I had the strangest dream the night before 9/11

[caption id="attachment_9023" align="alignleft" width="283" caption="North Tower and 6 World Trade Center from WTC Plaza"][/caption]

Carol Forsloff---That night I had the strangest dream.   I wish I had that dream again as solace on this day.  For in my dream I saw America unspoiled and radiant, its Towers straight and tall and standing firm as citadels.   I saw us still united in our wish to be the best.

In my dream those Towers loomed over a skyline in a city filled with hope.  I heard the sounds of busy people going on about their day.  The sun was shining as the children found their way to school, and the stores were filled with crowds of shoppers and people on their way to work, feeling fine and filled with hope, just like most every day in that town that never sleeps.

A policeman on the corner smiled.   The sky was clear that day.  A bird flew overhead and just behind it as if in magic mimicry a silver slip of light from planes slipped silently across the blue horizon, as they had so many times before.

Wall Street lords and lassies in their suits came dashing by to grab that morning coffee before going on to work.

I heard the chatter of the busy and the songs of those in love.  I felt the clear, soft wind across my face and smelled the air so fresh and pure.  And I felt proud to live in freedom and in a world at peace.

The dream was interrupted in the way it surely was for you, with memories of screaming planes that beat the skies to ashes from the falling citadels and cries from stricken crowds of folks in fear and pain.   The dream was interrupted by the anger and the hate.

But dreams are not just shadows passing but the echoes of our hope that we can gather once again to build our world anew.  For we can build on dreams again with me,  that dream and you.

American tolerance, temperance required during Egypt's crisis

Carol Forsloff - During 2010 many voices were raised against the building of a mosque near ground zero, despite it was being built in an area of diverse businesses and by an Islamic group known for peaceful ways.  Recent events in Egypt should not be the road to more intolerance.


Egypt coat of arms - wikimedia commons

Experts tell us that during times of economic and political crises, there is a greater tendency for extremism to occur.  This was seen in the run-up to both world wars.  Now the same type of cries for economic stability,  while looking at leaders through the eyes of rising expectations, along with nationalism can provoke serious consequences by outside and inside extremist groups.

Egypt, while it's culture is vastly different than that of the United States, is nevertheless a country with many educated people who are used to having some semblance of contact with the western world and with ways that are coherent with values outside of its country.  There are also those within the country who have extreme religious views, similar to the types of groups that present those same types of intolerant statements in the United States and elsewhere.   This means there is some platform for both common sense and the lack of it, every bit as much as occurred during the political debates concerning the building of a Muslim mosque near ground zero in New York City.

America's position is on the fulcrum of discontent in Egypt, so that if there are abrupt moves in any direction the weight of the distribution of extremism may descend to the detriment of international peace.  That is the reason, according to political advisers reported across the globe, Obama must be cautious in dealing with the volatility of the region and the calls for Hosni Mubarak to resign.

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The writer was the first female student in the Middle Eastern Studies program in 1960 at Portland State College, now Portland State University, who studied the language and culture over several years and continues to be focused in reading and presentation of information and opinion on the Middle East and its issues of politics and religion.