 | Students listening to the speakers at the commemoration ceremony on Cross Campus on Sept. 11. |
From its beginning with a solemn moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. -- marking the time that the first plane hit the World Trade Center -- to its ending with a candlelight ceremony on the Cross Campus lawn, the first-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 tragedy was commemorated at Yale with gatherings that allowed for quiet reflection, remembrance, discussion and the sharing of words of hope.
The early morning moment of silence was broken by the chiming of the bells of the Harkness Tower carillon, the Divinity School and other New Haven churches.
Sterling Memorial Library became an open space for students and staff to gather and reflect on the tragedy. Written reflections by University affiliates were read every 11 minutes by library staff members and volunteers.
Four easels were placed in each corner of the library's lecture hall for visitors to post their thoughts. One anonymous library visitor responded to the tragedy by quoting Mahatma Gandhi: "Be the change you wish to be in the world." One wrote, simply but poignantly: "Freedom has a price." Another spoke passionately about the cowardice of terrorists and concluded: "... Do not ignore evil, but shine the lights of truth and purity on it until there are no more shadows for it to hide and cower in. We will prevail."
The library's commemoration also included the screening of the award-winning music video "In Times Like These," a tribute to those who died in the attacks and those involved in relief efforts.
The campus commemoration of "9/11," as the tragic day has come to be known, also featured morning and afternoon worship or memorial services in honor of those who died as well as concerts at the Yale Center for British Art and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at which audience members could quietly reflect on the tragedy.
The School of Management hosted a faculty lecture examining the implications of the day's events for the global, corporate and public policy areas. This discussion, led by School of Management Dean Jeffrey Garten, was the inaugural event in a series of discussions between faculty and students at the school that will be held throughout the year.
Among the most well-attended commemorative events were four faculty discussions offered as the closing events in the year-long lecture series "Democracy, Security and Justice: Perspectives on the American Future" coordinated by faculty members Cynthia Farrar and John Gaddis. The day's lectures explored the impact of the attacks on four key areas: "Geopolitics," "Religion," "Law and Human Rights" and "The Arts."
Historians John Gaddis and Donald Kagan and Yale Center for the Study of Globalization Director Ernesto Zedillo expressed their thoughts on American foreign policy since the tragedy in a discussion moderated by Provost Alison Richard in a packed Battell Chapel.
Kagan, Sterling Professor of Classics and History, argued in favor of a declaration of war against Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein -- who, he noted, has over the past four years flagrantly defied every United Nations resolution calling for weapons inspectors to have unlimited access to sites in his country. Stressing his belief that Iraq does indeed possess dangerous chemical and biological weapons, Kagan said America's unwillingness to take action to remove Iraq as a terrorist threat, as well as its failure to acknowledge the possibility of terrorism on its own soil before Sept. 11, contributed to the attacks that day.
"Until [Hussein's] regime is removed, there can be no security for us and no peace in the world," Kagan stated.
Noting that many Americans are under the "delusion" that "inaction is safer than action," he said,"Peace does not keep itself. It requires vigilance ..."
Gaddis, quoting Abraham Lincoln's statement that the United States is "the last great hope on Earth," said the country is "if not the last hope of Earth, then certainly, in the eyes of most of its inhabitants, still the best hope." The terrorists, he asserted, attacked the United States not because of "poverty or injustice or any other morally justifiable" cause but because they agreed with Lincoln's claim and wanted to destroy that hope.
"They haven't achieved it, but we have been shaken, badly shaken," Gaddis noted, adding, "For the first time since our days as a frontier society, Americans have reason to fear for our lives." This insecurity, he stated, "is the price we're paying for having made ourselves the best hope."
Gaddis decried tendencies of the U.S. government since the attacks to disregard the views of other nations, saying, "We have indulged in a petulant unilateralism that better befits a sullen teenager than a global leader.
"A nation that sets itself up to be an example to the world will not achieve that purpose by seeking to exempt itself from the world," the historian continued.
American unilateralism was also a concern for Zedillo, who said that two opposing approaches are now evident in U.S. policy. On the one hand, he noted, the United States took a strongly "multilateral" approach immediately after Sept. 11, when it worked with the international community in a renunciation of terrorism. More recently, Zedillo said, the country has adopted a more unilateral approach with occasional global forays.
A unilateral approach "happens to destroy the most powerful instrument the world has today to fight the global problem of terrorism," which is international cooperation, Zedillo said. He told the audience that the "War on Terrorism" slogan "sounded okay at first, but maybe now has been abused."
