Tragedy Strikes America Again – This is How I Feel

Yesterday when I came home and switched the TV on I saw the latest horrible news from
America.It was about the latest aircrash in the.US of the American Airlines Airbus.I want to
tell people how I feel in order that they understand how I have been
feeling these past few weeks.

There is a part of me that just wants to break down crying.I want the tears to roll down
my cheeks because I know there is so much agony and pain out there that I would give
anything to be part of it.There is another part of me that wishes to ask God to bless the
souls of all the innocent people in the United States and around the world and their relatives
who have been suffering so much, and to grant them every bit as much strength and courage
to face and come to terms with the tragedies that have been befalling them of late.Then again
there is another part of me that wishes to go down on my knees and beg and beseech God
to please bring an end to all these tragedies….the terror attacks in America, the aircrashes
around the world and the latest catastrophe.Beseech Him to bring an end to all these tragedies
and horrible news because our world cannot keep up and cannot come to terms with so
many horrible events happening all at once.Beseech Him to bring an end to all these tragedies
because the tears of his creatures do not seem to be able to keep up with all the tragedies.

Indeed the world seems to be going through such a horrendous time that, truly our tears do
not seem to be capable of doing justice to all that is happening around us.No sooner than we
enter the first stages of coming to terms with a particular tragedy, do we find ourselves
experiencing the shock of another.Were this to continue for much longer I think some of
us would succumb to our emotions and breaks down entirely.

Meeting a horrific end in a plane crash is, to put it blatantly, no way to die.There is no
peace, none of the tranquility and satisfaction that a truly dignified death should provide
that can be found in such an end.When I think of the innocent deaths in these recent spate
of air crashes there is an element of empathy….I too am part of the flying public, and there
is a part, albeit a self-centred part of me that says……that could have been me or my family
or my friends or acquaintances.There is an element of horror…..the last few moments of a
plane crash entail an unspeakable horror that many of us can imagine but only a few will
( fortunately ) experience.But most of all there is a sense of grief that too many innocents
have been deprived the right to die with a bit of dignity.

I have been cutting myself off the news completely these past few weeks, because, as I said,
the magnitude and multitude of horrors that have been befalling us one after another have been
too much to come to terms with and too much to bear for me.But I have chosen to come
back to airliners.net in the hope that sharing my sentiments and emotions of horror will
be shared and empathized with by others.I know that sharing sadness can make a
difference.

My parents who travelled to the United States recently were arrested and humiliated on arrival
at Philadelphia and were mistreated and deported for no fault of theirs.I will confess that I
did indeed harbour an element of resentment against the US on that account and had promised
myself that I would never set foot on US soil until at least some redress was available for my
parents.Since I am a 21 year old Muslim male such a reluctance to visit the US would almost be
well advised in light of the recent events.But this evening as I write this at home, I wish I was in
the US.Not to visit my relatives, not to have a holiday taking advantage of the cheap airfares,
but just so I could be there so I could share the pain of a nation.So I could listen to the people
who have been bereaved in the hope that my talking to them about their anguish could make
even a slight difference.So I could try to tell them that we are all victims…all of us who have
relatives, all of us who have ever even visited the US at some time or the other.Strange as this
may seem from someone who can sometimes almost seem anti-American in many of my
political views, I feel, or perhaps want to feel American… at least if that is what it takes to
share all the pain that is going round.

And there is surely a lot of it to go round.I wish I could see the face of an American friend
whom I made last time I was there – a ninety year old WWII veteran who lived in my sister’s
neighbourhood when I visited this small town in Pennsylvania.He lived by himself, but followed
the news every day.How he must have coped with all these dreadful events at his age without
anyone to talk to is something I don’t know….. indeed I still don’t know if I want to think
about it or if I just want to block everything out as I have been the past two months.Or if I
really wish I want to think about all the other nice people I met last year when I went there….
part of me wants to wonder what they must be going through, and another part of me is
scared even to think.

There are a few other sentiments.There is anger and there is outrage.There is a wish to
lash out with all my might against my might against the likes of that cursed monster in the
mountains of Afghanistan responsible for so much of the current carnage, in the vain hope
of causing him as much as a fraction of the pain and suffering he has inflicted.There is an
element of distress….no distress is not the right word, it is too soft a word, devastation is
more like it, to think that Muslims could be capable of such beastly atrocities.There is an
element of helplessness, vulnerablity, a false sense of security at being so far removed from
what is going on.Add up all these sentiments and you basically understand why in the weeks
after September 11 I did everything I could to cut myself off from the world, preferring not
to face a horrible reality I knew I would be incapable of facing.But now, in the wake of the
latest tragedy, I want to turn away no more and be part of the anguish here at airliners.net
in the belief that it will be shared by others

And I thought this was going to be a great time for me.I have just finished university, I have
my graduation in a few days time, I am now a doctor working in a public health department
and my elder sister is training to be a neurologist……thing are looking reasonably good for
me, but it does’nt feel good to be doing relatively well with so much carnage and horror going
round.I am stuck in a situation where I feel kind of good about myself while feeling guilty
about anything good at all.I don’t know if people out there can empathise with this.