It is a standard summer morning for the residents of a highly populated metropolis: the streets are humming with the hurried pace of footsteps as men, women, and children head towards work and school. So profound is the peace of this regularity that not even the slightest discrepancy could breed instability. But during the hour of eight, the serene atmosphere comes to embody unprecedented threats and unthinkable terror. Instantly, the course of human history is inherently altered with mass physical destruction and tremendous human loss. These descriptions detail the fateful terror attacks in New York City, 19 Septembers ago. Yet this exact description also encapsulates another tragedy; retrace five decades to a quiet morning in Japan. The date is the 6th of August, 1945, the date of the irrevocable atomic bombing of Hiroshima, soon to be followed by the destruction of Nagasaki. In the span of 56 years these tragedies may seem distant, but prudent analysis proves otherwise.
So easy it is to reduce the tragedies of the past as isolated catalysts of human adaptability, and fail to grasp the interconnectedness of universal human strife. Terror strikes anywhere, humans suffer everywhere. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which called for the forced relocation of thousands of Japanese-Americans to internment camps on the West coast. One such Japanese American would have been Minoru Yamasaki, whose passion for ingenuity and position as an architect on the East Coast spared him and his family. Two decades later he would go on to design the World Trade Center, which he referred to as “ a living symbol of man’s dedication to world peace…” It is truly remarkable to think that a man whose racial and ethnic background, which would have otherwise deemed him as hostile to America at a time when widespread fear and prejudice appeared on the horizon, ultimately fostered an acute sense of nationalism and resolve, which materialized in perhaps the greatest and most cherished feat of architecture ever known to mankind, a true embodiment of American values and principles. It is especially shocking to think how rapidly the American geopolitical landscape became utterly reconstructed in only a few decades.
A staple to the iconic symbols and resonating stories of September 11th is the famous Sphere which occupied the plaza of the World Trade Center; as the dust settled on 9/11, this bronze sculpture remained physically damaged but still largely intact, serving as a metaphor for the human spirit on that fateful day. A true work of art which transcended physical destruction and collective short-sightedness, The Sphere was designed by Fritz Koenig, a German who fought for the Nazis a few decades before designing it in 1971 for the Austin J. Tobin Plaza in Lower Manhattan.
It was on August 5th, 1966, nearly 21 years to the day of the Hiroshima bombing, that groundbreaking for the World Trade Center Towers commenced. Four months later, on December 6th, 1966, standing among silent waters off the coast of Honolulu is an aging Japanese man paying his respects to the thousands of Americans who perished in the fateful Pearl Harbor attack, on the eve of its anniversary. This man was none other than Mitsuo Fuchida, the very man who 25 years earlier, had led a fleet of over 360 planes to attack America in those very waters on the morning of December 7th, 1941. History harbors even the most bizarre and seemingly incomprehensible phenomena; how stunning is it to see the tides of human aggression and brutality reversed, the oppressor grieving the oppressed. Fuchida’s life is truly a spectacle of human fallibility and purpose; throughout the duration of the Second World War, Fuchida became disillusioned at his incessant luck in coming through near death scenarios; by leading the Pearl Harbor attack his plane became victim to multiple flak holes and his control panel was nearly inoperable. Furthermore, he was injured in the Battle of Midway and narrowly evaded death in the destruction of his ship, Akagi in 1942. On the eve of the first atomic bombing, Fuchida was in Hiroshima to convene with military officials, but was requested to travel to Tokyo by the Navy Headquarters. Once again left to grapple with his baffling sense of luck, he went back to Hiroshima to assess the physical and human toll and became the sole member of his party to not succumb to the side-effects of radiation. Nearly as tragic as the bombs themselves is the failure of the world to comprehend the extent of human suffering, which was so effectively masked by the infamous mushroom clouds.
So easily have the individual stories of human grief and desperation escaped public view, such as that of Tsugio Ito, a young Hiroshima resident who became plagued by the guilt after surviving the 8:15 a.m. blast at his school: “My friends asked for help but I left them to die.” Ito’s older brother, Hiroshi, survived the initial impact at his high school but slowly succumbed to his injuries weeks later on September 1st, after telling to take care of their parents. Tsugio Ito would continue to his life with a heavy heart, consumed by grief, resentment, and sorrow. On September 11th, 2001, the scope of this sorrow came full circle: Ito’s son, Kazushige, was a banker working in the World Trade Center; his body was never found. Amidst President Obama’s recent visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, Ito sought newfound hope, believing that “By contributing to both Japan and the U.S., I can honor my brother and my son.” Such hope would indelibly change Mitsuo Fuchida; in the postwar years, he heard of the generosity of a certain Peggy Covell, who even after losing her missionary parents to the violent hand of Japanese oppressors in the Philippines, worked as a social worker at a relocation center, aiding to the Japanese as if they were her family. Fuchida was propelled down a path of self-discovery and emerged as a Christian evangelist; in his final years, Fuchida would reflect on the pivotal events of his life, regretting manmade injustice, and calling for world peace through his many visits to the United States.
Such mindblowing historical intersections as these are not limited to the twentieth century, but have persisted even in recent times. In 2002, the independent news program Democracy Now! linked two very tragic and heartfelt stories “from one ground zero to another”. These were the stories of Rita Lasar, the sister of a 9/11 victim, and Masuda Sultan, who lost 19 members of her family in the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan in 2001. Lasar’s brother, Abe Zelmanowitz, remained by the side of his paraplegic friend as the towers collapsed. Amidst newfound waves of indignation, Rita wrote a heartfelt letter to the New York Times, urging President Bush to not bomb Afghanistan: “It is in my brother’s name and mine that I pray that we, this country that has been so deeply hurt, not do something that will unleash forces we will not have the power to call back.” Unfortunately, Rita’s greatest fear came to fruition, and Masuda, who had been living in New York, soon received news that 19 members of her family, all of whom were innocent civilians, had been killed by American bombs in Kandahar. In these profound stories of human encounters, exchanges, and exploration, one thing remains clear: the plagues of injustice unite virtually unrelated people in a universal stride towards lasting peace and cultural consciousness.
