SPIRIT OF THE BLITZ
Matthew Bishop on the courage
of ordinal); people in a city that has changed for ever
New York PEOPLE walk a lot in Manhattan. Its streets are always crowded. But never before like this. An hour after the attack on the World Trade Center. thousands of New Yorkers — refugees in business attire — trudged north as downtown evacuated. Many were covered from head to toe in white ash. Most walked in silence, contemplating the fact that somebody they know is probably dead, and that in the next 24 hours they will find out who.
Others desperately tried to contact loved ones. The World Trade Center was a crucial communications post, and this, combined with an already inadequate wireless capacity, ensured that one of the first things to stop working were the mobile phones. It soon became clear how indispensable these irritating devices have become — and how few of the suddenly essential public phones are in good working order. Other staples of New York life ceased to function — the subway trains, the taxis. Most offices shut and sent their workers home. Even Starbucks closed all its Manhattan stores, at a time when a vente skimmed latte has never been more needed.
Fifty thousand people worked in the World Trade Center, but each day 150,000 New Yorkers visited it, or passed through its stores and stations. Many more relied on it as a marker to get their bearings — and, like me, loved the magnificence of the Manhattan skyline, which will now be tragically incomplete. I was in the World Trade Center on Monday, the day before it was destroyed, and expected to chair a conference in its inescapable Windows on the World top-floor restaurant on Thursday. I can't help thinking about the terror that drove so many people to jump from so high up.
On street corners people mostly huddled and hugged. The public outpouring of grief here will dwarf anything evoked by the celebrity deaths of Diana and JFK junior. And rightly so, for many of the certainties of life in the wealthy modern world died on Tuesday morning.
To America's enemies, the attack on the Pentagon a few minutes later may be the more satisfying hit, revealing a glaring weakness at the heart of the Great Satan's military complex. But by obliterating the World Trade Center, the terrorists have made it clear that none of us can feel entirely safe as we go about our everyday lives. Those working in the World Trade Center included many of the highest-paid financiers and lawyers in the world: Masters of the Universe suddenly shown to be powerless and mortal.
At first, there was a weird sense of unreality about the whole thing. I overheard several people saying it was just like the movies; certainly, Hollywood's frequent use of the destruction of the World Trade Center as a stock image of Armageddon, bombed, or washed away by some giant tsunami, ensured a sense of dela vu. But as eye-witness accounts of body parts littering the streets were broadcast, the full enormity of what had happened soon sank in.
This feels quite different from the IRA's occasional bombing campaigns in London. New Yorkers now know that there are people out to get them, perhaps because of their prosperity and peace and democracy. These enemies are not trying to change opinions, but to kill. Moreover, they are able to do so with a sophistication and effectiveness that none of us had thought possible. Yes, we knew there was a risk that some rogue terrorist would do something terrible with a plane; but not a brilliantly co-ordinated surgical suicide strike that did not merely damage but obliterated the biggest buildings in the city. And if New York, why not increasingly capitalist, proAmerican London?
In recent years, the economic boom and crackdown on crime have made New York hugely self-confident. People felt extremely safe — including from terrorist attack. Nobody expected a repeat of the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, which killed a mere six people. The city's security was thought to have improved enough for the trial of the alleged American embassy bombers to be held a stone's throw from the World Trade Center.
This confidence has been badly dented, though by no means destroyed. Hundreds of aircraft usually fly over Manhattan each day. Nobody notices. On Tuesday, everyone stopped when we heard an engine roar overhead, suddenly looking for somewhere to hide, only to smile with relief when it turned out to be a military jet. Yet under the reforming mayor, Rudy Giuliani, this alleged capital of selfishness has developed a deep well of civic pride. There were impressive lines of people to donate blood — though, bizarrely, mine was deemed unacceptable because, as a Brit, I might be infected with mad cow disease. Everybody is rallying round; the Blitz spirit is alive and well. The heroism of the police and fire departments — which have suffered heavy casualties — will be universally celebrated. Above all, the city will be determined, as Mayor Giuliani put it, to 'carry on as usual, to emerge from the crisis stronger than ever'.
Not that recovery will be easy. Many important financial firms have been largely wiped out. There is a real danger that the city's economy, which has been hit by the stockmarket crash and cutbacks on Wall Street, will be plunged into recession — though spending on repairing the damage may cancel out a deteriorating private sector. There will be tough decisions, such as whether to rebuild or replace the World Trade Center, or instead create a memorial like that in Oklahoma after Timothy McVeigh's attack on the federal building_ A new landmark building would probably be the memorial most in keeping with New York's character, Restoring confidence will depend, in part, on the federal government showing that a repeat attack is highly unlikely. Airport security clearly needs to be overhauled. Tuesday's events may validate the premise of this policy, that rogue terrorists are today's biggest military threat, but they also highlight the near impossibility of using a missile shield to stop them. Every civilian aircraft is now a potential bomb.
Confidence would be best served, of course, if the perpetrators could be brought swiftly to justice. Alas, soon after the attack, some of New York's yellow-cab drivers were reportedly dragged from their cars and beaten up because of their Middle Eastern appearance. There is every chance of a similar unfortunate military response by Mr Bush, with innocent Arabs bombed just to show that America is doing something.
Whatever happens, something has changed for ever. New York has lost not just the twin towers but its peace of mind. New York's loss is also the world's.
Matthew Bishop is the New York bureau chief of the Economist.
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