smoke and residue engulfed the skyscrapers that dotted 2nd Avenue all the way to Downtown Manhattan where the towers once stood. Among the buildings that covered the scene, the Chrysler Building and the Empire State, which always clearly visible from our balcony, were now enveloped in ugly brown smog. We tried to make out what was going on in the distance, but the smoke clouded everything in the distance. As we stared intently into the distance with the media coverage clammouring in the background on the TV, the most frightening thing ever happened! All of the sudden, the cloud that surrounded the buildings in the distance collapsed in a sudden uniform descent that shook us all. We had no idea what was going on behind that repugnant veil smog, but all of the sudden, it was announced that the towers toppled in what almost seemed to be an unnatural unison. I had mixed feelings inside me as I horrifically watched this spectacle first hand. I would have never imagined that that fraction of a second with the first tower collapsing with all its might to ground zero would define the rest of my life, and for that matter, the rest of history! As history was in the happening, I recall rushing to grab the camera to record it with my own eyes. I took several photos of the smoggy skyline that painted the ugly panorama we were witnessing before our eyes from our NYC apartment. Surprisingly, in the hours that followed event, residue from Downtown actually reached balcony's windows. I remember wiping a line of residue off the window and wondering whether one of these particles could have possibly belonged to the towers. Later that day, the melancholy that slowly choked NYC slowly sunk in on me. The whole city kept vigil. The following few days, the city became a police state with F-16s hovering around our building and H-1s patrolling the streets.

Seven years from now, America has not changed so much from that memorable day. Mayor Bloomberg is true to his world when saying "9/11 lives forever in our hearts and history." On this day, on every year that has passed, whether I am in Cairo or Charlottesville, I feel like a displaced New Yorker who feels the same sentiments. America must move on though. The events of 9/11 have brought up a neo-Iron Curtain that will polarize the West and East once more. Isolating the Middle East from voicing its views from the political arena will not solve the problem. America should brush off any provocations. Sometimes I wonder what if the U.S. built a mosque on ground zero in response to the terrorist attacks. Wouldn't that completely belittle the terrorists' wrongdoings and show them what true Islam is about. In any case, I don't wish to diverge by proposing what should and shouldn't happen. Seven years on, I remember this event as if it were yesterday. Every time, I see a sign preaching the words "We Will Never Forget." A shiver runs down my spine and I wonder to myself whether the world is doomed to be so close-minded so as to categorize people so stereotypically based on their ethnicity and religion. I, personally, shall never remember, but will never have such an event pose as an obstacle for my dreams and aspirations for a better world. In any case, there is one last hour remaining until the calender flips to 9/12, so I shall post this entry as evidence of my remembrance of 9/11 and my commemorations to its past and future victims.