Treading lightly

How do you criticize the families of the victims of 9/11 without being thought a heartless monster?

But that's exactly what I want to do right now, after watching a CBC special about how art and artists have been stifled since that awful day five years ago.

It's censorship, and it shouldn't be happening. Artists are trying to express their pain and memories the way they know best -- in their art. Yet the families are protesting their work because they feel it's not fitting in one way or another. They're banding together and having artwork suppressed because it's not what they think is appropriate.

I have the utmost respect and sympathy for those people who suffered the most because of 9/11. Their lives were ripped apart. Of course they're going to have an opinion about how other people present what happened. But they're not the only ones who are in pain.

9/11 hurt all of us, every decent person in the world. I'm a Canadian. I don't even know anyone who was lost that day, or anyone who knew anyone. Yet, I too grieve and hurt because of what happened. Even five years later, I can't watch the images of those planes flying into the World Trade Centre or the buildings collapsing without experiencing a deep, visceral sense of dread and disbelief, as if it's happening all over again. I still want to cry. There's a feeling of confusion, as if suddenly gravity stopped working or the sun didn't come up. This can't be!

These artists also relive that day over and over, and sweat blood to get their work just right. They rip images and textures from their brains and spill them onto paper or clay or film. It's their way of dealing with it. But the families say no. It's not respectful enough, or it's too blatant or it's not in the right place or....or...or...

Let them say what they want to say. They're not disrespecting you. They're trying to cope, just like you are. Where you might turn to a loved one for a comforting hug, they turn to their art to excorcise those demons. Don't censor them.

The worst part of all this was the sense I got, from watching the documentary, that the families of the victims of 9/11 somehow feel they have more right than other victims' families to throw their weight around and get what they want. As if those 3,000 people who died in a crush of rubble and steel are more important than the hundreds of thousands of other people who die every year in violent acts in that country.

Obviously, the events of 9/11 are huge, and of course we are going to enshrine the victims and their families in a special place in our hears. But, I sensed a feeling of entitlement from those people, as if their grief gives them special privileges that no other victims' families have. How do you balance the entitlement of grief from a horrific act such as 9/11 with the entitlement of artists to express themselves? Is no one else's grief as valid as yours? Must you strangle others' attempts to cope with their shock and anger with your own?

I think you need to accept their grief into your own and allow them their outlet with grace and understanding.