Becoming a Witness

Charles Strozier at the NY Academy of Medicine.

One of the plenary presentations at the Bystanders No More conference was by Charles B. Strozier. He had interviewed survivors and bystanders of 9/11. On the large screen behind the podium he projected images of what happened that day and in the days thereafter - images most people had only seen on their small TV screens. Some were familiar to me, others not - I didn't have a TV in those days. The photograph that stood out for me more than any other, was one taken outside the nearest hospital to the World Trade Centre. It showed a big clutch of green-coated doctors and nurses just waiting. They waited all day apparently - no-one came. There were almost no casualties of 9/11. Only the dead and the survivors. For the first time ever, this became a real event to me -
one involving human beings - some of them sitting in the same auditorium as me! I was in New York and these were largely New Yorkers - remembering the smell, the sights, the sounds, the grey dust. I began to shake. When that happens, I usually know I have to say something.

Firefighters in the rubble - photo by James Nachtwey

The microphones were open. One of the first speakers was angry and upset. She said that we should have been warned about what was going to happen so that people could have chosen whether to stay or not. This was echoed by others accusing Charles of re-traumatizing the audience. (You can read Charles Strozier's account of what happened in his posting "Murderous Photographs"). But something different had happened to me: it had needed a presentation as graphic as his to shift me from a position of thinking "the US deserved 9/11" to realising what had actually happened that day to thousands - perhaps millions - of people and their families. In that hour I changed from a bystander/perpetrator to a witness. I did get up and say something. I also apologised to those particular New Yorkers for how I had related to the event in the past decade. When I sat down I wept. The tears just came and it felt important to just let them happen. Its psychologically easy to stereotype - more work is required to engage with complexity. So don't expect that the transition from bystander to witness/activist only involves your left brain. Quite a few papers at this conference attested to the fact that the transition doesn't happen unless one resists dissociating or being dismissive. It also requires empathic identification, establishing connections and deep emotional engagement.
(Donna Orange, Steven Reisner, Jessica Benjamin, Max Sucharov)

For the rest of the day at odd moments, people came to say things to me, thanked me for what I'd said and over dinner, wanted to tell me their 9/11 stories. They seemed to know I would be receptive, and I surprised myself - I did want to know. In fact I could've listened to dozens more people that day!

Here is a brief quote from Charles Strozier about how he perceived what had happened: 
"There is no question in my mind that had I simply talked about my work there would have been polite applause, some discussion, and the next panel would have taken its place.  It was the photographs, and the photographs alone, that shocked these educated and sensitive therapists to their core, and unleashed a rather surprising amount of displaced anger and rage at me."

EXTRA
As we approach the 10th anniversary of 9/11, news media are publishing photographs and commentary from that day. Following from what Charles has said above, here is a link to some  photographs that The Guardian (UK) has put together in a slideshow .