To the Editor:
Today marks 12 years since the 9/11 attacks, but the memory is already starting to feel distant. Walking around campus, engrossed in studying and meeting up with friends, one might feel like today is just any other day.
But most of the Brown community lived through that treacherous day on which nearly 3,000 perished and the nation was plunged into fear and chaos. Many of us can easily invoke where we were when we first learned of the attacks. And so many of us were deeply affected by it in some way or another.
For me personally, as a New Yorker, I recall the fear of hoping my parents would come home safely from work, and I remember the sight of smoke persisting over the Manhattan skyline for weeks. As an American Muslim, I recall the unwanted spotlight it put on people of my religious community, at times making us victims of ill-informed perceptions. And as someone who lost a relative in the attacks, I recall the everlasting wound it inflicted on members of my family.
It is important that we not let each passing year gradually wear away at the fading memory of 9/11. Rather than an organized commemoration, if we each take some time to talk to each other about this day, or simply put our actions, worries, arguments and disagreements in the scope of what today is, we can do some justice to the memory of a day we are all fortunate to have survived.
Ryan Din ’14
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