“Anniversary now an insincere publicity circus”, Ellis Henican Column, amNewYork, September 10, 2010
I’ve begun to dread these 9/11 anniversaries. Do they really have to come every year?
It isn’t just the innocence that was lost that day. That will never be recaptured. It isn’t even the lives that were lost. We have far better ways of honoring those.
But nine years after the planes hit the towers, these anniversary commemorations have been robbed of all their authenticity. And just wait ’til next year!
Schmaltzy TV specials. Cheap emotional pageantry. Political pandering of the crassest sort. This is no way to remember something so tragic.
This year, the 9/11 conversation has been dominated by two nasty little stories, classic lowest-common-denominator affairs. The uproar over a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero. And the hype surrounding a Florida pastor’s threat to burn Qurans.
Making an angry stand against religious diversity. Thrusting some fringe clergyman’s press release to the top of the news. This is what the season has sunk to?
The debate over the proposed Cordoba Cultural Center on Park Row was New York’s contribution to the anniversary thickheadedness, although it really wasn’t fueled by New Yorkers’ ire.
Most people here understand that all faiths are welcome in the city and live side by side. We 
also know that the commercial blocks of lower Manhattan are many things, but sacred ground isn’t one them. The New York Dolls strip club is closer to the former World Trade Center than this mosque will be.
It was out-of-towners and suburban politicians who found an audience for these attacks.
But leave it Terry Jones to sink even lower than chasing houses of worship away. The Florida pastor, whose church has maybe 50 members, vowed to commemorate the terror attacks with a bonfire of Qurans.
That lit up the phones on talk radio and roared right to cable TV. Gen. David Petraeus said we were handing our enemies a propaganda victory. Even the president was drawn in.
Next year, let’s note 9/11 quietly, each in our own personal way. Let’s ignore the pandering politicians and the publicity-seeking men of God.
Something important happened on September 11th, something more important than all this silliness.
E-mail [email protected]. Follow him at twitter.com/henican
