(12) Reactions to 9/11: Crying and organizing

RJ: I want to go back to the tension I talked about earlier, in myself. The question of having to stay open to the humanity of other people and, at the same time, developing a somewhat ruthless ability to act. You told me before that you didn't start doing political work right after the attacks of 9/11.

AO: That's right. For two or three weeks, all kinds of people kept calling me, asking me to come down to the federal building, to protest, to speak. But I couldn't do it. I sat in this chair for two and a half weeks and cried. I felt so bad, not just for what happened, but because I could look down the road, and I knew roughly what was coming. I knew that a tidal wave of human suffering was coming down the road, and I felt it. The feeling is terrible, and the knowledge of it is almost a form of suffering in itself. But after a while that subsides, and you feel driven to get back to work, to have some effect on what's going on.

RJ: That's interesting, because my reaction was totally opposite. I went to work immediately. I wrote an antiwar piece the night of 9/11, and the next day we called an organizing meeting.

AO: I cannot understand that.

RJ: Well, for whatever reason, I did it, working with a few others. I felt a lot of emotion, and like you it wasn't just that 3,000 people died. Three thousand people die every god-damned day somewhere because of fucked-up priorities and politics. I knew where this was all heading, toward a new level of war, and that got to me at various times. I was often very shaken by what I knew. One night I was in my office, and a small group of us were working on strategy, organizing, writing articles. I don't remember what specifically we were doing, but it was on deadline and it mattered to us. But I was at the computer, and I started shaking, literally, and crying. I went into an emotional meltdown. And one of my friends said, "What's going on?" And I said something like, "I don't know, I just feel, I can't even tell you how I feel, I feel like some kind of raw pain that I can't stand." And she said, "We've got work to do. Are you going to do the work or not?" And in that moment, I think she was right. She could see that I needed to control that crazy emotion or I would be useless. This was not long after 9/11 and there weren't very many people publicly challenging the Bush administration, and we needed everybody to work who could. Even though we didn't stop the war in Afghanistan, I think what we did was worth doing. And what she was telling me was, "Okay, you feel bad. I feel bad, too. We all know this is awful. But there is a task, and that task matters. Are you going to do it?" What would you have told me?

AO: That it's okay to stop and cry. And that the more of that you do, the better prepared you will be for other things you have to do. Immediate responses are not always significant, not in that situation. There was some significance to what you did, of course. So, you should have done it. That's all you can do.

What happened here, in Seattle, was that people had an enormous need to go down to the federal building and talk to each other, which is what the rallies were. People said, "Abe, we want you to come down. You're so good at this." And I said, "What is wrong with stopping and crying? Why is that wrong?"

RJ: Yes, but the two actions -- crying and organizing -- are not mutually exclusive.

AO: Sure. But if anyone thinks less of me for what I did, well, fuck them.

Part 13 - Movement directions

Return to index