Speech of Mayor Job Cohen

Speech of Mayor Job Cohen at the commemoration of the terrorist attacks on the 11th September 2001, on the 11th of September 2007, the American Consulate, Amsterdam

Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have come together at the American Consulate at the Museumplein in Amsterdam to commemorate the terrorist attacks of the 11th of September 2001.

“9-11”
These two words stand for the events that shook our world and are engraved in our minds.

After 6 years, 2 wars where both American and Dutch troops were involved, several bombings and killings by radical Islamists in different cities all over the world, incidents like the Danish cartoon issue, and in this city of Amsterdam the murder of Theo van Gogh by a young radical Muslim, I must say the words “9-11” still shake our world.

“9-11” has become a symbol for the lack of understanding between “West” and “East”, and I put West and East between brackets because we all know there is no pure West, as there is no pure East.

Pureness of culture is the lie radicals from both sides want us to believe in order to make us think that understanding and peace between different cultures is not possible.

In modern world however, everybody is much more interconnected than many of us want to acknowledge.

But we are.
We are interconnected.
We are connected
East is West and West is East.

The challenge ahead of us is to make more of the interconnectedness of the Western and Eastern world and put our efforts in understanding each other instead of in hating each other.

By focusing on this we honor all the people who lost their lives directly or indirectly due to 9-11.