This Wednesday is The Anniversary. And if you have to ask "what anniversary?" then may I be the first to say "Welcome back! How were things on Pluto?"

Every newspaper, magazine, and TV channel this week will be filled with retrospectives, analyses, "think pieces", and chilling and/or heartwarming tales. All of them will focus on one day, the day 19 Arab Muslim extremists did what had previously only been thinkable in a bad Tom Clancy novel, the day they turned airliners into flying bombs that killed over 3,000 people.

Some media outlets have struggled with the task. How, after all, do you relive an event so enormous? For that matter, do we really want to? How many of us really want to relive that sickening moment when we heard about the second plane hitting the World Trade Center, the moment we realized that this was more than just some incredible pilot error and that we were literally under attack? How many of us want to recall the awful, stomach-churning paranoia we experienced after hearing about the plane hitting the Pentagon, that feeling of not knowing what was going to get hit next: the White House? The Statue of Liberty? My kids’ school? Anything seemed possible.

Of course, no one is suggesting that we ignore 9/11, a date that has become so well known that the numbers themselves have turned into a shorthand way of referring to the whole horrible event. No matter how painful it might be, the spirits of over 3,000 people deserve some memorial. From the people in the towers and the Pentagon who were just doing their jobs and who never knew what hit them, to the firefighters and cops who walked into those towers knowing full well they might not come out, to the people on Flight 93 who rose up and sacrificed themselves to keep their plane from being the instrument of more death and destruction—there has to be some remembrance. Their blood, in the harrowing words of the Book of Genesis, cries out to us from the ground.

On the site where the World Trade Center once stood, New York Governor George Pataki and others will read from various historic texts such as the Gettysburg Address, the Declaration of Independence, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Four Freedoms speech. (There were some folks wanting to make their own speeches, but with a gubernatorial election going on in New York, there was some fear that candidates would "politicize" the event. Amazing, but probably correct.) At the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will be appearing with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

On an individual level, there are any number of ideas on how to commemorate September 11^th: some folks will be driving with their lights on to demonstrate solidarity; others will be flying the American flag and even dressing in it; some will be observing a moment of silence at 8:46 AM, the precise moment when the first plane hit the North Tower of the Trade Center.

I think the best way to commemorate September 11^th can actually be accomplished on September 10^th. We have a primary election that day. Now more than ever, it’s important for all of us--Republicans, Democrats, Independents, right wing crypto-fascists, mushy-headed bleeding-heart liberals, gun nuts, environmentalist wackos, all of the marchers in the diverse parade of American political thought—to get our butts into the voting booths.

Why? Because the terrorists think of us as divided, weak and lazy. Divided we may be. But our greatest strength is in how we resolve those divisions. In the minds of the type of people who embrace terrorism, the only possible response to one who disagrees with you is jihad-holy war. To them, there is no such thing as a political opponent, only an infidel to be destroyed utterly.

Granted, there are some Americans who unfortunately feel the same way. Some may only be claiming they do to sell more books or create more late night TV buzz. I doubt, for instance, that if you gave right-wing bestseller author Ann Coulter a loaded revolver and put her in the same room with Teddy Kennedy, she’d actually kill him. But I’m not willing to test out the theory and I’m betting that Teddy won’t be either.

Despite the posturing of our own home-grown extremists, however, I believe the majority of Americans believe in peaceful co-existence, even with people with whom they disagree. And the clearest example of that comes on Election Day, when people who voted turn on their television or radio to see whether their candidate won. If their party or candidate didn’t prevail, they may grumble, they may swear the country’s going to Hell in a handbasket. But they don’t start building bombs. They don’t take to the streets to burn the houses of their opponents. They go to bed, get up the next morning and go to work. And that’s what we need to do to show the terrorists of this world how it’s supposed to be done.

So get out and vote. Then, whoever wins, go to work, to school, wherever your daily business takes you. It’s more important than ever.

COPYRIGHT 2002 BY JERRY D. RHOADES, JR.