My 9/11 remembrance day llIXll

I really hesitated….should I write or not. There will be too much ink anyhow and what could I write that hasn’t been written a million times and a million times better?

Yet, I somehow don’t feel that it’s a usual day for me. It never was and as soon as Benjamin Barber launched the Interdependence Day Movement, I tried to promote it as I really totally adhered to its message. What actually surprises me is how little publicity it manages to get.

Here’s a movement, started right after the collapse of the Twin Towers, celebrating on September 12th our interdependence, something that should have been a common denominator for all of us and despite my messages, releases sent to French or Swiss papers, despite my wonderful network of scholars worldwide…I seem to get a condescending smile. I was too busy to attend the Philadelphia, Paris, Rome, Mexico City, Fez or Brussels events but I was invited by Ben everytime and managed to attend the Istanbul and Berlin Events. They were of a rare quality in mixing various people, various religious faiths, various professions yet a common belief in OUR INTERDEPENDENCE…I met some people who became real friends, like the dancer John Scott and his Irish Modern Dance Theater, the astro-physician Camille Wardrop Alleyne and her Brightest Stars Foundation, the Reverend Ossagyefo Sekou and so many more, whom I really miss this year as they are all (well, not sure for John) attending this year’s celebration in New York.

So why am I in Geneva alone? Because none of my network members from Academie Sans Frontières seemed to agree to contribute to an event and because I get fed-up of being searched as a terrorist if I can avoid it…sad truth!

Yet, yesterday, when my brother offered to meet me in Burgundy in front of a Hotel and Restaurant where I had dreamed of going for years, I decided this was going to be my celebration.

11 septembre 2011 218 — my brother's paradise

A celebration to life which can end at any moment, now we all know that much, a celebration to the beauty of culinary delights of the Relais Bernard Loiseau, a celebration of a wonderful day, yesterday, of sunshine, vineyards, old stones, good wine…

It might seem quite trivial but in a way, toasting in silence to those who died without realizing what we are now confronted with, the evil of man and the crual irony of life, I held my private celebration which is coming to an end with this post.

To multiculturalism, to cosmopolitanism and to all the values close to my heart and to yours, my friends, to those we will never forget and to our everlasting disbelief in this event which shaped our lives, always less free and always more paranoid, no matter how much we long for our forever past insouciance (feeling carefree), exactly ten years and a day ago!!!

Cheers! With a Burgundy for once, a Givry maybe, a bit young, a bit exhuberant! Le’Haim to all of you…(except to all and any kind of terrorist who should roast into their hell),to Life!