Joseph L. Kagle, Jr. Peace Essays

9/11-A Cheer, Then Gasps

Oliver Stone just released a new movie in 2006 called World Trade Center. It is a powerful human drama about the courage, fellowship and goodness of men and women when put to the test in a brutal situation. My thoughts on leaving the theater were: “Why can’t we rise to these height of service and kindness and caring when there is no danger, no disaster?” I have no answer but I know that if peace is ever to come to mankind it must embrace the kinds of selflessness that were shown on September 11, 2001. We were in the Republic of Georgia when that event happened and we saw it briefly on Georgian television.

Halfway around world, WTC attack images deeply impact all who see

  KUTAISI, Georgia — In the 20-plus days that we have been in this former Soviet republic, the elec­tricity has been off for 10 days, no water for seven and no gas for four.

  One night at this mountainous locale where we are staying for an artists' conference, when the lights went on and the candles were put away a cheer went up from the hundreds in the dining hall.

  Later we went up to view the one television (the language was Georgian, of course) and I saw in horror the image of the burning, collapsed and torn twin towers of the World Trade Center.

  The image was clear and understandable, although the only word that I understood in the Georgian subtitles was "terrorists." Some words bridge both languages.

  I watched the images from the universal screen, the television, and found the anger rising within me. I did not sleep much that night, replaying the images in the same manner that the 14-inch screen had done earlier. The strike on the twin symbols of America's economic power had been high up, telling us that no place is safe now.

  Still not sleeping, I reviewed the two pieces of information and thought that I might not get more data if the pattern of no electricity continued (it did). My major thought in the night, so far from America, was: "We cannot allow these fanat­ics of fear to change our way of life, the freedom that so many through the years had died to de­fend." One of our strongest weapons is our freedom itself.

  They attacked our basic resources: world trade and business, our symbol of democracy (Washing­ton) and our elected and military leadership. We may not be free from caution or safeguards but we can be free not to choose fear as a response.

  In the midst of a long, dark night, I asked myself: "What can I do as an American abroad to support our belief in democracy and freedom?" The answer was swift and clear.

  I came to Georgia to tell others about America, especially American art and architecture. Right now, in the mountains, I am the American repre­sentative at an international plenary of artists from many nations. I will paint with the brightest, strongest colors that my freedom allows. I will not give in to black and bright red, death and blood.

  Later, many Georgians came up to Anne and me, touched their hearts and said, "Sorry," one of the few words in English they knew. I replied, "Thank you very much," one of the few phrases in Georgian I had learned. Here, a people with so little extend to me — the only symbol of America in these remote mountains — their sorrow on our national loss. I am moved deeply.

  After a long wait and help from a Georgian artist, I talked with the U.S. Embassy about our safety and was told to stay in the mountains a few more days. Therefore, we remain at a place where there is little or no communication with the outside world, at which the one television for two large "hotels" worked only a few minutes to give me a lasting image to ponder. I would say for all of us to ponder.

With an event of this magnitude happening, many thoughts and feelings rush through your being. One of those thought was patriotism. No, it was more a feeling, not a thought. It filled my being and every waking moment after the television image had faded somewhat away (never totally but somewhat). I was proud to be an American, living in American (even abroad) and having the freedoms that America gave its citizens.

Even before leaving America for my Fulbright grant to the Republic of Georgia, I had begun to feel this way.

God's magnum opus

With its amber waves and fruited plains, U.S. Is a place like no other

I am a patriot. I never knew what that meant until I started to travel. Dorothy was right in the Wizard of Oz: 'Toto, there is no place like home."

   Soon I will be going to Tbilisi, Georgia, for almost a year under a Fulbright Scholarship to lecture on American art. Feeling the pressure of answering, "What is America?" I've read all that I can about the subject.

  The best answer came from a foreigner, the Australian-born art critic for Time Magazine, Robert Hughes It is America's central myth of progress and renovation.....(which leads to) a passionate belief in reinvention and in the American power to make things up as you go along.

  "Both are strong urges, and they seem to grow out of a common root: the inextricably twined feelings of freedom and nostalgia which lie at the heart of the immigrant experience and are epitomized in America, to this day, as in no other country,"

  As a patriot, I accept that heritage of nostalgia and freedom. America is looking to a past that might have been but is seen through rose-colored glasses at times and America is realistically passionate about the idea of newness.

Always in a state of reinvention

  We Americans must reinvent ourselves every few years, although some just sit around telling others about how it was (but never was).

  To show citizens of another country the breadth and diversity that is America, I picked up a photography book called America The Beautiful.

 Have you seen photographs of Dartmouth College and its snow sculpture at Winter Carnival? I have. I was an artist who created one of those myths in snow and ice in the early 1950's.

  Have you ever driven through New Hampshire when the leaves are changing color? I have. I've seen the Puritan simplicity of architecture, and New England's meeting halls — monuments to prejudice against all other religions which are not Puritan in their values (a 17th century legacy).

  America is the wilderness of forests and snow. It is the classical tradition after a War of Independence which must bring order and reason to the aftermath of blood. It is Washington, D C , and its homage to the Athenians of the 5th century BC.

   Every state capitol in America, even Austin, reinvents the classical tradition. America is Phil­adelphia and Boston where each street is paved with history.

   It is the Southwest where a Spanish tradition lived long before those Puritans came to Massachusetts or the Quakers to Pennsylvania.

   It is the myth of the Alamo and the cowboy kept alive today with the new "yuppies" at the Cattle Baron's Ball.

  Frederick Remington's nostalgic depiction of the West never truly existed. It is a bronze cattle and horse drive in Dallas, although it was Waco and Fort Worth where the cattle trails crossed.

  America is the classical plantation architecture which is mirrored in Waco's Earl Harrison House. It is the splendor of Dorothy's Kansas wheat fields, the jazz alleys and back rooms of New Orleans.

  It is the freedom of the imagination at Disneyland and Cape Canaveral and In Jackson Pollock's painted wilderness.

  It is the giant Hollywood sign above the flat, mountain-hugging homes, each with its own swimming pool. It is the vertical world of New York and Chicago. It is the Grand Canyon.

  I am going to be asked, "Tell me about America! What is it really like? HOW does American art mirror America's vision of itself?"

  I think that what I will say is: "It is many things. Take the world, toss it all together, shake it up, and dump the contents in one glorious place. That is America, But don't look too long at what you see, America reinvents itself daily.

But as I said, I am a patriot, living in the Heart of Texas, in the heart of America

Also see RGHF's tributes from Rotarians around the world in the weeks following 9/11