On Sept. 11, I was at work in a nondescript office in an unfamiliar and distant place, a country that had been my home for barely a month. I was enjoying my new life and naively puttering along as if the world were not cruel and unpredictable.
And then two of my coworkers appeared in the doorway to tell me my country was under attack. And in a moment, that world turned upside down.
It was truly awful in the immediate aftermath to be so far from home. As I watched the images unfold that first night, trying to sort frightened speculation from frightening reality, I forced myself not to think about how many friends could be trapped under those disintegrating buildings.
In the weeks that followed, as South Africans resumed their normal routines, I remained obsessed with keeping abreast of developments. Each morning I parked in front of my computer screen, devouring the news from the day before, fighting back tears and wondering how I could ever find closure when it all still seemed like a bad dream.
I felt increasingly isolated in South Africa, and somehow more "American" than I had ever felt before. I wanted to be at home, at a memorial service with thousands of others, holding a candle, singing the national anthem, crying and healing.
I, who was raised with a healthy skepticism of patriotism, downloaded an image of an American flag flying from a New York City lamppost for my desktop. I wallowed in tales of brave firefighters and innocent victims, of mourning family members and willing volunteers. I started, for the first time, to bristle at the chiding criticism of America that is so prevalent here, as in much of the world.
This newfound patriotism only went so far, however, and as the grief and shock of Sept. 11 turned to retaliation, my perspective shifted inexorably.
I could hardly believe how uniformly Americans supported the "war" against Afghanistan, and how absent - until very recently - was outcry against the abridgements of civil liberties imposed in the name of homeland defense.
I was shocked to witness (from afar) the almost complete lack of dissent among Americans, the pulling together that somehow erased ideological and personal differences. The media even bought into this improbable unity, projecting a glossy red-white-and-blue patriotism and virtually ignoring any critical perspectives, including evidence of administrative impropriety - links between the elder George Bush and the bin Ladens - which were reported widely in Britain and elsewhere.
This almost-eerie homogeneity of thought contrasted sharply with the clamorous debate going on just about everywhere else, including South Africa.
Most South Africans responded with shock and grief to the attacks, but their sympathy was limited. After all, this nation loses more people every week to AIDS than were lost to terrorists on Sept. 11. Here in southern Africa, a region too familiar with tragedy, people can not help but wonder why the world reacts so differently when the lives lost are American.
The most common sentiment here seemed to be that though the Sept. 11 attacks were terrible and deserving of condemnation, America was far from an innocent victim. Characterizations of our country as a malevolent tyrant or schoolyard bully abound. (One columnist pointed out after the attacks that "a bully with a bloody nose is still a bully".)
At the very least, most South Africans believe America often disregards the needs and concerns of the rest of the world, particularly the developing world. As the Sept. 16 editorial of the highly reputable Sunday Independent newspaper here argued, the attacks were "a heinous act," but nonetheless "the attackers hit a globalised civilisation that is selfish, decadent and insensitive to the suffering of the majority of humanity."
The prevalence of attitudes like this in the mainstream press - with much more biting critiques from radical sectors - was a bit of a shock to me, and was at times hard to swallow. But this exposure was also instructive, which is why I regret that most Americans are being shielded from this sort of dissent.
Some of the most powerful lessons I found by contrasting American and South African media coverage, which casts in sharp relief the differences of perspective between the two countries.
Possibly the most compelling of these contrasts was on the weekend that we began bombing Afghanistan. The front page of The New York Times carried a picture of a shining bomber rising triumphantly from the deck of an aircraft carrier, with a strapping American lad waving it on its way.
The front page of one of South Africa's leading papers, on the other hand, showed a woman in a Muslim head scarf, at a peace protest, crying.
So in the end, I am grateful that I experienced this historic moment from a South African vantage point. The images of Sept. 11, which I imagine are permanently seared into most of our memories, will for me be forever tied to lessons about how America relates to the rest of the world. I have been exposed to a more nuanced understanding of Sept. 11 and the "War on Terror" than I might have been if I were at home, and I think it is an exposure we all could use. Ryann Manning '01 is a former Wilson School major and 'Prince' Associate Executive Editor. She is currently in South Africa and can be reached at ryannm@alumni.princeton.edu.
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