So, when the Parisian daily Le Monde announced, on the morning of September 12, that 'nous sommes tous Americains' ('We are all Americans') there was reason enough to believe that we had suddenly awaken in another world.
Then it was the French president, Jacques Chirac, the first international dignitary to visit 'Ground Zero' and personally offer his condolences to George Bush Jr. and the American people. Finally, on July 12, a delegation of the New York Fire Department joined the parades on the streets of Paris during Bastille Day, France´s national day.
Did the events of September eleven change the American mood in France? Not neccessarily; not even as Le Monde publishes a weekly selection, in neat English, of articles appearing in The New York Times (And in a recent interview, M. Jean Marie Colombani, editor of Le Monde, argued that the French public is demanding first-hand reporting of events in America).
As the dust from the Twin Towers has settled, so does the attitudes in Franco-American relations have gravitated to 'normal' levels. But what the September 12 editorial in Le Monde really demonstrated was that universal, unifying symphathy towards America that -at least momentarily- embraced all corners of the world.
It is July the 11th, ten months into the post-September 11 universe. New Yorkers have returned to complain about everything, this time adding the merciless temperatures and melting sun that has chastised them for weeks.
In Broadway Avenue and 32th Steet, a man describes the now defunct World Trade Center as 'a flat piece of land'.
On the morning of September 11, Mr. Sollinger, a media executive, was riding the subway on his way to work. By the time he made it to his office, on the 12th floor of a skyscrapper overlooking the Statue of Liberty, he recalls seeing everything covered in dust.
His colleagues had spotted one of the airplanes flying near the building. 'We thought many more planes were flying around the area, and we were afraid of them crashing here'.
Almost every New Yorker has its own recount of September 11.
That's why so much controversy surrounds the proposed re-development of the World Trade Center area. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has unveiled six competing plans: a Memorial Plaza, a Park, a Promenade, a Square, etcetera. The designs all try to strike a balance between wide, open green spaces for remembrance, and the reincorporation of 11 million square feet of office space.
Those master plans have aroused little enthusiasm from New Yorkers. (Commenting on the plans, mayor Bloomberg said they were 'a starting point' from which to derive ideas). Some would like to see the towers restored to their former splendor; yet others would like to have a large, undisturbed memorial to honor the dead.
As the night falls in Manhattan, the colours of the American flag start
wrapping the imposing Empire State Building, by now the most obvious
landmark in the city's skyline. With so much fantasies, so much
aspirations and illusions deposited into this city, the absence of the Twin
Towers is certainly felt for everthing they represented.
In the very few days after the 9/11 hecatomb, Americans went through
much soul-searching, as they found difficult to understand why so much
hatred had been accumulated against them. Those terrorist commandos
always considered America the great 'devil'. Yet they achieved exactly
the opposite: after the attacks, a great, unifying and universal
sentiment rallied in favor of the United States and its people.
Perhaps a certain 'sympathy for the devil'..?
