TWENTY YEARS ON, THE SCARS REMAIN

THE images have not dulled in our memories over the past 20 years – the burning chasms in the buildings, the toppling towers, the streets drowned in ash. While so much of our modern history has been formed by the events of September 11, 2001, the world is also much changed since those deadly US terror attacks.

Before 9/11 the only place we expected to see terrorist attacks were from the Middle East broadcast on the nightly TV news. Suddenly the threat of terror was on everyone’s doorstep. We had no sense then of the routine security scans, roadside concrete bollards and strict air travel protocols that would become part of our everyday life.

Similarly the threats to our safety seemed to escalate overnight. While the US forces’ operation to locate and kill Osama bin Laden in 2011 provided some sense of closure for those affected by the 2001 tragedy, his death has done little to stem the spread of terror across the globe. No longer are there only one or two high-profile leaders taking credit for acts of terror.

Modern technology and ease of access means that there are now legions of disaffected people who all have the means and desire to produce widespread and random harm – and have done so to devastating effect in all corners of the globe.

Casting a spectre over today’s 20th anniversary also is the recent allied forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, an operation that began in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. For all the progress that occupation achieved, the speed with which Taliban rule has returned to the country and the chaos and violence of the evacuation in recent weeks has added a new tragic flow-on effect to 9/11 all these years later.

It may have been 20 years but the scars remain. And unfortunately there is every likelihood there are still many wounds yet to be inflicted.