The Televised 9/11 Tenth Aniversary as a Global Catharsis

The world witnessed another unprecedented media event recently with the live telecast of the 10th anniversary ceremony's of the now infamous terrorist attacks on America in 2001. Have global communications developed to the point where not only can the media supply visuals to breaking news as it happens, creating a technological shared moment, but also a sense of healing to those that witnessed the horrific events as they unfolded in real time before our very eyes.

That there have been cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ( PTSD ) associated with victims, both direct and indirect, of what has become known as 9/11, is a matter of public record. Due to the unprecedented nature of the attack, public health officials found it impossible to predict how many individuals in and around New York City would suffer psychological harm from exposure to such terrorism. Some public health officials pessimistically predicting that every resident in New York State may develop mental health problems, Jack & Glied ( Cited in Seeley 2008 p. 11 ). Not to understate the obvious emotional trauma caused by these events to the family, friends and associates of the victims, it may also be interesting to understand the effects on the global community, at least of those that were exposed to the live television feed of these events.

Memorials have been traced back in antiquity as far as 10,000 B.C. (Scham 2008 ) while memorials have always been associated with ceremony, ostensibly they have been religious in tone, fashionable with the monarchy and focused on war dead throughout most of early history, it is only in the modern era that state funded memorials are being built for non combatants, this may be because of the shifts we have seen in the west from a collective society, influenced primarily by monarchy and church into a more individualistic society.

As western society's have grown more multicultural as the post modern era marches on, this seems to have caused confusion with the ethical presentation of religious content to a multicultural audience, being that a multicultural audience would suggest a multi faith audience also. Controversy still surrounds the construction of an Islamic cultural center and mosque within blocks of what has become known as ground zero, where the world trade center collapsed, and the erection of a cross-shaped steel beam at the site, found amid the rubble of the disaster, has attracted a lawsuit from the American Atheists, a non profit group based in New Jersey arguing that the cross