my 2001

Some thoughts popped into my head this past 9/11, thoughts about my own evolution as a political person. Often I describe the year 2001 as my big transformation from just a kid to a caring, voting, adult; after all, it was the year I turned 18, graduated high school and went off to college. This story has been co-opted by my biggest political opponent, my father, many a time. He prefers to think of my move to New York and graduate school as the event that turned me into a liberal.

I suppose between 2001 and 2007 he considered me conservative. Or more accurately, he had no clue.

As meaningful as it would be to become politically aware in 2001, the year the U.S. experienced the largest, most deadly attack on our own soil since Pearl Harbor, I think my age and my move to college was purely coincidental. The transformation started much further back, when I was just a kid parroting the beliefs of my elders.

What do I mean? I mean pointing to a friend's flag pin in second grade and telling her how good it was to wear it, considering we were at war with Iraq. Desert Storm was the first big conflict I remember, and it seemed so simple back then. Saddam was bad, and we were good; we had to help Kuwait.

Parroting wasn't always so benign, though. I am forever grateful to a Sunday School teacher, though I cannot remember her name, for showing me that my father's use of the term A-rab was not the most appropriate. We were discussing people of the Bible, and little me pronounced Arab in a way that is used to mock, though I thought that was how it was said. Dad said it, after all! Of course, grown-ups say a lot of things we shouldn't say.

I'm grateful for teachers who didn't chastise, but rather corrected and redirected. I don't think I was aware enough to ascribe to any political party, though I liked President Bush. He was spoken of in a positive light by the grown-ups around me. I "voted" for him in Weekly Reader, though to be fair, Mr. Dukakis' name was just strange enough to make me lean to the friendly, monosyllabic Bush.

When Clinton won in 1992, I had no feelings either way, except that our own mock election in 4th grade had the same result. How fun! So I was on Perot's campaign team, and we didn't win...oh well. All three candidates were represented by friends and classmates. There was nothing ugly, nothing negative, about that little play-election.

Looking back, I guess I didn't hear the criticism from my conservative father, or the alleged negative opinions of my mother toward Hillary. Throughout the Clinton administration, I grew up, I grew away, I grew to question. By 2001, I was primed to rebel, but I had absolutely no clue what to rebel against.

The Canadian protesters outside our tour bus in Toronto didn't clue me in. I thought, "Canadians don't like Americans?" I didn't know enough about Bosnia or our involvement in the Balkans at that moment. The whole impeachment process didn't stir anything in me, either for or against the Democrats. I just didn't like the idea of Bill being unfaithful to Hillary. Of course I was sad to hear about people killed in Oklahoma City and abroad. But where do I direct my new power of opinion?

Then the day came, when I woke up to the sound of Dad shouting "Ahab the A-rab has done it again!" The morning news was fixated on the Twin Towers, and later on the Pentagon and United 93 in Pennsylvania. I had planned to visit the high school that day, and by the time I got there, everyone was dismissed early. I shared my distaste for Dad's initial reaction, and my teacher agreed.

Later, I read about Americans targeted for being Muslim, for looking Muslim, and for sounding Muslim, and I knew that, just as the brand new "War on Terror" didn't give us a single national enemy as we had in the past, I would not direct my criticism against one person, or one party, but against ideas that did not ring true.

It would take me longer, beyond the year 2001, to voice that criticism. So I guess I didn't reveal myself as the opposition even then. Maybe that's why Dad was so surprised. Hindsight gives me some comfort, as if it proves that the adolescent angst I felt was all about learning to think for myself and realizing that people around me did not, would not, or would at least prefer I keep it to myself.