Ground Zero as Holy Ground and Prelude to Holy War

Abstract

Introduction It is now three years since Twin Towers in New York City came roaring down. space they once occupied has been cleared, and Daniel Libeskind's design for site, which includes museum and five office buildings, has won design competition. At center of his design is the scorched and scoured pit in which foundations of Trade Center once stood, plus its surrounding concrete wall (Lacayo 59). Richard Lacayo calls this symbolic center of site a Wailing Wall for 21st century (59). Zero has become holy ground for most US citizens and provides an important backdrop for current administration's holy wars on terrorism. United States has now fought wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and both wars are consistently tied to scorched and scoured pit quickly received name Ground Zero, name given to central area of devastation after nuclear blast-an apocalyptic term tied symbolically to visions of end time initiated by nuclear holocaust. Zero exercises powerful draw on imagination of US citizens. Millions have visited site in three years since 9/11. Two months after 9/11, Verlyn Klinkenborg noted, [i]n sudden absence of towers we're relearning how meaning adheres to place, even as idea of place slips its context (52). Klinkenborg, as resident of New York City, notes there has been just as strong an urge to go back to Zero for local residents as there was to flee area immediately following destruction of twin towers. The exodus on foot across bridges has been more than matched by returning tide. dead do call to us, and we do answer (54). What has been created is vacuum, and one can feel vacuum of place drawing you and closer (52). And this, according to Klinkenborg, is because [pjlace is what we substitute for time as it slips past (52). Zero is cultural text has come to have shared meanings, and now site itself has become an object of contemplation manifests group identifications for most US citizens.1 My argument is one of widely shared meanings with which US citizens identify is of holy ground, in both senses of word: place set apart from all other places to pray and meditate, and place possessing mysterium tremendum, category of other. According to Rudolph Otto, wholly other is that which is quite beyond sphere of usual, intelligible, and familiar, which therefore falls quite outside limits of 'canny', and is contrasted with it, filling mind with blank wonder and (26). first element of holy is completely rational: an object or place is set apart by group for people to pray and meditate. Examples include Wailing Wall, Gettysburg, Auschwitz, and other places memorialize scenes of great destruction and loss of life. other element, of wholly other, is irrational and contains feelings of dread, horror, anxiety, and helplessness, feelings rational cannot contain or explain. And contemplation of Zero has produced this sense of blank wonder and astonishment for many US citizens, as well as feelings of horror, anxiety, and helplessness. And these feelings are prelude to holy war both shapes and is shaped by mass media texts. Most US citizens refuse to acknowledge wars fought in response to 9/11 are holy wars -in sense of Christians fighting Muslims-in spite of President Bush's early description of United States' response to 9/11 as crusade. I argue only superpower left after Cold War is waging holy war on radical Islamist groups and those nation-states harbor them because these groups have threatened superpower's ultimate values and left populace with feelings of dread, horror, anxiety, and helplessness. These feelings call for response, and United States has responded with force, first in Afghanistan, and then in Iraq. …