Just Going to Stand There and Watch Me Burn?

Actually, it is currently 12/9/10 here, but I cannot sleep because I live above a student night club on Saturdays and they are bumping music so loudly I can feel the floor shaking.

I hope to write about my Study Tour in more depth a little bit later on, but I would like to share a little about my thoughts on the anniversary of the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks in America.



It is hard to be in a country that is not your own, culture shock is a process that I prepared for as best as I could and I thought I was ready for my birthday, Thanksgiving, and all the holidays I will be spending away from my regular traditions. Labor day does not really mean anything to me besides a three day weekend by my birthday, and I am sorry to admit that Veteran's Day is a day off for Evida's birthday, and Memorial Day is an excuse to party close to finals. I always take a few moments on these holidays to try to reflect on what they actually are, but I do not feel a very strong connection to any one in the military and I am so afraid of war I distance myself from it as much as possible. I value each person who has gone into service, but it is easy to forget what huge sacrifices they are making, which I guess is why we have Veteran's and Memorial days. Because of my lackluster history of remembering the importance of these actual holidays it took me totally by surprise how much the 9th anniversary of 9/11 has hit me today, way more then I have ever noticed while I have lived in the states.

The study tour I was on was for my Children in a Multicultural Context course, so we went to Odense, more specifically Vollsmose. Vollsmose is about as close to "the projects" as you can get in Denmark. It receives a huge amount of negative attention from the media, and is known for violence and crime. It represents people from 80 different nationalities, with over 60% of the population being something besides Danish. It is made up of big cement buildings covered with graffiti (yet still manages to be gorgeous). The Danish people who do live there are very poor, and it is what Ethnic Danes (Danes from Danish decent) refer to as the "ghetto". The three main immigrant groups come from Somalia, Iraq and the Palestinian Territories. The majority of the people living there are Muslim, which brings me to my next interesting experience on my trip. During my trip was Eid al Fitr, which is the final day of Ramadan in the Islamic religion. After fasting for the month while the sun is up, the Muslim community has a huge celebration day of feasting and celebration. I am not going to pretend to know more about it then I do, but a lot of shops were closed and one of the schools we went to was down by almost 500 children (out of 800) who were at home preparing for this day. At the bazar we went to we got free homemade baklava and treats because of the celebration. I have studied Islam in school of course, but this is my first interaction in an Islamic community. This trip was also very eye opening because of the stark criticisms that some of the Danes seemed to have on immigration. In class we have learned that the political party that is in power right now is quite conservative and has a motto that loosely translates to "Denmark for the Danes" and they used to have a campaign video that featured footage of the 9/11 attacks. In all of Europe there is an "immigration crisis" but I had not yet gotten to meet someone who desired a "purer Danish culture". My teacher lived in Turkey for 17 years and is married to an Iraqi man who moved to Denmark as a political refugee, and she had to translate for us this man telling us that he wishes that Denmark would close its doors to the Middle East. The entire "crisis" sounds crazy to me, but then I remember that we are the ones who want to build a wall along our Mexican border.



I wish I knew more about the Danish cartoon situation of 2005, I do not know enough to be able to give a real rundown of what it entails, but there were editorial cartoons about Muhammad published in a prominent Danish newspaper in September 2005 that dealt with the issue of self-censoring that the Islamic community found horribly offensive, so when you see pictures of the Danish flag being burned by Muslims, it is almost always in response to the cartoon controversy.

Since the cartoon situation, Denmark has been afraid of terrorist attacks on its own country. They are not always the nicest to Muslims, and a few days ago (10/9/10) there was a man who appeared white and spoke english who walked into a hotel bathroom about 5 blocks away from where I live and attempted a sort of suicide bombing. Luckily, the man did not know what he was doing, but things like that do not happen in Denmark. The country, and especially the city is a little bit freaked out. The official report is that the man is mentally ill and not part of a terrorist organization, and not openly Islamic, but there are quite a few stories coming out that argue something quite different. We were in our bus in Odense when we heard about this, and as a group of Americans we were shocked. In reality if this had happened in America it would not be that notable, but this is a country that has never had a school shooting in their history and tends to stay as neutral as they can. Words like "suicide bomber" and "terrorist" are heightened words of sensitivity to us in our 9 year recovery as a nation. It was crazy to have something like that happen here where we feel so safe, and even crazier that we were in the densest Muslim population in the country and the scare happened right where we had come from. This is when my thinking about 9/11 really started.

Today we had a moment of silence in memory of 9/11 outside at a castle we were at. 19 Americans and one Dane, and it was something that I cannot really explain. It felt a little bit silly to me at first, because it is something that I would have never thought to do on my own. But there were representatives from all over the United States, and I thought that that made it special. We talked a bit to each other about where we had been when it happened, and how it affected us. I remember how scared I was as an 11 year old, and again how petrified I was when war was actually declared. I remember that I hear that the US had declared war while I was on my was to church for choir rehearsal and I was so freaked out I just kinda sat there all night. I have spent my teen years in a country that has scared me with patriotism, and scared me with lack of patriotism. What happened on September 11th is different and personal for every person. Today I recognized how far away California is from New York, but how our connections make everything feel like it is right there. It changed our country, and I just hope that we can find a way to make that change a positive one in the long run.

I have to go to bed because it is 2 and they are playing very peaceful techno now, but here is Julia's 9/11 ramble moral of the story:
What happened to the Twin Towers was a tragedy. I will never understand the pain that the loved ones of those who passed in such a situation feel, or the struggle to forgive that takes a remarkably stronger person then I hope I ever have to be. Islam is a beautiful religion, but any beautiful thing taken to an extreme can turn ugly. Fear only creates a vulnerable society who pounces on an opportunity to blame. The wounds will probably never heal, but the scars will hopefully keep us together as a nation. Understanding and intellect are what is going to save the world. Denmark and America are not so different.



I chose the images I did for this post to show how easy it is to be afraid, and to be angered by a negative stereotype. Hate will get us no where. The last image is of the Quran.