9/11 is one of history’s most infamous dates - because of what happened between 8.46am and 10.03am on a sunny morning almost eight years ago. As its anniversary approaches, immigrants in Ireland share their thoughts on that defining day with METRO ÉIREANN
EVERYONE remembers 9/11 – some with more personal heartache than others. In Ireland, the tragedy was very deeply felt. Hundreds of the almost 3,000 victims of al-Qaeda’s attacks were of Irish heritage, many of them serving as police and fire officers in the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the Fire Department of New York (FDYN).
One of 9/11’s powerful and eerie coincidences involved Irish citizen Ruth Clifford from Cork and her four-year-old daughter Juliana, who were on board United Airlines Flight 175, the second plane to plough into the twin towers. Extraordinarily, Ruth’s brother Ronnie was working at the World Trade Centre just as Flight 175 hit. He managed to escape.
Thousands of painful memories and recollections are associated with 9/11, including from refugees whose own countries faced retribution following the attacks.
For Shahlaa Nassralla, originally from Iraq and now living in Ireland, the catastrophic events had a domino effect of seismic proportions. The ‘War on Terror’ and so-called ‘Bush Doctrine’, advancing pre-emptive military action against ‘rogue’ states, led to the US-led invasion of her country in 2003, and a hardship and bloodshed that continues.
“After September 11, America thinks that al-Qaeda and Iraq are co-operating, and at the time Bush seemed to think that,” she says.
“From 2003 till now, Iraq has no stabilisation, more killings, more bloodshed,” continues Nassralla, who presented radio news in Baghdad and now lives in Galway. “Extremists are killing lawyers, doctors, journalists, police... terrorists for al-Qaeda and militias are targeting anyone who works in these fields.”
Since the invasion of her country, at least 100,000 civilians are believed to have lost their lives due to the violence.
Nassralla is awaiting a decision on an application to bring her husband – a police officer in Baghdad – to Ireland, and amid continuing unrest in the Iraqi capital, she is terrified that something will happen to him.
Aside from her deeply personal perspective, the Iraqi woman believes 9/11 drove an almost insurmountable wedge between the Islamic and Christian worlds. “It caused a big hole between these two cultures, and many people took a bad idea of Islam. Some western people hate Islam, and this raises racism against Muslims, even across Europe.”
Nassralla wants an end to the bloodshed in her country, and also believes what happened to people on 9/11 was reprehensible.
“I am against what’s happening in Iraq now, and I am against al-Qaeda.”
ADEOLA OGUNSINA, originally from Nigeria, had already moved to Ireland by 9/11, and remembers exactly where he was when he discovered what was unfolding.
“I was in a shopping centre,” he recalls. “You could see TVs in the shop windows and it looked like a movie. But when I saw the crowd gathered around watching it, I knew it was more than that.”
Ogunsina, who ran in the local elections in June as a Fine Gael candidate, believes the events of that awful day, in which almost 3,000 people lost their lives, ‘internationalised’ an understanding of terrorism’s impact.
“I wouldn’t say the world’s a safer place today,” he continues, “George Bush went about things in the wrong way – if he’d gone after [terrorists] in Afghanistan only, things could be better now. But luckily Obama could rectify this. I hope he brings the campaign to a conclusion.”
Although a Christian, Ogunsina was schooled in northern Nigeria, a Muslim stronghold – and even in Nigeria’s commercial capital of Lagos, where he also lived, religious and ethnic diversity was all-pervasive.
Ogunsina recalls the call to prayer from a local mosque serving him as an alarm clock, and says there was “no differentiation” between religions amidst daily life. “The differentiation is in the western world,” he suggests. “The news media paint the Islamic religion as what it’s not.”
He continues: “Religion didn’t matter until you got to the western world. I personally believe we all worship the same God, regardless of a person’s religion.” He got on “very well” with his Muslim classmates, and comments: “It’s unfortunate that Osama bin Laden has to attract unnecessary attention to their religion.”
Overall, 9/11 was “a sad occurrence in our time”, and Ogunsina concludes: “My feelings go out to those who lost someone.”
REZA MIRFATTAHI, a Dublin-based Iranian, was in Tehran on that fateful day. “I remember it well,” he says. “I was just coming back from the swimming pool and it was a very hot afternoon. When I got home, I switched on the TV and saw the hitting of the second tower on CNN. I had thought maybe it’s a fire, but when the headline came up I couldn’t believe it.”
Mirfattahi called a friend from university, and the pair discussed the unfolding events. He then switched on Radio Israel’s Persian service to get further details, and was still up in the early hours of the morning, trying to take it all in.
Information at the beginning was “sketchy” as to who was behind the atrocities, but Mirfattahi never believed that Iran’s political regime had coordinated the attacks.
“I wasn’t so sure that the Islamic regime of Iran would be stupid to do such a thing,” says Mirfattahi, who was recently accorded refugee status due to persecution in his home country. “I thought maybe Hezbollah, some Palestinian groups, or groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Sudan may have been behind it.”
Among the Iranian people, there was “lots of sympathy” for those affected by 9/11, says Mirfattahi, a fact he feels is forgotten amidst a highly complex relationship with the US. Huge crowds turned out on the streets of Tehran and held candlelit vigils for the victims, while 60,000 spectators respected a minute’s silence at the city’s soccer stadium.
Eight years on, Mirfattahi believes 9/11 “unmasked the real face of terrorism” and forced the world to “take a firmer stance” against it. However, he feels this position has since weakened, and warns against “compromises” with regimes such as that in his own country, while innocent civilians continue to be persecuted.
JOSEPHINE AHERN, originally from Australia, was in Brisbane with a friend as the atrocities unfolded. Australians were “devastated” by what had happened, and the country went into “deep mourning”, she recalls.
Almost a decade on, Ahern says it’s “hard to judge” whether the world is overall a safer place these days, and suggests that US President Barack Obama’s attempts to improve relations with countries showcasing “a very different viewpoint” could eventually yield dividends.
Ahern, who advocates for the rights of refugees through her role as director of the Refugee Information Service in Dublin, also believes that those terrible events of 9/11 brought a greater appreciation of global tragedies to the western world – and more understanding of what persecuted and displaced refugees around the globe go through.
It truly underlined, she says, “how devastating daily life can be”.