"You fight wars against states, not international outlaws," the former president of Mexico contended.
The main issue for the nation, Zedillo asserted, is not whether military action should now be taken against Iraq, but to answer the questions: "What is the grand strategy of the United States?" and "Does [its current, more unilateral policy] undermine the international community? Does it undermine prosperity and peace?"
America's recovery from the attack is linked to how it answers those questions, Zedillo suggested. "In this great tragedy, we see great opportunity," he concluded.
In the afternoon faculty panel in the Luce Hall auditorium, Harold Attridge, dean of the Divinity School, noted that "religion was intimately implicated" in the Sept. 11 attacks, thus bringing it "to the forefront of American consciousness.
"The perpetrators of the event cited religious motivations for their actions," continued Attridge, who moderated a discussion featuring María Rosa Menocal, the R. Selden Rose Professor of Spanish and Portuguese; Lamin Sanneh, the D. Willis James Professor of World Christianity; Frank Griffel, assistant professor of Islamic studies; Miroslav Volf, the Henry B. Wright Professor of Divinity; and Frederick J. Streets Jr., Yale chaplain and acting master of Trumbull College.
Menocal provided a historical perspective to shed light on the current world situation. She spoke of the close interactions among the "three religions of the children of Abraham" -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- in medieval Spain, and noted that "[t]he possibilities were all there for extraordinary cultural interaction" that led to "cultural flourishing on all sides," despite the intolerance that flourished elsewhere during that era.
In Spain, the balance between harmony and hostility was extremely delicate and easily upset, she noted, and many of the pivotal struggles occurred among different factions within the same religion. Much of the warfare that took place in that era, while overtly motivated by religious differences, in fact happened because of political alliances and power struggles, she told the audience.
Griffel challenged the popular belief that Islamic fundamentalism is a hold-over of traditional Islam. "It is interesting to note," he said, "that the intellectual background of Osama bin Laden or, for instance, Mohammed Attah, the assumed ringleader of the hijackers, lies not in the past centuries, but very much in the 20th century."
Islamic fundamentalism emerged only about 50 years ago, he said, and was primarily a political movement, an ideology based on the rejection of man-made societal structures in favor of a God-given set of laws. He continued, "I believe that we must better know Islamic fundamentalism in order to know, among other things, that it is not the same as the religion of Islam."
Sanneh painted a bleak picture of the hunt for the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, saying, "In spite of the military strikes in Afghanistan, there do not appear to be any signs of retreat among the fundamentalists." The military problem, he said, is "an acute one, because the terrorists we are trying to target remain elusive and unintimidated. How do you pursue an enemy bivouacked in caves and tunnels, fortified by vows of martyrdom?"
Sanneh also suggested that fighting Islamic fundamentalism as a secular anti-terrorism campaign might prove counter-productive. The Muslim world continues to harbor sympathies for bin Laden and his accomplices, encouraged "by Western assertions of Islam as a great religion of peace," he asserted, adding, "As such, Islam is not implicated in the actions of the terrorists. The interests of realpolitik might justify such statements, but the impression they create is that Islam's sublime truths and noble precepts have survived unscathed by the 9/11 murderous attacks blindly undertaken in its name. And it tacitly hands a blanket immunity to the cause against the infidel."
Streets called attention to the 62 major conflicts around the world that are causing suffering to millions of civilians. "Many of them have the stimulus of a religious perspective," he noted. In contrast , he said, religion plays an important role in establishing core values and providing structure for a good life.
"The larger moral challenge facing all religious communities is that we have to articulate a moral vision for human relating-ness and global neighborliness that diminishes the use and abuse of religion as a rationalization, as an authority motivating violent actions," he said, adding, "We have to develop a posture of humility that allows us to entertain the possibility that there are a variety of places of authority within religion and amongst religions. That there is no one religion that has the answer, the most compelling conception of God."
The attack on Sept. 11 changed our "relation to religion," said Vulf , asserting that religion "has emerged as an important player on the national and international scene. It is too early to tell how permanent this resurgence of religion will be. ... Nevertheless, religion is alive and well."
To many, he said, this resurgence is associated largely with the rise of terror and a legitimization of violence, and he cited examples of contemporary conflicts that have religious elements, including Bosnia, India and Ireland. "Hence the argument goes: It is necessary to neutralize, weaken or outright eliminate religion as a factor in public life," he said.
