On this day

Has it really been seven years?

About 3,000 people lost their lives on September 11, 2001, most of them in New York city.

They must be few who have not been affected to some degree by the events of 9/11. Although Melancholicus did not know anyone in the World Trade Center personally, his sister works for an insurance management firm whose New York branch was located in the south tower; the staff of the Dublin branch were distraught to hear that 175 of their colleagues had perished. Later, as a seminarian, Melancholicus knew a priest who had lost a friend in one of the towers.

This was a day on which the world changed, and not for the better. But if one good thing might be said to have come out of the attack on the twin towers it is that the west is beginning to wake up, slowly and painfully, to the fact that Islam is at war with us. But too many of our political leaders still make fools of themselves by repeatedly offering exculpatory excuses for the behaviour of our deadliest enemies—it’s nothing to do with religion, violence is un-Islamic, Islam is a religion of peace, yadda yadda yadda.

Melancholicus only hopes that it will not take a further event on the scale of 9/11, or worse, before the connection between terrorist behaviour and the violence of the Qur’an is finally accepted.

May the souls of the departed through the mercy of God rest in peace on this, their seventh anniversary.