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Lydia Rood writes novels, children and youth books and thrillers. She also worked as a columnist for Radio Netherlands' Dutch- language programme Hollands Diep. |
When I got home from school, my grandmother was there but she hardly even said 'hello'. From their faces I could tell something had happened. Something as big as the sound of aircraft engines on a May morning. The boss of America had been killed and his name was Kennedy and he was a very nice man. Once there was nearly a war called the Cuba Crisis but Mr Kennedy made sure it didn't happen but now he was dead...
I lay on the couch with the remote control all to myself because my husband was visiting family in Morocco. Suddenly writing appeared on the screen where it shouldn't be. Something terrible had happened, something as big as the Kennedy assassination. One second later I saw the unbelievable and soon afterwards the first 'crusaders' started braying their sermons against the 'Mamelukes' and 'Saracens' on air. "War" it said in flickering red letters.
Morocco
I tried to reach Morocco but all the lines were busy. So I called my mother, because what else do you do when the sky is falling in?
"Are you crying?" she said in surprise.
It was two days before I managed to reach my husband. For 48 hours I only wanted one thing: confirmation that he and I both found the attacks just as terrible and both condemned them equally. He the pseudo-Muslim, I the pseudo-Christian. I wanted each of us to hear the other say that the world would never be the same again. And I wanted each of us to hear the other say that everything between us would always stay the same.
In two days my hatred of the 'busy" tone had grown exponentially. My husband's family was involved non-stop in trying to find out whether family and friends in New York and the family of friends and vague acquaintances of friends had all emerged safely from under the clouds of dust. A lot of vague acquaintances seemed to live in New York. They had not a minute free for me. Blood is thicker than water.
When I finally got my husband on the line, it went wrong straight away. "Why didn't you phone? The sky is falling in, you know?"
"You're safe at home aren't you? No need to worry, then."
"No need to worry? No need to worry? Thousands of dead Christians and you're doing nothing?"
"Hmm, you said it. As if you all have clean hands."
There and then a crack developed in our marriage. From then on we spoke to each other in terms of "you all" and "we". You were all revenge-crazed savages and we were hypocritical misers.
I was afraid five years ago that the war would be confined to our couch. But now, thousands of deaths in the big wide world later, strangely enough there is still a "we". And we? We are opposed to western imperialism and to nationalist terrorism. We are opposed to Israel and to Hizbollah and Hamas. We are against the Ayatollahs and against Bush. Against Theo van Gogh (Photo: right) and his self-confessed killer Mohammed Bouyeri. No progress, then? But now we do it just as often as before. Sometimes on the couch.
Tags: 9/11, Bin Laden, family, Islam, Lydia Rood, Morocco, Muslim, terrorist attacks