Noting that religion, specifically the Christian faith, "does not predominantly foster violence, and it should be seen as a contributor to a peaceful social environment," he said that the cure for violence "is not less religion, but in a carefully qualified sense, more."
In a discussion of human rights and the law, a panel of four Yale law professors expressed a range of judgments on the government's response to 9/11.
Harold Koh, the Bernard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law, gave Congress and the executive branch of government poor marks, while Ruth Wedgwood, who holds joint appointments at the Law School and at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced Studies, all but praised the Bush administration for its restraint. Holding views somewhere in the middle of these two were Paul Kahn, the Robert W. Winner Professor of Law and director of the Schell Center for International Human Rights, and Alan Schwartz, Sterling Professor of Law.
While Kahn said the Bush administration hasn't "done too badly" in respecting civil and human rights, he conceded that the country has not yet been put to the worst test. He suggested that, given their determination and the technological means for destruction that they have barely tapped, the terrorists would wreak far more havoc in a future attack.
"Something terrible will happen," he prophesied, adding "it's a wonder that any of us can sleep at night."
In terms of what the nation might do to prevent such a future attack, Kahn said the relatively small number of terrorists in the world warrants police-type action rather than full-scale conventional war. He called upon the media to augment the power of the courts in helping to safeguard human rights.
Schwartz argued that economic development is essential to human rights, and that basic needs -- such as education, food and medical care -- have to be met before meaningful economic development can progress. He said that democratic reforms can't take hold in the absence of a self-sustaining economy, adding, "It isn't wealth or freedom, it's wealth and freedom."
Koh warned that reaction to the Sept. 11 tragedy was forcing U.S. citizens to abandon convictions that define the nation. "We need to preserve our core values," Koh said, claiming that in abrogating its responsibility to uphold civil and human rights, the U.S. government has capitulated to the terrorists, who want not only to destroy the nation but what it stands for. In bending its values, the nation also tarnishes America's reputation for freedom throughout the world, he said. Koh, who served as under secretary of state for human rights in the Clinton administration, cited holding prisoners in legal limbo, secret military tribunals and the mistreatment of immigrants as examples of the erosion of human rights following Sept. 11.
Paraphrasing Franklin Roosevelt, Koh said, "We have nothing to fear but our overreaction to fear."
Wedgwood, who was recently elected to the Human Rights Committee of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, said that in asking what the government is doing to protect human rights, we must keep in mind that its fundamental responsibility is to protect the lives of its citizens. Given the nature of terrorism and the high stakes involved in a terrorist attack, she asserted, human and civil rights will necessarily be compromised. In a state of war, the government can either suspend such basic rights as habeas corpus or apply existing laws more aggressively, said Wedgwood, reporting that the administration has chosen the latter, less radical, course.
Nonetheless, Wedgwood acknowledged that this might have unintended negative consequences. For instance, she said, in making immigration difficult, the United States is losing the valuable contribution that immigrants make to American society. On the other hand, she added, it was partly America's openness that made the nation so vulnerable to terrorism.
In summing up the discussion, Law School Dean Anthony Kronman noted that the aim of this war on terrorism is not simply to protect human lives. It is rather, he said, to save civilization itself.
Much of the discussion at the panel on the impact of the Sept. 11 tragedy on the arts focused on the appropriate memorial for those who died at the World Trade Center.
Robert Stone, the Rosencranz Writer in Residence at Yale, spoke about the difficulty artists face in trying to create art that effectively deals with the issue of death, particularly on a grand scale. "We have never been able to address it with a great deal of confidence," he said. "It's such a simple thing, so very common, and yet so difficult to comprehend."
Stone spoke about another New York City tragedy, the burning and sinking of the excursion paddlewheeler General Slocum in 1904 in the East River's Hell Gate, which resulted in the deaths of some 1,200 people, mostly women and children. The majority of the passengers aboard the boat were Lutheran Germans from the ethnic community of Kleindeutschland, which was basically obliterated by the tragedy, Stone recalled.
The creations -- mainly in the form of memorial statues -- that were born out of the tragedy insufficiently captured the impact of the disaster, the death of an entire neighborhood, said the award-winning author, and were "extremely sentimental and churchy."
Stone acknowledged that today artists attempting to create works incorporating elements of the Sept. 11 tragedy face the same difficulties as those commemorating the General Slocum sinking. They are confronted, he said, with trying to "register elements we rarely introduce on a conscious level" -- to express the "unspeakable" in their art. He added that it may be a long time before artists can do justice to the tragedy.
