Violence aids in the prolonged recollection of certain events. However, the accuracy of the representation of those events can and must be called into question. Despite acts of brutality helping to construct collective memory, the use of violence by ‘terrorist’ groups is often an attempt to create a potent form of political communication. By inflicting harm and spreading images of their atrocities, terrorist groups aim to provoke strong emotional reactions and shape the narratives that define a society's collective memory. However, the legacy of these violent acts is ambiguous. This essay will use the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 as a case study to display the ambiguous relationship between violence and memory. While …show more content…
“The blood pouring out of Palestine must be equally revenged. You [America] attacked us in Somalia; you supported the Russian atrocities against us in Chechnya, the Indian oppression against us in Kashmir, and the Jewish aggression against us in Lebanon.” Bin Laden used trauma and the violence instigated by the United States’ military and felt by the Muslim population across the world as a calling card to both rationalize his use of brutality and endear himself to those who lived through the years of Muslim oppression directly and vicariously through others’ tragedies. Initially, the American media was unable to determine a compelling narrative, as its population was reeling between disbelief, confusion and utter shock. However, on the 20th of September, more than a week after the attack, President George W. Bush was able to frame the assault as a crisis. “In articulating 9-11 as a crisis, the act of its construction was erased from memory and the void it filled was partially forgotten as it was retrospectively re-imagined” (Holland 5). American media was quick to suppress the potential causes of the ‘terrorist’ attack and label it as an unprovoked act of unfettered aggression, while saturating the dialogue with images of horrific violence used upon United States