If you’re a parent, you’ll recognize that sometimes it is necessary to sugar-coat the truth to your children. Just like I sugar-coated the word ‘lie’ just then – it becomes more acceptable to digest and softens the reality people just aren’t ready for, or don’t need to bear – or simply because we prefer to believe in something better.
If you replace the word ‘parent‘ with ‘government’, and ‘children’ with ‘citizens’, and you recognize that there are strong motivations for a government to…’sugar-coat’ the truth to its people, then you can accept the possibility that governments are capable of much more extreme actions in order to protect its citizens – or simply to protect their own agenda under the pretense of security.
On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a small but vocal and intractable group of dissenters has been brought into the media spotlight once again. This group of people, who are sometimes referred to as ‘truthers’ suggest that “the role of al-Qaeda [in the September 11 attacks against the US] has been overstated or invented” according to The Globe and Mail (Thursday September 8 2011).
Toronto’s Ryerson University is holding a four-day ‘inquest’ to voice the skepticism of PhDs, psychologists, anthropologists and like minded academics.
These ‘truthers’ endure the charge from some that they are either a bunch of whackos orinsensitive to the 9/11 victims. On the first charge, they are surely anything but ‘whackos’. They are credible intellectuals questioning a version of events which was delivered to an unsuspecting public by a government with every motivation to create a reason to go to war.
There has been plenty of media coverage highlighting the inconsistencies in the 9/11 events – enough to be certain we don’t know the whole truth – or even part of it.
How can anyone be certain that the ‘official’ version is true and correct?
When I was at school, one of the first things we learnt in history was how to analyze source material; we were taught to have the skepticism of a historian and deliver theories or interpretations based on fact. We were taught that everyone has an agenda, and that all governments employ propaganda to deliver their agenda.
This ‘scientific’ treatment seems to have been diluted somewhere along the way – whether through increased accessibility to media, or just by virtue of our news being delivered as events occur. One of the greatest threats to a credible source is time; the closer to the event in time you are, the murkier the truth.
I watch the outcome of this Thursday’s ‘inquest’ with great interest, and recognize that by seeking the truth we only do justice to the victims and we also do right by ourselves.