Sheila de Bretteville, professor and director of graduate studies in graphic design at the School of Art, is already attempting that challenge: She has been asked by the insurance and consulting firm Marsh & McLennan to create a memorial for the nearly 300 employees it lost in the World Trade Center attacks.
De Bretteville showed slides of her idea for the memorial, a walkway that goes beneath the company's current office building and that incorporates side "chapels," intimate places where workers can sit and talk in pairs or alone. On a block of glass, symbolic of the computer screens on which many of the perished employees were working on that fateful day, would be a list of all those lost with their different dates of birth on the left and the common death date conspicuous on the right.
The artist also expressed her belief that the country is not ready to settle on a plan for a World Trade Center memorial, telling students in the audience that discussion of the most fitting memorial may have to be lengthy enough that they will end up being the creators of such a tribute to the dead.
Also in agreement that the time has not yet come to select a plan for the memorial was Vincent J. Scully Jr., Sterling Professor Emeritus of the History of Art, whose presentation focused on the evolving meaning of the World Trade Center as architecture. He said that the Sept. 11 tragedy has stirred discussion of architecture's meaning in human life, and part of the shock of the towers' collapse is the emptiness they have left.
"The city has always been thought of in terms of human immortality," Scully said. "We expect our buildings to outlive us," he added.
Scully criticized many of the proposals for the site as "fundamentally irresponsible," and said he agrees with architect and Yale trustee Maya Lin that something akin to the Towers of Light that were created at the six-month anniversary of the disaster would be appropriate.
Raising the question "Can we shape that void?" Scully responded, "It is not for us to say tonight." He later concluded, "We need to know who and what we are ... before we confront that empty space."
As a blustery wind blew across the Cross Campus lawn, hundreds of Yale community members gathered for a 9 p.m. candlelight ceremony. The event opened with a stirring jazz commemoration by School of Music professor Willie Ruff on the French horn and Dwike Mitchell, his partner in the Mitchell-Ruff Duo, on the piano.
The ceremony was led by President Richard C. Levin and University Chaplain Frederick J. Streets Jr. Readings -- which ranged from Jewish, Muslim and Christian prayers to an excerpt from a poem by T.S. Eliot -- were presented by students, faculty and staff members.
The gathering was designed to bring together members of the Yale community "to remember and affirm," Levin said, recalling how the campus joined together in grief for a vigil on the eve of the tragedy a year ago.
He affirmed Americans' belief in the rights of life and liberty, the rule of law, and freedom of expression and tolerance, calling intolerance "the enemy of wisdom."
"[L]awless terror," he continued "has no place among civilized peoples."
Noting that Americans have struggled "with questions of immense difficulty and profound consequence" since the attack, the President said, we "must not answer these questions reflexively, with doctrine or dogma" but with "the same open-mind spirit of critical inquiry that guides us in the classroom, library and laboratory."
Levin concluded, with this exhortation: "Let us continue to wrestle with the questions of our day. Grateful for the freedom we enjoy in this University and in this nation, let us continue the search for light and truth."
As the wind made periodic sweeps through the crowd and candles flickered or were extinguished, Yale's chaplain compared hope to a candle in the wind.
"Hope does sometimes seem so fragile, like trying to maintain a flame in the wind," Streets said. "But nevertheless we must always try -- to be advancers of hope and to light the candle with optimism in our lives and our communities."
Following his benediction, most of the participants fell silent once again as the Fireman's Toll rang out on the Harkness Tower carillon in memory of all those who died.
-- By Susan Gonzalez, Dorie Baker and Gila Reinstein
Images from the Sept. 11 commemoration activities on campus
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Geopolitics
Among the Yale faculty members who addressed issues raised in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks were (above, from left) Professors John Gaddis and Donald Kagan, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization Director Ernesto Zedillo and Provost Alison Richard, who discussed how the event has affected geopolitics.
The country must take specific actions in order to keep the hope Lincoln described alive, Gaddis told the audience. For one, he said, the nation "must be ready to fight for it," and to not mistake criticism for cynicism. Second, it must continue to be a global leader, while at the same time resist the "sin of pride" by allowing self-reflection and fostering an ability "to see ourselves as others see us."
Religion
Law and human rights
The arts
Candles, music and affirmations
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Images from the Sept. 11 commemoration activities on campus
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