A decade defined
I remember exactly where I was on 11th September 2001. I had taken a day off work and travelled to London with my friend Tim. We were just outside the ExCeL Centre, the exhibition space that was hosting DSEi, an arms fair. A particularly tough-looking set of riot police had lined up six deep shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the crowd we were with, most of us in white overalls. It was looking like it was about to turn ugly.
The news that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center rippled through through the crowd. I've never mentioned this before but I remember distinctly that a big cheer went up as the announcement was made. I looked at Tim as he shook his head. We immediately assumed this was an accident, a light plane perhaps. We were acutely aware, stood on the periphery, of a small number of journalists and a few cameras, filming the demonstration. The lack of self-awareness of our fellow protestors was disheartening, plane crashes not being something to celebrate, whatever the perceived symbolism. A microphone was stuck under our noses, I can't recall which news channel the interviewer said he was from, but I remember the question was something like "what does this mean for what you're trying to accomplish here". We correctly answered "no comment" and moved away. We saw him interviewing someone else minutes later, some idiot chatting away, presumably responding to the same question with no inkling of what was to follow. In light of the events of the next few hours I was glad of our reaction. I wonder what happened to that footage?
The sense that something significant had happened was palpable, despite the fact we knew very little. We picked our way between metal barriers that had been intended to fence us in on one side and the line of police on the other (the term 'kettling' had yet to be coined). No one stopped us. The roads immediately around us were deserted, no doubt closed by the police due to the march passing through, which added a surreal air as we walked away.
We found a pub, I guess it was around midday and I suppose watched the towers fall from there, the order of events became a blur as the enormity of what had happened sank in. Our dress marked us out from the regulars, all hardened daytime drinkers. We faced down one man who accused us of being unemployed trouble-makers, the irony we were taking time off work to protest a cause we believed in while he was clearly so gainfully employed as to be drunk in a pub prior to most people's lunch hour was lost. He had no interest in why we were there, he'd simply pigeon-holed us immediately and was taking the opportunity to pick an argument. As we sat down a second man, a pensioner, limped over and admonished us. He pointed fiercely at a television in a corner with his walking stick as the repeated images of smoke pouring from the towers took up the screen and told us "that's your lot that is". I don't know in what world he conflated two demonstrators with a terrorist attack, possibly the same one from which the people we marched with cheered at the news earlier in the day. I don't remember how we got home to Brighton. I think we found some double-decker bus hired to take people to the demo and just climbed on.
A black day. There was a sense of foreboding. I had no idea how many deaths would follow over the next decade.
And so, to today, and the news Osama Bin Laden is dead.
