The Peaceful Response to 9/11

By Deanna Zandt, AlterNet. Posted September 11, 2003.

David Potorti lost his brother, Jim, in the attack on the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. But instead of seeking revenge or retreating into his pain, Potorti, perhaps surprisingly, did the opposite. He reached out to the nation and world community in search of hope and peace, and channeled his grief into helping fellow grievers express similar feelings, by telling their stories and writing about their experiences.

"I want people to know that joy can come out of sadness. That living in these horrible times, there can be joy found by remembering our human connections. When we do that, we stop being afraid. People that don't remember those connections are the ones who are still afraid," explained Potorti.

Far below the radar of the national media, contrary to what most of us expect, there are gentle but persistent voices who are telling a very different story about the effects of the tragedy of 9/11. An extraordinary group of people are telling their stories, all who lost loved ones in the attack, who took that stunning blow and turned it into a call to action toward a better future and away from the escalating violence that has dominated our world since that fateful day.

Slowly but very steadily, an extraordinary thread of human response has emerged from survivors of 9/11 victims. It has grown into a movement against war and the desire to turn the horrible violence of that day on its head, and work for a better day and a more peaceful world.

During the days and weeks following 9/11, the movement took flight as the families of victims began to speak out against the militaristic retribution that many were calling for in the streets and within the Bush administration. Through emails that became widely circulated and published on Web sites, letters to the editors of local and national news publications and appearances on talk radio and television news programs, these people slowly found one another.

On November 25, 2001, the Walk for Healing and Peace commenced with a group of peace-oriented family members who lost loved ones on 9/11. Beginning at Georgetown University in D.C., the group traveled over the next eight days to New York City. By mid-December, this group (after much discussion and debate) had chosen a name that best represented their feelings: September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.

Over the next two years, Peaceful Tomorrows participated in hundreds of peace actions, political events, news articles and shows, and traveled to both post-US-bombing Afghanistan and pre-US-bombing Iraq. The stories of their actions, personal notes from the family members themselves, and emails from both supporters and dissenters have been collected by David Potorti in the book, "September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows: Turning Our Grief into Action for Peace," being published by RDV Books/Akashic Books on the two-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

This is the book to read in a time when we are forced into the dichotomy of "if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists." I found myself moved to tears by the sheer strength of these people to seek out reason and justice for their loss. Here were not the train-wreck stories of grief that have been cycled over and over by the mainstream media, but instead, I found stories like that of 72-year-old Rita Lasar, who made a peace-mission trip to war-torn Afghanistan in the name of her brother, Abe Zelmanowitz. . "I want people to know that it's safe to look for alternatives to war," she said. "I want to be a flashlight, a beacon for people out there." Participants in Peaceful Tomorrows, in contrast to the Bush administration's militaristic escalation and the abandonment of diplomacy, simply reached out to each other, and to the world with the hope of engaging in people-to-people diplomacy.

In honor of Peaceful Tomorrow members and to mark the book's publication, many gathered in the Puffin Room in SoHo in New York City on Sept. 8 to hear seven members tell their stories of loss and how they came to be involved in the group. Amy Goodman of public radio's Democracy Now! opened the event with Margaret Meade's famous call to action: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." She added: "If there were ever a group that embodied the spirit of this statement," she said, "it would be these people sitting here, and the people they represent."

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »