In the week of September 11th, it felt really important to remember and grieve for the 3,050 who died in the U.S.. The prayer vigils and memorials I went to helped me do that more fully than I have in the past, because they reminded me that we have to open our hearts wide enough to remember and grieve for the rest of the world. And we have to do more than grieve. We also have to think and act and change.

One way of doing that is thinking about other September 11ths. More than just 3,050 people died on September 11, 2001. 33,000 children died on that day. They died of starvation and preventable diseases, mostly the result of drinking dirty water. They died an awful, painful, meaningless and utterly preventable death. They died of starvation and disease. They died in poverty and misery. And they died again on September 12, and again on the 13th and the 14th and on and on and on. Every single day on this little planet of ours 33,000 children die-12 million a year (it is as though the population of Pennsylvania is being removed from the planet every year). Where are the memorials and the tributes to these children? Where is the outrage and the sorrow at their plight?

I begin here because living in New York City one gets the impression (in fact, it is almost impossible to escape from the prevailing notion) that Americans are the only ones who have ever suffered. 9-11 gave us a monopoly on grief and provides a justification- a blank check- for U.S. military aggression. At the same time, 9-11 also wipes our slate clean of past crimes and misdeeds. And it is our task to debunk and challenge that notion.

It is a great irony that Americans are so into memorials and commemorations but are so ignorant of history. We remember 9-11, but only the 9-11 of last year. Could looking back at other 9-11s help us turn from grieving to understand and action and change?

In Chile, for example, 9-11 was an important date before 2001. It was the day democracy died, and the U.S. helped kill it. On September 11, 1973 the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende, a socialist who had nationalized private industry (including U.S. owned copper mines), was overthrown in a military coup underwritten by the USA. Richard Nixon gave the CIA $10 million to help make it happen. With U.S. support, General Pinochet took power and ushered in an era of repression, disappearances, killings, fear and silence. The wounds of that coup-the killing and disappearances of more than 3,000 people-have not healed, in large part because there has been no justice.

As our government prepares for war on Iraq, we can remember another 9-11. On September 11, 1990 the first Bush administration made the case before Congress that the United States should invade Iraq. The first person to testify was Dick Cheney, then the Secretary of Defense. Colin Powell, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, followed him. (Maybe it is excusable that Americans are so ignorant of history, given that nothing changes except the titles of the powerful).

Kathy Kelly is the founder of Voices in the Wilderness, an organization that has made countless humanitarian trips to Iraq throughout the 1990s. She told of an encounter with an Iraqi woman whose child had just died, like 4,500 children under five do in Iraq every month from hunger and disease caused in part by the sanctions (1996 UNICEF stats). The woman said to my friend, "we mourn for those who died in the terrorist attacks, but please tell the American people that history did not begin on September 11th."

The Iraqi woman is right. History did not begin on September 11th. For the Iraqi people, history did not even begin on January 17, 1991 when the Gulf War began. And as our government plans for war in Iraq and Dick Cheney calls Saddam Hussein "the sworn enemy of our people," it is important to remember a bit of the history of U.S.-Iraqi relations.

When we ignore history, we are able to recall that Dick Cheney administered Saddam Hussein a sound butt whopping in 1991 as Secretary of Defense, but then we forget that over the next five years his company Halliburton did $23.8 million in business with Saddam Hussein rebuilding the oil fields and infrastructure that had been bombed during the war.

When we ignore history, we remember that Saddam Hussein has stockpiled and used chemical and biological weapons, but we forget that the U.S. sold him those weapons when he was our client during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988. We forget that the U.S. (specifically then Middle East Envoy Donald Rumsfeld) turned a blind eye to Saddam Hussein's gassing of Iranians-sending a message that as long as he espoused an anti-Communist rhetoric he could be the most ruthless dictator in the neighborhood.

We can recall another important September date, September 28, 2000. On this date conservative Israeli leader (now Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon visited a disputed holy site in Jerusalem, known as the Temple Mount by Jews and al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) by Muslims. This provocative action set off the "Second Intifada," a wave of violence that has taken thousands of lives.

No meaningful discussion about September 11, 2001 is possible without dealing with the United States' stance in Israel/Palestinian war because it is the root of so much of the acrimony and hate directed at America. The Israel/Palestinian war pits F-16 fighter planes built by Lockheed Martin against teenage suicide bombers, D-9 Caterpillar bulldozers against children throwing stones, a nation backed by the world's sole superpower against a stateless people.

It is a fundamentally unjust war, and the whole world seems to know that. While the U.S. positions itself either as an honest broker of peace or a neutral observer in the conflict, the world sees the truth. The $3 billion the U.S. provides Israel each year military and economic support speaks for itself. And as the U.S. builds a case against Iraq as a rogue power that flaunts international law and gives the UN the raspberry, Israel's flagrant violation of 70 Security Council resolutions and 150 General Assembly resolutions is in stark relief.

Our fate as a nation is tied to how we seek to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. As a young Palestinian woman said "as long as the Palestinians don't feel safe, Americans won't feel safe."

What happened on 9-11-01?

3,050 Americans and the citizens of 80 other countries were killed in New York City, Washington, and Pennsylvania. A nation mourned and a world responded.

But then what happened?

Our outpouring of compassion and patriotism was watered down into a shallow and callous call for Americans to go shopping and get back to normal.

Our loss and grief were manipulated into a selfish hatred that justified gruesome warmaking against an impoverished and decimated population.

Our quest for justice, for retribution against those who perpetrated a great crime, was derailed and manipulated into a plan for a global war against terrorism. Was twisted into a vehicle for the U.S. to gain a new foothold in strategic locations like the Philippines and the Caucuses (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan) and establish a new level of military supremacy and control throughout the world.

Our fear and instability were channeled into a dependence on the government for security and protection no matter what the cost to our civil liberties.

Our search for answers, for meaning, for reasons was labeled un-American, treasonous, down right rude.

Our democracy- so touted throughout the world- was crushed underfoot and hundreds (maybe thousands) were carted off to silent jails, becoming America's own desaparcido.

So, in this time of memorials and tributes, celebrations and justifications, we can be mindful of the 3,050 who died in the U.S. on 9-11, the 33,000 children who died that same day throughout the world; the thousands killed by U.S. bombs in the war on terrorism; those killed by suicide explosions and Apache helicopter attacks in the "Holy Land;" those incarcerated and harassed and silenced here in the U.S.

I find this useful not for the purpose of discounting the mourning and loss felt by so many Americans but to challenge America's "monopoly on grief" and challenge the notion that everything our government does in the name of that grief is justified and right.

In conclusion, let us remember one more September 11th. On that date in 1906 a young Indian lawyer named Mohandas Gandhi was living in South Africa. Indians in white-ruled South Africa experienced repression and discrimination. They were second class citizens (not third and fourth class like blacks and tribal people). After the ruling British declared Indian marriages invalid and long before he was known universally as "Mahatma," Gandhi spoke at a mass meeting in the Empire Theater, Johannesburg, launching a campaign of nonviolent resistance to protest this discrimination against Indians. Gandhi's use of methods of nonviolent resistance improved the positions of blacks and minorities in South Africa. When he returned to India, he used those same tactics to push for Indian independence.

Remembering September 11, 1906 is a way of remembering that injustice cannot endure confrontation with justice and truth. But it does not happen overnight. Indian independence did not come until 1947. Apartheid's stranglehold on South Africa was not broken until 1994 when Nelson Mandela became president. It takes work; sacrifice organizing, tenacity, belief, and community.

Frida Berrigan lives and works in New York City. She can be reached at berrigaf@newschool.edu

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