Paul Williams Views On 9/11

September 11, 2001 is a day woven in the fabric and collective memory of the American people. Now, instead of two towers there are two pools and instead of a financial center there is a massive memorial museum dedicated to the destruction of that day. Dealing with tragedy-- especially on a large scale -- is always contentious. On the topic of such memorial museums, Paul Williams, in his piece, “Memorial museums and the objectification of suffering” highlighted the complexities and issues that arise in giving physical form to cataclysmic tragedies. Williams, in addressing the memorial museum, laid out the major issues that he considered paramount: the use of images and artifacts; use of a destruction site; issues pertaining to the visitor
The use of the site lends the question: Could the 9/11 Museum have been placed anywhere in the country, or even anywhere in New York? The answer is a resounding no. For many museums, the location of the institution is second to the objects inside the building. The 9/11 Museum, however, rests on sacred ground because the space is a public graveyard for the thousands of people who died in the attack. Therefore, as hallowed ground, the location of the Memorial Museum is paramount to the objects in the collection. To further illustrate the gravitas of the site, according to the New York Times, 1,115 people’s remains have not been identified and remain stored below the museum/memorial (In ‘Ceremonial Transfer,’ Remains of 9/11 Victims Are Moved to Memorial”). The issue with the 9/11 Museum though lies not in the location but rather in the presentation of the location as an authentic site of destruction. As Williams noted, there is a danger in terms of reception when a memorial museum displays a place as, “what we see is what was” (p.227). In this vein, as a visitor to the 9/11 Memorial Museum, I did not feel any emotional pull to the physical site as a place of destruction because the entire space was too hygienic and palatial to conceptualize in the abstract. In addition to conceptualization, Williams also noted a strange twist in logic in that, “while physical
History, and the representation of the past in any form is almost always controversial and political. For the 9/11 Memorial Museum, remembering and commemorating 9/11 is political because of the vast array of parties that have some stake in the tragedy. Due to the web of viewpoints, a Museum Memorial, in theory, as Williams theorized, “provide a public forum for discussion” (p. 233). The 9/11 Memorial Museum, perhaps in an effort to appear above the politics, made little to no mention of the global aftermath to the attacks and such changes in the U.S like the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Such context is a key part of “public forum” and by just honoring the memory of the dead, the Memorial Museum is failing to be a place that can evolve to examine the effects of 9/11 on the country and the globe. On the topic of commemorating the dead, I felt the museum fell into the trap of portraying the victims not just as private citizens but more as national martyrs or heroes. Williams noted this issue in relation to the Oklahoma City bombing where Clinton equated such sites as Gettysburg and Valley Forge with the bombing (231). Private citizens dying in a public nature, though tragic, does not constitute heroism. Indeed, there were heroes in 9/11, but not every person who perished, no matter how tragic the circumstances,