25 Years On: Remembering 9/11

Twenty-five years.

It is a difficult number to take in.

On 11 September 2001, the world changed in a matter of hours. What began as an ordinary Tuesday morning in the United States became an event watched around the world, leaving an impact that continues to be felt a quarter of a century later.

Today, on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, we remember the people whose lives were lost, the families left behind, the emergency workers who ran towards danger, and the countless people whose lives were changed forever.

We remember.

A day that nobody expected

For many people who were old enough to remember 11 September 2001, the memories are remarkably clear.

You may remember where you were.

You may remember who told you.

You may remember the television coverage, the phone calls, the conversations at work, or the strange feeling that something enormous was happening somewhere else in the world.

And then came the images.

The Twin Towers.

Smoke filling the New York skyline.

People gathering around televisions and radios, trying to understand what they were seeing.

The news seemed almost impossible to comprehend.

The attacks would ultimately claim the lives of 2,977 people, with victims from the United States and many other countries, including Britain. The 9/11 Memorial & Museum continues to honour those killed and their families, while preserving the stories of that day for generations who were not there to witness it themselves.

Remembering the people, not just the event

It is easy, after 25 years, for 9/11 to become a date in a history book.

But behind the photographs, news reports and documentaries were thousands of individual lives.

People going to work.

People travelling.

Parents.

Children.

Husbands and wives.

Brothers and sisters.

Friends.

Colleagues.

People who had plans for that evening, that weekend and the years ahead.

They were not simply numbers in a news report. They were people with ordinary lives, families and futures.

That is perhaps one of the most important things to remember today.

The people who ran towards the danger

Among the most powerful memories of 9/11 are those of the emergency workers who responded.

Firefighters, police officers, paramedics and other responders entered buildings that everyone else was trying to escape.

343 firefighters were among those killed.

Their courage has become one of the defining parts of the story of 9/11.

But remembrance also extends beyond those who died that day. Thousands of people involved in the rescue, recovery and aftermath were subsequently affected by illness and injury.

The 25th anniversary commemoration in New York will include a moment of silence specifically honouring people who lost their lives to 9/11-related health effects in the years that followed.

A world that suddenly felt very different

For those of us in Britain, the events of 11 September were happening thousands of miles away, but they were impossible to ignore.

The United States was attacked, but the shock was global.

Air travel changed.

Security changed.

International politics changed.

The way we watched and consumed breaking news changed.

For many people, it was also the first time they experienced a major international crisis unfolding almost entirely in real time.

Twenty-five years later, we are accustomed to receiving breaking news instantly on our phones. In 2001, most people were still relying on television, radio, newspapers and word of mouth.

The pictures on the television felt extraordinary partly because we had never seen anything quite like them.

And for millions of people, there was no scrolling past the story.

You stopped.

You watched.

You talked about it.

The importance of remembering

The phrase “Never Forget” has become inseparable from 9/11.

But remembering does not simply mean remembering the buildings, the aircraft or the horrific images.

It means remembering the people.

It means remembering the bravery of those who responded.

It means remembering the families who lost loved ones.

It means remembering the survivors.

And it means making sure that future generations understand what happened.

That has become particularly important as time passes.

The 9/11 Memorial & Museum notes that around 100 million Americans are now too young to have any lived memory of 11 September 2001. Its 25th anniversary programme is therefore also about educating a generation that knows the event as history rather than personal experience.

That is something worth considering here in Britain too.

There are now young adults who were not born when the attacks happened.

For them, 9/11 is something they learn about in school, see in documentaries or hear their parents and grandparents talk about.

For those of us who remember it, the challenge is to explain not just what happened, but what it felt like to watch the world change.

Twenty-five years later

A quarter of a century can make an event feel distant.

But anniversaries have a way of bringing memories back.

A photograph.

A news report.

A familiar name.

A piece of music.

A conversation with somebody who remembers exactly where they were.

Suddenly, 25 years does not feel quite so long.

Today there will be ceremonies, moments of silence and personal acts of remembrance around the world.

In New York, family members will gather at the 9/11 Memorial to read the names of those killed. The ceremony will include moments of silence marking key moments of the attacks and remembering those who subsequently died from related illnesses and injuries.

There will also be people who choose to remember quietly.

At home.

At work.

With family.

Perhaps simply by taking a moment to think about the people whose lives were changed that day.

There is no single way to remember.

What should we take from it?

Twenty-five years on, perhaps one of the most important lessons is that history is ultimately about people.

It is about ordinary lives interrupted by extraordinary events.

It is about courage in frightening circumstances.

It is about people helping strangers.

It is about communities coming together when the world feels uncertain.

And it is about the responsibility to remember.

Not to sensationalise.

Not to turn tragedy into entertainment.

Simply to remember.

Because as the years pass, fewer people will have their own memories of 11 September 2001.

Eventually, everybody who remembers that morning will have to explain it to somebody who wasn’t there.

We owe it to the people who lost their lives to make sure their stories do not disappear with time.

Never forgotten

Today, 25 years after 9/11, we remember the 2,977 people who were killed.

We remember their families and friends.

We remember the survivors.

We remember the firefighters, police officers, paramedics and other emergency workers who responded.

We remember those who became ill in the years afterwards.

And we remember the countless people around the world whose lives were changed by what happened on 11 September 2001.

Twenty-five years have passed.

The world has changed enormously.

But some things should never change.

The need to remember.

The need to show compassion.

And the need to recognise the value of every individual life.

Today, we remember.

25 years on. Never forgotten.