Op-Ed: 9/11 Memorial Allows Hermosa to Reflect

The phone rang at 5:58 a.m. at my home here in Hermosa Beach. It was my brother-in-law calling from overseas.

"Turn on CNN," he said. "A plane has crashed in New York City."

There was a local station feed running and I remember that the anchor thought it was a Cessna. But the sky was clear and blue. "How strange," I remember thinking.

Four minutes later at 6:03 a.m., my wife and I watched in disbelief and horror as the second plane hit the South Tower. That's when we knew. That's when the world knew.

For the rest of the day, along with millions of others, we watched the seemingly impossible unfold on live television before our eyes. Thinking back on it now, I was both incredulous as to what I was seeing and incapable of processing what it meant at that moment.

Having grown up in New York and having been in the World Trade Center many times, it immediately became personal. I thought of the people. All those innocent people. Those who didn't know, and those who did know. The first responders who ran up those stairs while others ran down—they knew.

In efforts to memorialize the 2,998 people who lost their lives on that fateful day nine years ago, the city of Hermosa Beach will be unveiling its 9/11 Victims Memorial Bench on Saturday at 1 p.m. at the corner of Pier Avenue and Valley Drive.

The bench will sit on the greenbelt, a beautiful and peaceful place. I heartily endorse the project and hope that many people will use that bench to sit and reflect about what 9/11 means not only to us in Hermosa and to other Americans, but also to the world.

The world has certainly changed in the nine long years since then with two wars, hundreds of thousands of people dead and increased tensions. Uncertainty is now a part of our everyday lives. We all wonder whether it will happen here again.

Terrorism is never justified, and it's a sad commentary on this world that the human race hasn't risen above using it as a means to address grievances. When confronted with the horrors of terrorist attacks, most people understandably feel angry and emotionally distraught.

What can we extrapolate from the tragic events of that September day and what has transpired since?

I can only speak for myself, but much reflection has inexorably drawn me to conclude the following: Violence only begets more violence, and there has got to be a better way.

A very small faction of Islamic radicals motivated by religious fanaticism is guilty of 9/11, and most other subsequent terrorist acts. But that should not indict all Muslims or the religion as a whole any more than the acts of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh should be an indictment of all of Christianity.

Think about that when reflecting on the current mosque controversy in New York.

I believe that Muslims in general do not hate us, or our freedom. They have issues with our policies. And nothing  helps the aforementioned  Islamic radical's case against the U.S. more than the perception of our one-sided support of Israel.

Or our enabling and propping up of strong-armed, oppressive dictatorships in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. And most important, our invasion and occupation of Muslim countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.

All inevitably intensify anti-American sentiment, cause more death and suffering to civilians and serve to fulfill the prophecies of the most radical Islamic clerics. Not to mention guarantee more generations of disenfranchised Islamic youth who see a jihad against an oppressor as their only viable option.

The United States and other countries should make the effort to better understand and identify these seeds that enable terrorism to grow, and stop watering them.

We need to rethink our role in the world and our foreign policy, and focus on more positive means of engagement, being namely how to help impoverished countries fight disease, starvation and hopelessness.

Then and only then will we have a chance to realize the vision of a more peaceful world for ourselves and our children.

I hope to sit soon on that bench under the shade trees on the greenbelt and reflect. Reflect and honor those lives that were lost on 9/11, and reflect on how we as Americans can contribute in a positive and peaceful way to eliminating terrorism from the face of the earth forever.

I hope you will choose to do the same.

Let us all commit to embrace tolerance and inclusiveness. It will help make terrorism an unattractive option and go a long way toward preventing another 9/11. 

John Ehrenfeld is a 16-year Hermosa Beach resident who is an executive producer in the commercial film production industry, a photographer and a political writer with a great interest in social justice.