Five Years

Today’s September 11th and it’s been five years from that dreadful incident... I was living in Osaka at that time, and when I was watching TV the program suddenly changed to news showing the WTC.
I was extremely shocked to see the scene. It took me a while to comprehend what was going on, and I could not keep my eyes off of the TV screen.
What we see today on the news, have narrations and have been edited and have music and subtitles and all that, but what I was and the world was seeing at that exact time, was the raw, live New York. I remember how the rawness scared me. Because we’re so much used to the “edited” version of whatever incident that the news is talking about, it was really scary to see something that no one knows would happen the next second. Plus, I couldn’t forget the tension and anxiety, of “I could be one of them.”

There are several films made on the incident, shown in theaters and on VHS/DVD. Honestly, I have a feeling it’s still too early, but perhaps it’s about time to face it, maybe.

Undoubtedly, its impact on Japan is huge like it is in most parts of the world. It’s so huge that I can even say that the history can be separated at 9.11.2001, before and after. Many things that we chose not to look at are now things we have to face, like the SDF issue and Japanese sense of crisis and so on. Although little, things are changing bits by bits.

And I’m sure things will change even more, even clearly when we have our new Prime Minister in ten days. How should Japan be? How would it become? What do you think?

Last but certainly not the least, let me pray for all those who had been changed their lives by the incident.