What Does It Mean to Never Forget?

I was a freshman in high school 25 years ago when two planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City and one crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

As a young student, it was a surreal experience. That morning, my brother and I were waiting for the bus to pick us up when our neighbor told us about the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center. When she first told us, it was thought to be an accident. By the time we got to school—an approximately 20-minute trip—it had become clear it was no accident.

Names like Osama bin Laden, a ghost from the 1980s, the Taliban and al-Qaeda became part of the American Lexicon. Before the events of September 11, the biggest terrorist attack on our soil had been perpetrated by a homegrown terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, in Oklahoma City. As a young high school student, I spent my first few years fervently defending the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan and, later, Iraq. We were attacked and so we must attack them in return, I thought.

International policy is never so easy.

Each year since the September 11 attacks, we are told to “Never Forget” and to remember those who died that day. I can’t help but think that sometimes in our push to remember the events of that day, we forget the many years afterwards.

Yes, let’s remember the 2,753 people who died at the World Trade Center, the 184 people who died at the Pentagon and the 40 who died in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Let’s also remember the more than 9,000 first responders who have died since September 11 due to their exposure to toxic dust, smoke and debris at Ground Zero and the years it took to make the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund essentially permanent.

Let’s remember the 2,459 United States military personnel who died in Afghanistan from October 2001 through August 2021. We should also remember the nearly 70,000 Afghan security forces and the 3,917 contractors who died during the nearly 20-year occupation of Afghanistan and the 46,000 innocent Afghans killed by direct violence during that time.

Since the September 11 Attacks, I’ve seen people make comments on how they want our country to be unified like it was on September 12. While I can understand the sentiment, I remember there also being a rise in Islamophobia immediately after 9/11m, even at a local level. Shortly after we entered the country, I recall a response of “Well they attacked us” from another student following the accidental bombing of a school in Afghanistan.

That Islamophobia has never really gone away. A prime example is people calling New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani— who was nine years old at the time of the attacks—to not attend this year’s September 11 ceremonies.

When we tell ourselves, “Never Forget,” something we should also remember is that people of all races and religions were affected by not only the events of September 11 itself but the years afterwards. We should remember that it wasn’t a religion which attacked us but a group of radicals who used their religion as a weapon.

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