I was going up the broad staircase at the 'Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey [ITESM], Veracruz campus, prior to my first class of the day. I had been teaching at the university for some 9 years since I moved to eastern Mexico from northern California. Suddenly a colleage grabbed my arm, said 'you have to see this' ['tienes que ver esto'] and forcefully ushered me into the office of a fellow professor. A number of teachers were standing around the large TV on the wall in hushed silence. I saw one of the large towers in New York with smoke billowing out it and since it was a relay broadcast from Mexico City the announcer somehow presumed that a plane had accidently crashed into the tower. Then no more that a few minutes later what appeared to be a large passenger airplane flew into the second tower. It suddenly became evident that this was a purposeful act. I, like all of those in the room, was in a state of shock. Things like this just didn't happen in the USA, the most powerful nation on the planet.
I eventually made my way to the 'Méthodos de Investigacíon Científica' classroom, attempted to explain why there would be no class that day, stopped by the main office to have the secretary cancel my other classes, and walked home, still in a state of confusion and shock. I utilized a shortcut to my home which passed through a coffee plantation filled with an abundance of nature. The birds were singing, butterflies were floating through the air and this walk had always the most peaceful part of my day. What I had just witnessed a few minutes before occuring in New York seemed more like a nightmare than reality.
I like millions of others around the world sat as if glued to the TV for the rest of the day and early evening, attempting to make sense of it all. I don't now recall how long before it was established that this horrendous act was perpetrated by Al Qaeda and was the result of Moslem fanaticism. And since I was liviing in a predominately Catholic country, I couldn't very well proclaim with indignation that this barberous act was the end result of what religious fanaticism can produce.
I recalled the childhood history lessons from my father, a history professor, when he told me about the Albigensian Crusade, initiated by Pope Innocent III, which resulted in the deaths of at least a million innocent people in Europe, and the dreaded Spanish Inquisition which had also killled and tortured an untold number. My own father had been a victim of the Nazi occupation of our country. Our neighbors had been sent off to concentration camps from which they never returned. Since childhood I have been made painfully aware of what any religious/political fananticism is capable of, but especially during those troubling days after 9/11, I kept my thoughts to myself.
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