When 9/11 occurred, I was 7 years old, it was an ordinary morning for me in Mexico City. I went to school, played with my friends in the play yard and didn´t expect anything out of the ordinary to happen. Except that that day wasn´t ordinary. My mother picked me up early from school, most parents did, and tried to explain to me that a terrorist attack had occurred in New York City. I remember thinking “terrorism? Why? Could that also happen in Mexico?“ For a 7-year-old these questions seemed straightforward, easy to answer, and yet no one seemed to know the answers. Despite Mexico City being far away from New York City, everyone kept talking about what had happened and yet, meaningful conversations on the issue were rare because no one really understood or could make sense of it all. Being 7 years old, I remember that what bothered me the most was trying to understand why ordinary and innocent people always seemed to get caught in the middle of it all. What if my parents had been on one of those planes? I remember talking about it with my school friends, who were mostly worried that a third world war was going to occur, hearing adult conversations and watching the news getting more and more alarming. The next couple of weeks what had happened remained at the center of many conversations not only in ordinary households, but also at a political and diplomatic level. The military invasion of Afghanistan took hold of the news. New discourses were being formed, alliances were strengthened and public debates and reports that incorporated words like “terrorism”, “invasion”, and “Al-Qaeda” began to be commonplace. Slowly, however, things went back to normal and mass-media outlets in the country went back to focusing more on domestic issues. It wasn´t until I went with my family to the United States a couple of years later that I realized that things would never go back to normal. I remember feeling the tension at the airport, seeing people more worried than usual, and watching security personnel heavily search on everyone´s belongings, including children´s toys. Things never went back to normal and people knew it.
As the years passed, more wars began, stigmas and stereotypes were reinforced and I slowly started to understand that the world doesn´t operate on clear principles. 9/11 became a topic on the syllabus for students to study, debate and try to truly understand. Yet, throughout the class debates, readings, and essays, one question kept coming back to me—the same question I had asked myself when I was seven years old: why and how do ordinary people become the targets of major political decisions and conflicts? Honestly, I still don´t have an answer. We are constantly caught between political debates and public decisions, mass-media discourses and a whole array of issues such as urban violence, inflation, and unemployment and when caught in the middle of all this, it is easy to let others speak for us, to stigmatize and label without taking the time to understand what is different from us. What happened on 9/11 shattered the social fabric of many communities as well as concepts such as human security, and it is precisely this kind of rupture that can easily turn us against one other which is why these conversations need to be had.
At 32 years of age, I still don´t have a good-enough answer as to why ordinary people get caught in senseless violence. But I am aware that one day my daughter, born on September 11, 2025, will ask why people talk about 9/11 every year on her birthday. She will ask me what happened on that same date, long before she was born and I will make my best to explain that even in times of senseless organized violence our humanity must remain the bigger part of who we are. Our emotions should not be commodified or politicized by others, nor should fear be allowed to determine how we see those who are different from us, because in the end the only thing we all have in common, regardless of where we were born, where we live or what we do, is our humanity.
Note on source: I didn´t quote any direct source. The article is my personal reflexion. However, I did read this article which explains how relations changed between the US and Mexico and provides insight on debates and discussions that were being held back then. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/9-11-transformed-us-mexico-relations/