$500 Mill. for 9/11 Memorial--Not a Dime for Grund Zero Workers

By Brigitte L. Nacos

After plenty of bickering over the Ground Zero Memorial in New York, Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced recently a scaled back design. While the new version is supposed to cost "merely" $500 Mill, down from $1 billion, there is no doubt that the actual construction will overrun the latest cost projections. But at minimum we will pay half-a-billion to honor the dead but not a dime to take care of thousands of Ground Zero workers who paid with their health for performing exemplary during their rescue and recovery and clean-up efforts. What a disgrace in the midst of what politicians and the media have hyped into a selective Ground Zero grief cult.

The health of thousands of firefighters, policemen, and construction workers was damaged by toxic material as they worked at the Ground Zero site. Some of them had problematic symptoms early, while others became sick later-on. Artificial deadlines should not deny any of them to claim and receive the damages they deserve. But that is precisely what has happened. As a result, these former Ground Zero workers were forced to bring a law suit against the city. Regardless of the legal outcome that may well depend on technicalities, one wonders why everything concerning the Ground Zero memorial gets far more attention by public officials and the news media than the suffering of human beings--the Ground Zero workers.

Of course, wondering about priorities in politics is naive. Politicians of all colors have exploited 9/11all along and the so-called "holy ground" on which the World Trade Center towers stood. And so have some of the families of 9/11 victims in their efforts to be the ultimate deciders of the memorial's design. I  have written about the moral force of the victims of terrorism (i.e., in my book Terrorism and Counterterrorism), especially in the sense that they, or the families they leave behind, can influence counterterrorism policies for the better. Not for their own sake--but of the sake of all Americans. Thus, the family groups that formed after the terrorist bombing of PanAm Flight 103 in 1988 pressed for legislation in favor of better aviation security and succeeded. It was these groups' untiring pressure officials at home and abroad that eventually forced Libya's Colonel Gaddafi to hand-over Libyan agents to be tried for their role in the downing of PanAm 103.
Families of 9/11 victims were instrumental in the appointment of the bi-partisan 9/11 Commission whose investigations and analyses are invaluable in understanding what needs to be done better in prevention and preparedness.

Nearly five years after 9/11 it is time to end the grief cult that is exploited by the media and the political class and actually denies families of victims to go on with their lives. Yes, when nearly
3,000 innocent human beings perish in one unspeakably evil attack, this is far more shocking than the fact that some 40,000 Americans die every year in traffic accidents--all of them leaving behind grieving loved-ones, too.

To be sure we want a dignified memorial for those who died in a horrible way simply because they were citizens or residents. Yet, it is difficult to understand why such a memorial would not transcend 9/11 and deal in a more comprehensive way with the consequences of violence and the possibilities of non-violence.

Most of all, we cannot honor the dead of 9/11, if we do not honor the suffering Ground Zero firefighters, policemen, and construction workers and their claims.

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Indeed, the new design of the 9/11 Memorial was presented in the press – in part – as an attempt to accommodate the demands of 9/11 families, who wished, for example, the names of the victims to appear in the plaza level of the memorial rather than in the underground level. The New York Times spoke of “many relatives” who were critical of the original design, typically leading readers to believe in massive opposition by numerous 9/11 families. But these “many relatives,” according to Robert Kolker in his Nov. ‘05 piece in the New York Magazine, are not more than 30 forcefully active family members who pursue specific causes that they deem worthy without representing any meaningful portion of the community of the 9/11 families. It is highly plausible that if surveyed, 9/11 family members – a group of about 15,000 people – would have been found to mostly agree to the original underground inscription of the victims’ names. The deferential attitude of the media toward all those who claim to represent 9/11 families hinders the redevelopment of Ground Zero, because such unquestioning reinforcement of the moral authority of any 9/11 families’ activists forces the authorities and the developers who engage in the rebuilding effort to adhere to any of their demands.